The Letters of A. E. Housman : Two-Volume Set 9780191568534, 9780198184966

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THE LETTERS OF

A. E. H O U S MA N

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THE LETTERS OF

A. E. HOU SM A N VOLUME I

 

ARCHIE BURNETT

C LAREN D ON PRES S · OX FO R D

1

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford   Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York  Archie Burnett 2007

The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts ISBN 978–0–19–818496–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T S

I have great pleasure in recording with gratitude the names of those who have supplied that collaboration without which scholarship is not possible: the late Frederick B. Adams, Jr, and Mrs Adams; Vicky Aldus; Sue Campion; Tom Chandler; John and Janice Chesney; the late Alan Clodd; Professor Stefan Collini; Dr Justin Croft; Jeremy Crow of the Society of Authors; G. David, Bookseller, Cambridge (Neil Adams, David Asplin, B. Collings); Professor James Diggle; Professor Fraser Drew; Alex B. Effgen; Peter Fielden; Professor Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV; Professor L. E. Fraenkel; Jason Freeman; Adam Gitner (who translated two letters in Latin); Professor Wolfgang Haase; Dr Rinard Z. Hart; Professor Kenneth Haynes; Tim Pearce Higgins; Dr Leofranc Holford-Strevens (who cast an expert eye over letters dealing with classical subjects); Thomas Jones; Professor John Kelly; Paul Knobel; Peter Knottley; the Earl of Lytton; Dr John Maddicott; Jim McCue; Allyson McDermott; Janet Moore; the late Howard Moseley; Professor Joel Myerson; Jim Page; Marcus Perkins; Professor Rob Pope; E. W. M. Richardson; Professor Christopher Ricks; W. M. B. Ritchie; Elizabeth Robottom; Christine Rode; Crispin Rowe; the late Jeanne Sheehy; Professor Nicholas Shrimpton; Peter Sisley; Professor Alan Smith; Sotheby’s (London); James R. Skypeck; Professor W. Keats Sparrow; Tony Thompson; Professor Robert B. Todd; Ulysses, Bookseller (London); Veronica Watts; Frances Whistler; Professor Henry Woudhuysen (who generously made available not only the Housman–Pollard letters but the notes of his privately published edition too); and Ellen O’Reilly Wrigley. Special mention must be made of Paul Naiditch. By inviting me to Los Angeles to consult his files, by publishing his invaluable census of Housman’s correspondence in the Housman Society Journal, and by communicating information from time to time about the rare book and manuscript trade, he greatly advanced the work towards completion. During the late stages, he answered numerous queries, read the script, and compiled the index. Hardly a page has not been improved by his published work. His scholarship and his friendship have been an inspiration for over twenty years.

vi

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Board in Britain for funding a Research Assistant for two and a half years. The appointment of Alison Waller in October 1999 breathed new life into the work. Following a move to Boston University in January 2001, I enjoyed the magical experience of expressing wishes by e-mail to her at Oxford Brookes University and then, within a week, finding they had come true. In the summer of 2005, thanks to funding from my colleague Christopher Ricks’s Distinguished Achievement Award from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation, I enjoyed the privilege of research assistance from Daniel Harney, a graduate of the Editorial Institute at Boston University. Thanks to funding from Boston University, he was ably succeeded by another of the Institute’s graduate students, James Sitar. I have been greatly assisted by the staffs of various libraries and archives: Alfred University, New York (Laurie L. McFadden); Balliol College Library, Oxford (Anna Sander); the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich; Birmingham City Archives (Christine O’Brien); the Bodleian Library (Colin Harris); the John J. Burns Library, Boston College (John Attebury); Boston University Library (Sean D. Noel); Brigham Young University Library; the British Library (Lora Afric, Dr Arnold Hunt); the Mariam Coffin Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania (Marianne Hansen, Kathy Whalen); the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles (Bruce Whiteman); the Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles; California State University at East Bay, Hayward (Lucille Klovdahl); Cambridge University Library (Kathleen Cann); Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (Candace J. E. Guite); the Dorset County Museum (Richard de Peyer); the University Library, University of Durham (Elizabeth Rainey); Emmanuel College Library, Cambridge (Dr H. Carron, Mrs Janet Morris, Gregory O’Malley, Professor Barry Windeatt); Eton College Library (Michael Meredith); Robert Manning Strozier Library, Florida State University Library (Deborah Rouse); Glasgow University Library (Simon Bennett); Gloucester Library (Graham Baker); Godalming Museum (Anne Collingridge, Alison Pattison); Guildford House Gallery (Tracey Mardles); the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library (Bruce Swann); the Lilly Library, Indiana University (Rebecca C. Cape, Elizabeth Powers, Saundra Taylor); the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University (Joan Grattan); Kent State University Library (Jennifer Schrager); King Edward’s School Library and Archive, Bath (Paul Davies, Dr F. R. Thorn); King’s College Library, Cambridge (Jacqueline Cox, Dr Rosalind Moad); the King’s

Acknowledgements

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School Library, Canterbury (Peter Henderson, Paul Pollock); the Brotherton Library, Leeds University (Malcolm C. Davis, Jacqui Taylor); the Library of Congress; The Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge (Aude Fitzsimons); the John Rylands University Library, Manchester University (Peter McNiven); McGill University Library (Richard Virr); Merton College Library, Oxford (Fiona Wilkes); the University Library, University of Michigan (Kathryn L. Beam); the National Library of Scotland (Sally Harrower, Sheila Mackenzie); the National Library of Wales; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the Robinson Library, University of Newcastle (Dr Lesley Gordon); the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, New York Public Library (Stephen Crook); the Fales Library, New York University; Northwestern University Library (Sigrid P. Perry); Oxford Union Society Library (Dr David Johnson); Oxford University Press Archives (Dr Martin Maw, Melanie Pidd); Peterhouse College Library, Cambridge (Erica Macdonald); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (Christine Nelson, Robert Parks), Princeton University Library (Margaret Rich, AnnaLee Pauls); Reading University Library (Verity Andrews, Michael Bott); the Royal Academy of Arts Library (A. W. Potter); the Royal Archives, Windsor (Pamela Clark); the School of Oriental and African Studies Library, University of London (Alison Field); the Library, The Schools, Shrewsbury (James Lawson); the Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (Katharine Salzmann); the University Library, St Andrews (Mrs Rachel M. Hart, Meic Pierce Owen; Norman H. Reid); St John’s College Library, Cambridge (Mrs Fiona Colbert, Jonathan Harrison, Ruth Ogden); St John’s College Library, Oxford (Catherine Hilliard, the late Angela Williams); Somerville College Library, Oxford (Pauline Adams); The Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas at Austin (Molly Wheeler); the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge (Diana Chardin, Adam C. Green, Dr David McKitterick, Jonathan Smith); Trinity College Library, Dublin (Estelle Gittins); the D. M. S. Watson Library, University College London (Julie Archer-Gosnay, Dr Matthew Clear, Rebekah Higgitt, Steven Wright); the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Laura Try); University of Virginia Library (Eva M. Chandler, Margaret Downs Hrabe); the University of Wales Library, Aberystwyth (Chris Wilkins); Waseda University Library, Tokyo; Washington State University Library (Robert N. Matuozzi); Wellesley College Library, Massachusetts; West Sussex Record Office (Richard J. Childs); Winchester College Library (Suzanne Foster); Worcester College Library, Oxford (Dr Joanna Parker); the Beinecke Library, Yale University (Ngadi W. Kponou).

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CONTENTS

  Abbreviations

xi

Note on Editorial Principles

xv

Introduction

xix

List of Recipients

LE T T E RS 1872–1926

xxiii 1

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A B B R E V I AT I O N S

Ackerman (1974) Robert Ackerman, ‘Sir James G. Frazer and A. E. Housman: A Relationship in Letters’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 15. 3 (1974), 339–64 AEH Alfred Edward Housman (1859–1936) AP Additional Poems (1937; supplemented 1939) Ashburner/Bell A. E. Housman. Fifteen Letters to Walter Ashburner, ed. Alan Bell (1976) ASL A Shropshire Lad (1896) Banfield (1985) Stephen Banfield, Sensibility and English Song: Critical Studies of the Early Twentieth Century (1985) Bancroft The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley Berg The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, New York Public Library BL The British Library, London BMC The Adelman Collection, Mariam Coffin Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania Bodleian The Bodleian Library, Oxford Brotherton The Brotherton Library, University of Leeds Bynner/Haber Thirty Housman Letters to Witter Bynner, ed. Tom Burns Haber (1957) Classical Papers The Classical Papers of A. E. Housman, ed. J. Diggle and F. R. D. Goodyear (1972) Clemens (1936) Cyril Clemens, ed., The Mark Twain Quarterly, A. E. Housman Memorial Number, 1. 2 (Winter 1936) Clemens (1941) Cyril Clemens, ‘A. E. Housman and his Publisher: A Series of Unpublished Letters’, Mark Twain Quarterly, 4 (Summer/Fall 1941), 11–15, 23 Clemens (1947) Cyril Clemens, ‘Some Unpublished Housman Letters’, Poet Lore: World Literature and the Drama, 53. 3 (1947), 255–62 Columbia Columbia University Library, New York Critical Heritage A. E. Housman: The Critical Heritage, ed. Philip Gardner (1992) CUL Cambridge University Library CUP Cambridge University Press Eton Eton College, Windsor, Berkshire Fitzwilliam The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Gow A. S. F. Gow, A. E. Housman: A Sketch (corrected impression, November 1936) GR Grant Richards (1872–1948), publisher

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Abbreviations Graves Harvard Hawkins (1958) Huntington HSJ Illinois KCC KES

LC LH Lilly LP Maas Manchester Martin (1937) Memoir

Michigan MP Naiditch (1988) Naiditch (1995) Naiditch (1996)

Naiditch (2002)

Naiditch (2003)

Naiditch (2004)

Richard Perceval Graves, A. E. Housman: The Scholar-Poet (1979; corrected impression, 1981) The Houghton Library, Harvard University Maude M. Hawkins, A. E. Housman: Man Behind A Mask (1958) The Huntington Library, San Marino, California Housman Society Journal University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign King’s College, Cambridge Katharine Elizabeth Symons (1862–1945), sister of A. E. Housman. Naiditch (2005), 155, notes that her first name was ‘Katherine’, but that she preferred the form ‘Katharine’. The Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. Laurence Housman (1865–1959), brother of A. E. Housman The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana Last Poems (1922) The Letters of A. E. Housman, ed. Henry Maas (1971) The John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester Houston Martin, ‘With Letters from Housman’, The Yale Review, (1937), 283–303 Laurence Housman, A. E. H.: Some Poems, Some Letters and a Personal Memoir (1937); published in the United States as My Brother, A. E. Housman: Personal Recollections, together with thirty hitherto unpublished poems (1938) The University Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan More Poems (1936) P. G. Naiditch, A. E. Housman at University College, London: The Election of 1892 (1988) P. G. Naiditch, Problems in the Life and Writings of A. E. Housman (1995) P. G. Naiditch, The Centenary of ‘‘A Shropshire Lad’’: The Life & Writings of A. E. Housman, Department of Special Collections, University Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles (1996) P. G. Naiditch, ‘The Extant Portion of the Library of A. E. Housman [Part I]. Greek Literature’, Housman Society Journal, 28 (2002), 53–69 P. G. Naiditch, ‘The Extant Portion of the Library of A. E. Housman [Part II]. Latin Literature’, Housman Society Journal, 29 (2003), 108–51 P. G. Naiditch, ‘The Extant Portion of the Library of A. E. Housman [Part III]. Classical Antiquity’, Housman Society Journal, 30 (2004), 142–57

Abbreviations Naiditch (2005) N&Q NLS NNAEH NNP OBR Page p.c. PM Poems (1997) Princeton Pugh Reading Recollections

Richards Ricks (1988) SCO Selected Prose SIU SJCO St Andrews TCC Texas TLS t.s. UCL UCLA Virginia Waseda

xiii P. G. Naiditch, Additional Problems in the Life and Writings of A. E. Housman (2005) Notes and Queries The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh [L. Dolenski and J. Dooley], The Name and Nature of A. E. Housman (1986) The Name and Nature of Poetry by A. E. Housman. The Leslie Stephen Lecture, delivered at Cambridge, 9 May 1933 (1933) The Old Bromsgrovian Register, together with a brief history of the origin and growth of Bromsgrove School, Bromsgrove (1908–10) Norman Page, A. E. Housman: A Critical Biography (1983; rev. edn., 1996) postcard The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York The Poems of A. E. Housman, ed. Archie Burnett (corrected impression, 1997) Princeton University Library, Princeton, New Jersey John Pugh, Bromsgrove and the Housmans (1974) The University Library, Reading Alfred Edward Housman: Recollections by Katharine E. Symons et al. (New York, 1937). This contained material supplementary to that in Alfred Edward Housman: Recollections (Bromsgrove, 1936), known as the ‘Bromsgrove Memorial Supplement’ Grant Richards, Housman 1897–1936 (1941; corrected reprint, 1942) A. E. Housman: Collected Poems and Selected Prose, ed. Christopher Ricks (1988) Somerville College Library, Oxford A. E. Housman: Selected Prose, ed. John Carter (1961; corrected impression, 1962) The Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale The Library, St John’s College, Oxford The University Library, St Andrews The Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin The Times Literary Supplement typescript University College London (in Housman’s day, with a comma after ‘College’) The Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles University of Virginia Library The A. S. F. Gow Collection, Waseda University, Tokyo

xiv Wellesley White (1950) White (1959) White (1978)

Withers Yale

Abbreviations Wellesley College Library, Wellesley, Massachusetts. William White, ‘Fifteen Unpublished Letters of A. E. Housman’, The Dalhousie Review, 29. 4 (Jan. 1950), 402–10 A. E. Housman to Joseph Ishill: Five Unpublished Letters by William White (1959) William White, ‘A. E. Housman to John Masefield: An Unpublished Letter’, The Journal of the Book Club of Detroit, 3. 1 (1978) Percy Withers, A Buried Life: Personal Recollections of A. E. Housman (1940) Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut

N OT E O N E D I TO R I A L P R I N C I P L E S

Editorial intervention has been kept to the minimum in order to preserve as much of the physiognomy of the letters as possible. Abbreviations, with and without the point (Co., Dr, Esq., Messrs, St., Oct, Nov.), superscript letters (Mr , 12th ), ampersands, numerals written as words and as figures, single and double quotation marks, and non-indentation of paragraphs have been reproduced faithfully: Housman’s practice was not consistent, but it causes no confusion, and regularizing it would sacrifice something of the informality of letters never intended for publication. The only substantial intervention has been to standardize titles of works. Sometimes Housman underlined them; sometimes, and sometimes misleadingly, not; and at other times he placed them within single quotation marks. I have rendered all titles, whether of books, periodicals, or poems, in italic. Housman’s references to classical texts have been left as they are, however: in these he followed different conventions from those for non-classical works, and changing them would have interfered drastically with the material substance of the text. Usually, addresses and dates were placed top right by Housman; complimentary closes (‘I am yours very truly’, ‘Yours sincerely’) and his signature, bottom right. Sometimes complimentary closes were written at varying points to the left of the signature, but such fine gradations of spacing, many of them apparently dictated by nothing more than the size of the writing paper, are difficult to reproduce exactly, and I place them bottom right. Where Housman adopted a different format for addresses, dates, closes, and the signature, as for instance in postcards, the different format is followed. To economize on space, vertical rules have been inserted in addresses to indicate line-divisions: thus ‘Trinity College | Cambridge’ indicates that ‘Cambridge’ was written below ‘Trinity College’. Addresses on headed writing paper are rendered in small capitals. At the head of each letter the addressee is specified. At the end of each, details are given of the source of the text, the earliest printing, and, where applicable, the location of the letter in Maas’s edition. Unless it

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is stated otherwise, it is to be assumed that the source for the text is an autograph letter or postcard, signed, in ink. Where possible, details of the address on the envelope or postcard are also supplied. When the text of a letter is from a typescript copy or a printed source that does not follow Housman’s customary practice, the text has been silently modified. Usually this involves little more than changing the form of the address and date, or removing a comma after ‘sincerely’, ‘truly’, or ‘faithfully’ in complimentary closes. However, Housman’s letters to newspapers and periodicals, none of which survives in manuscript, are presented as they were printed: he had to expect that the house style would be followed, and he never expressed any objection to it. In the unique case of the formal letter of application of 19 April 1892 accompanying testimonials, the printed text has also been followed: Housman would have had the letter and the testimonials printed, and would have seen proofs. Evidence of drafting is represented by symbols used in my edition of Housman’s poems (1997), though the reduction in their number reflects the less extensive and less complex drafting in the letters. Housman’s cancellations are placed within angle brackets, < >; words written by him above or below the line, within slant brackets, \ /; cancelled words above or below the line within a combination of the two, \ < > /. Everything else supplied editorially in the body of the text (missing letters or parts of words, necessary punctuation, addresses, or dates, for example) is placed within square brackets,[ ]; gaps in incomplete MSS are indicated by three dots […]; illegible words by a question mark [ ? ]. Uncertain readings are preceded by a question mark [?word]; words written to the left of the main body of the letter, by an arrow [← ]. In a case such as the letter to Maurice Pollet of 5 February 1933, where there exists an extensive draft and a final version, both are presented in full, one after the other. A textual apparatus in such a case would confuse more than it would inform. Casual slips and other minor blemishes are corrected silently or omitted. Corrections that represent revisions of wording have been included, however. Among them are those made during illness, even terminal illness. In these special cases I have additionally recorded all slips in order to represent Housman’s heroic struggle to sustain his characteristic courtesy in answering letters. Throughout, his numerous inaccuracies are recorded in footnotes, not to get back at a man to whom accuracy was ‘a duty and not a virtue’,1 but to reveal him as less rigorous when writing informally.

1

Manilius V (1930), 105.

Note on Editorial Principles

xvii

(It is a consideration too that unrecorded inaccuracies can be mistaken for misprints or the editor’s errors.) In the notes and in the List of Recipients, biographical information has been confined to Housman’s lifetime (1859–1936), in order to give a true sense of relationship. When he writes to Gilbert Murray, for instance, he knows him not as the public figure Murray would later become but as a fellow classical scholar; and the only mention of John Rothenstein, who would later become eminent in the British art world, is when he is a boy of nine. It has not been possible to identify everyone or everything Housman refers to, however. Several composers—would-be composers?—who make applications to set Housman’s poems to music do not appear in the most comprehensive reference work, Musical Settings of Late Victorian and Modern British Literature: A Catalogue by Bryan N. S. Gooch and David S. Thatcher (1976), or in specialist studies such as Banfield (1985), probably because no setting was subsequently published. And in the absence of documentary evidence, a few distant relations, admirers, or acquaintances, must go unidentified. (Some information can be gathered from addresses on envelopes or postcards, however, and that has been recorded.) It will be clear when it has not been possible to elucidate a reference, and I have chosen to remain silent rather than multiply notes saying ‘Not identified’ or ‘Not traced’: in such cases the footnote number does no more than divert with a false promise of enlightenment. The letters are printed in chronological sequence by date. A stricter chronology cannot be established: the order in which letters were written on the same date is not known. Henry Maas’s decision to interrupt the chronology and place the letters on classical subjects together at the end of the volume has not been followed, on the grounds that it sacrifices with very little gain a primary biographical function of an edition of the letters: to give a strong sense of the mix of Housman’s activities from day to day, whether he writes as scholar, poet, citizen, colleague, relation, or friend. Letters are printed from manuscripts wherever possible, or, failing that, from photographs or photocopies of manuscripts. This has resulted in a great many cases in a text that is more complete and more correct than any previously available. I have noted incompleteness in earlier published texts, but, with the exception of misdatings, I have on the whole refrained from recording inaccuracies. Maas’s edition contained many errors of transcription,2 as well as errors of other kinds, and the other printed sources are very far from immaculate, too. (Cyril Clemens’s capacity for 2

Naiditch (1995), 61–2, provides a substantial selection.

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Note on Editorial Principles

inaccuracy borders on the pathological.) Where Housman’s poetry, and especially the poetry published posthumously, was concerned, a record of every error made by previous editors was a necessary complement to the establishment of the text; but, in the case of the letters, where there is less complexity and contentiousness, placing every error on record would probably be only a distraction (in more senses than one) to the reader. And distinctly unedifying to the editor, whose feeling in the matter is akin to W. H. Auden’s feeling about repeatedly attacking bad books in reviews: that it’s bad for the character.3 3

‘Reading’, Selected Essays (1964), 18.

I N T RO D U C T I O N

This edition aims to print all of A. E. Housman’s letters, and it fails to do so: it is known, or it can be readily inferred, that he wrote more letters than those that are now accessible; and, no doubt, just as letters have come to light during the preparation of the edition, they will continue to turn up after publication. No letters have been found for entire years—1874, 1883, 1884, 1886, and 1888—and yet it is hard to imagine that Housman wrote no letters for such long periods. It is true, but small consolation, that most editions are incomplete. (And it is hard to imagine a publisher with the candour to announce a title beginning ‘The Incomplete Letters of … ’, any more than ‘Probably The Poems of … ’ where attributions are uncertain.) The attempt to be complete has been thought worthwhile, however, and chiefly for the reason that the degree of incompleteness of the standard edition by Henry Maas (1971) amounts to a deficiency. Paul Naiditch has noted that of some 1,500 letters Maas traced, he published 883, together with one fragment, and the facsimile of a letter whose text he did not transcribe. Naiditch has also shown that Maas did not discover all the letters he should have located, and that he did not print many he should have printed.1 The shortcoming worsens once 2,327 letters and 4 fragments have been found. The decision to print every letter found has not been taken lightly, however. The main justification has been to allow as full a revelation as possible of a man whose reserve was legendary. A remark by Philip Larkin in a review of the first volume of The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy— ‘one cannot read six or seven hundred letters by even as reticent a man as Hardy without learning something about him’2 —applies in principle to Housman too. A partial representation would in Housman’s case be unusually risky, as a comment by Andrew Gow, his colleague at Trinity College, suggests: 1

Naiditch (1995), 157–61. Further Requirements: Interviews, Broadcasts, Statements and Book Reviews 1952–85, ed. Anthony Thwaite (2001), 272. 2

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Introduction

To many of those who met him casually at High Tables or on University committees he remained, as to the outside world, a figure alarming, remote, mysterious. To see Housman at his best, therefore, it was well to meet him in a small social circle, or at the fortnightly dinners of the Family, a dining club of a dozen members to which he belonged … [He would] show himself as vivacious as any other member of the party … and would greet the contributions of others with bursts of silvery laughter which retained to the end of his life something boyish and infectious.3

Not to print all the letters found would be rather like meeting Housman only on one of the kinds of occasion Gow describes. Even if the jigsaw is not complete, a better picture results from assembling all, rather than some, of the pieces available. Incomplete representation can allow unwarranted hypotheses to flourish. Consider, for instance, the notion that Housman was an unsociable, even anti-social, man. Such a view cannot stand in the face of letters, usually functional and brief, in which he accepts or issues dining invitations, or makes arrangements to stay or visit; and their sheer number is important in establishing the truth. Similarly, Housman’s misogyny needs to be heavily qualified in the light of affectionate letters to his sister Kate, early humorous letters to Elizabeth Wise, and many cordial letters to wives of colleagues and friends. Relationships sometimes need to be documented as fully as possible if they are not to be distorted. To print, as Maas did, only one letter from Housman to John Masefield, that of 11 May 1930 congratulating him on the Poet Laureateship, is in effect to suppress the fact that the correspondence between the two poets began twenty years previously, when Housman expressed friendly interest in Masefield’s play Pompey the Great; and, worse, to render Housman’s letter, on its own, seemingly presumptuous in attitude and obsequious in tone. To include only letters that record Housman’s opinions of literature, or that contain humour, bons mots, or scathing put-downs, would be to follow the agenda of an anthology. There is some legitimacy in doing this for particular purposes, though the risks of misrepresentation may still be too great. Consider, for instance, the extreme and astonishing case of E. V. Lucas’s William Cowper’s Letters: A Selection (1908): In the following selection from the letters of William Cowper everything, or nearly everything, has been retained which shows him in the light of an agreeable philosophic correspondent; and nearly everything has been omitted which bears upon his own unhappy spiritual state or upon local, 3

Gow, 50.

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family, or literary matters that either are of no intrinsic interest or that involve repetition. The book, in short, has been arranged to display Cowper at his happiest: the charm and ease of his style, his domestic wit, his serene good sense, his winning playfulness. (p. v)

It is rare to find perverseness so direct. But the candour with which Lucas declares that he has in effect removed all traces of Cowper’s unignorable depression does not remove the gross distortion. It was Lucas who confessed later in life, ‘I still want books to be cheerful and amusing’;4 and the blinkered indulgence of this predilection dictated his selection from Cowper’s letters. Further, is it not for the reader to decide which matters, including literary matters, are of ‘no intrinsic interest’? And does repetition disclose nothing? To Lucas’s credit, he does point ‘anyone requiring a fuller representation of the man’ to the complete correspondence in Bohn’s Library and other editions. But what he calls ‘a fuller representation’ is more than that: a truer representation. Even a complete correspondence will not tell the whole truth, however. Tennyson’s poignant reminder of this in Old ghosts whose day was done ere mine began applies tellingly to the case of A. E. Housman: Ye know that History is half-dream—ay even The man’s life in the letters of the man. There lies the letter, but it is not he As he retires into himself and is: Sender and sent-to go to make up this, Their offspring of this union. … whatsoever knows us truly, knows That none can truly write his single day, And none can write it for him upon earth.

The best that can be expected—or hoped for—is the least distortion. Another reason for aiming at completeness is to accommodate the variety of interests that readers will bring to the edition. I include, for instance, more than twice the number of letters on classical subjects in Maas, even though it is unlikely these days that an interest primarily in the minutiae of classical textual scholarship will be widely shared. Such letters are central to Housman’s ‘trade’ (as he called it) of Professor of Latin, and to a form of intellectual activity in which he excelled and through which 4

Reading, Writing and Remembering: A Literary Record (1932), 14.

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he achieved international fame. Their exclusion would not only amount to an act of serious misrepresentation, but would deny classical scholars ready access to their content. Last, a purely pragmatic consideration: to provide an adequate bibliographical record and summary of contents for letters of business (and business-like letters) would in many cases take up as much, if not more, space than the letters themselves. And, besides, letters of this type have something to tell too, especially those that provide a record of Housman’s unusually close involvement as an author in all aspects of the publication process. One category of exclusion should be noted: ceremonial public addresses that Housman composed, such as those in Latin to the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne, and Aberdeen, or in English to persons such as the Reverend Henry Montagu Butler (1913), Sir James Frazer (1921), and the King (1925, 1935).5 In such cases, even when the address shares some characteristics with a letter, there is a distinction of genre to be drawn between letters composed by Housman and letters from him. I do, however, make an exception of the letter of 14 July 1919 to Henry Jackson, which Housman wrote to be signed by the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, including of course himself: first, it is indisputably a letter, not a public address; and, second, a personal warmth, a ‘long and sure-set liking’, glows throughout it, as Housman joins the ‘affectionate friends’ of Jackson in celebrating his eightieth birthday. ‘Then again, he seems to have been a very nice man,’6 Philip Larkin realized after reading Richard Perceval Graves’s 1979 biography. How Housman comes across in his letters is for the reader, not the editor, to decide. But the editor is a reader too, and I will say only that I have found him to be an even gentler, more amiable, more sociable, more generous, more painstaking, and altogether more complex person than the biographies and the previous edition of the letters led me to believe; and that my admiration and liking for him have increased. 5 6

These may be found in Selected Prose, 161–7. See also Naiditch (1988), 120. ‘All Right when You Knew Him’, Required Writing. Miscellaneous Pieces 1955–1982 (1983), 263.

LIST OF RECIPIENTS

This is not an exhaustive list. Some recipients are identified in notes to letters. All recipients are listed in the Index. A, C C (1889–1971). Poet, and translator of early medieval French lyrics. Lecturer in English Language and Literature, University of Aberdeen, 1921–32; Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Durham, 1932–54. A, N (1902–49). Graduated from Princeton in 1925, managed the Brick Row Book Shop there, and acted as secretary to the American-Scandinavian Foundation for ten years. His favourite writers were Matthew Arnold, Rupert Brooke, and A. E. Housman, and he made pilgrimages to the places that they knew. He himself wrote poetry. A, L (1881–1938). Poet and critic. Professor of English Literature, University of Leeds, 1922–9; Hildred Carlile Professor of English Literature at Bedford College, University of London, 1929–35; Goldsmiths’ Reader in English, University of Oxford, 1935–8. Publications include Principles of English Prosody (1924), The Idea of Great Poetry (1925), Poems (1930), and Poetry, its Music and Meaning (1932). A, A S J (1864–1930). Poet, novelist, essayist, and editor of The Bookman. His Collected Poems was published in 1929. A, S (1907–85). Philadelphia bibliophile and art collector. His collection of AEH manuscripts and rare books is in the Mariam Coffin Canaday Library, BMC. He never visited England and thus never met AEH. A, W R (1894–1978). Classicist at the University of Wisconsin. Publications include: The Glory that was Greece (1930), The Greek Tradition in Sculpture (1930), The New Architectural Sculpture (1935), and Medical Greek and Latin at a Glance (1935). A, C A (1872–1955). Assistant Master at Marlborough, 1896–9, and at Eton, 1899–1908; Headmaster of Shrewsbury School, 1908–17, and of Eton, 1917–33; Chaplain to the King, 1921–33; Honorary Fellow of TCC, 1926; Dean of Durham, 1933–51. A, L J M [Innes] (b. 1861/2). Wife of physiologist and administrator Sir Hugh Kerr Anderson (1865–1928): FRS, 1907; Master of Gonville

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and Caius College, Cambridge, 1912–28; member of the Royal Commission on the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 1919, and of the Cambridge Commission, 1923; knighted, 1922. A, W (1864–1936). A Bostonian, educated in England. A bibliophile and gourmet, and a friend of Horatio Brown (q.v.). Assistant Reader in Equity to the Council of Legal Education; Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford, 1926–9. He lived in England till 1903, thereafter mainly in Florence. His The Rhodian Sea-Law was published in 1909. See Naiditch (1988), 65–6, for further information. B, H G (1881–1957). Pioneer woman in the film industry. Wrote scenario and story scripts for several silent films based on Jack London classics, including Burning Daylight, The Valley of the Moon, and The Chechako, all in 1914; edited John Ford’s early film The Iron Horse, 1924. Later known for her knowledge of Siamese cats. B, B. Later Mrs William S. Kuder of Oakland, California. Housman collector and admirer, who published two poems on him: ‘To A. E. Housman’, McClure’s Magazine, 28 (August 1907), 407; repr. in April Weather (1922); and ‘The Shropshire Lad’, The Bromsgrovian, 51 (Mar. 1938), 94, repr. in Joseph Henry Jackson’s ‘Bookman’s Daily Notebook’, San Francisco Daily Chronicle, 30 Apr. 1938. B, G [Reginald] (1904–60). Educated at Dartmouth and KCC; first class, Historical Tripos, Part II, 1925; Assistant Master at Dartmouth, 1927–30; Assistant Secretary, Cambridge University Press, 1930–5; joined the BBC in 1935. B, J[ames] M[atthew] (1860–1937). Novelist and playwright, famous for the children’s play Peter Pan, first performed in 1904. Novels include: The Little Minister (1891), Sentimental Tommy (1896), and Tommy and Grizel (1900). Dramas include: What Every Woman Knows (1906), Dear Brutus (1917), and Mary Rose (1920). Created baronet, 1913; OM, 1922. B, M (1872–1956). Essayist and caricaturist. He admired AEH’s poetry, but was not impressed by him in person: ‘He was like an absconding cashier. We certainly wished he would abscond—sitting silent and then saying only ‘‘there is a bit of a nip in the air, don’t you think?’’ ’ (D. Cecil, Max: A Biography, 1965, 262). See Naiditch (2005), 20, for further information. B, E S (1831–1915). Positivist and historian. Professor of Ancient History (1881–4) and of Latin (1860–89) at Bedford College, London; Professor of Ancient and Modern History (1860–1915), and, from 1893, Emeritus Professor of History at UCL. He was a member of the committee that appointed AEH at UCL in 1892. See Naiditch (1988), 4, 9, 73–4, for further information. B, E[rnest] A[lfred] (1880–1952). Historian. Fellow (1906), College Lecturer (1912), Tutor (1918), Senior Tutor (1926) and Master (1933–52) of St John’s College, Cambridge. Author of The British Empire and the War (1915), and one of the editors of The Cambridge History of the British Empire (1929– ).

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B, A (1871–1958). Secretary to the Court, Senatus Academicus, and General Council of the University of St Andrews. He acted as Registrar and Law Agent to the University, 1903–41. B, A[rthur] C[hristopher] (1862–1925). Man of letters. Assistant Master at Eton, 1885; Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1904; Master, 1915–25. Page, 105, notes that in Benson’s diary ‘his accounts of meetings with Housman between 1911 and 1925 lack objectivity to a remarkable degree: his judgments swing violently between approval and hostility, and ought not to be taken too seriously.’ B, [Robert] L (1869–1943). Poet, dramatist, and art historian. He worked at the British Museum, 1893–1933, first in the Department of Printed Books, later as Keeper of the Department of Oriental Prints and Drawings. Made Companion of Honour, 1932. Publications include: Lyric Poems (1894), Winnowing Fan: Poems of the Great War (1914); dramas Attila (1907) and Arthur (1923); Painting in the Far East (1908); and Collected Poems (1931), which included war poems such as his famous For the Fallen. B, E[dward] H[enry] (1869–1955). Classical scholar and amateur printer. Headmaster at various schools: Sandwich Grammar School, 1895; Borlase School, Marlow, 1901; King Henry VIII’s School, Ely, 1904–18. Assistant Master, Winchester College, 1918–30; Lecturer in English Literature, University College, Southampton, 1929–31; Lecturer in Latin at King Alfred’s College, Winchester, 1933. Author of Voices after Sunset (1897), War Poems (1915), New Poems (1918), and Alpine Poems (1929); translator of Homer’s Iliad, Horace’s De Arte Poetica, Ausonius’ Mosella, and Plato’s Apology; and editor of Bacon’s Essays, Milton’s Paradise Regained, and Everyman’s Classical Dictionary. See Naiditch (1995), 44, for further information. B, W S (1840–1922). Poet, diplomat, anti-imperialist, Arabist, and hedonist. Published Sonnets and Songs by Proteus (1875, etc.), in a copy of the 6th (1890) edn. of which AEH wrote: ‘If boots were bonnets, | These might be sonnets. | But boots are not; | So don’t talk rot’: see Poems (1997), 250, 536. Blunt’s other publications include: The Wind and the Whirlwind (1883), Ideas about India (1885), In Vinculis (1889), and My Diaries (2 vols., 1919–20). B, [Cecil] M (1898–1971). Classical scholar and university administrator. Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, 1922, Dean and Senior Tutor, 1930–1. In collaboration with H. T. Wade-Gery, he published a translation of Pindar: Pythian Odes (1928). Other publications include: Tradition and Design in the Iliad (1930), Ancient Greek Literature (1933), the Oxford edn. of Pindari Carmina cum fragmentis (1935), and Greek Lyric Poetry from Alcman to Simonides (1936). B, K H (1860–1932). Born at Hanover but later became a British citizen. Educated at the Universities of T¨ubingen, Strassburg, and Berlin; first University Lecturer in German at Cambridge, 1884; Hon. MA, 1886; Fellow of KCC, 1886; LittD, 1896; Schr¨oder Professor of German, 1910; Professorial Fellow of KCC, 1926; President of the MLA, and founder and editor of Modern Language Quarterly. Publications include: critical editions of Sir Gowther (1883), Le Dit De Robert

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Le Diable (1895), The Cambridge Songs, A Goliard’s Song Book of the XIIth Century (1915), and The Cambridge Reinaert Fragments (1927). B, [Mary] M, née Waterhouse (1863–1949). Daughter of the architect Alfred Waterhouse, RA (1830–1905) and Elizabeth Hodgkin (1834–1913). She married Robert Bridges on 3 Sept. 1884. B, R [Seymour] (1844–1930). Educated at Eton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford (1863–7), where he met Gerard M. Hopkins; MB, 1874, at St Bartholomew’s Hospital; practised medicine until 1881; lived at Yattendon, Berkshire, 1882–1904, and from 1907 at Chilswell House, which he built on Boars Hill, Oxford; Poet Laureate, 1913; founder of the Society for Pure English, 1919; OM, 1929. Publications include: Poems (1873), The Growth of Love (1876), Eros and Psyche (1885), Shorter Poems (Books I–IV, 1890; Book V, 1894), Collected Poems (1912), The Spirit of Man (1916), October and Other Poems (1920), New Verse (1925), The Testament of Beauty (1929), and Milton’s Prosody (1889; final edn., 1921). B, A A (1872–1938). Schoolmaster in Canada and England; vicar (ordained, 1898) in England, and Chaplain to the Forces on the French Front, 1915–17; writer of theological works, poetry, and criticism; Ph.D., University of London, 1931; Lecturer to the Cambridge Board of Extra-mural Studies, 1908; and contributor to various literary journals (Athenaeum, Cornhill, Poetry Review). B, B[ertram]. G. Cambridge resident who corresponded with AEH, 1931–6, and attended his lectures in 1933. B, H [Robert] F[orbes] (1854–1926). Educated at Clifton College, and New College, Oxford. An expert on Venice, where he lived from 1879. Publications include Venetian Studies (1888), Venice, an Historical Sketch (1893), and Studies in the History of Venice (2 vols., 1907). Literary executor of John Addington Symonds, author of John Addington Symonds, a Biography (1895), and editor of Letters and Papers of John Addington Symonds (1923). B, I[sidore] R[osenbaum] (1895–1972). New York bibliophile and book scout. Contributed Anglo-American First Editions, 1826–1900: East to West (1935) and its counterpart West to East (1936) to Sadleir’s Bibliographica series. B, G (1893–1958). Writer (principally of novels) and broadcaster. Graduated from Cambridge with first class honours in English, 1921. B, A P. Daughter of William Parry, Rector of Fitz, Shropshire, and wife of Francis Crawford Burkitt. B, F C (1864–1935). Graduated high in the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge, 1886, then in the first class in the Theological Tripos, 1888; University Lecturer in Palaeography, 1903, and Norrisian Professor of Divinity, 1905–35; FBA, 1905; Fellow of TCC, 1926. Publications include: ‘Text and Versions’ in Encyclopaedia Biblica (1903), an edn. of the old Syriac gospels (1904), The

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Gospel History and its Transmission (1906), The Earliest Sources for the Life of Jesus (1910), Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (1914), and Jesus Christ: An Historical Outline (1932). B, A [Frances] née Ramsay (1867–1931). Wife of H. M. Butler, whom she married in 1888. She was among the first women to take the Classical Tripos at Cambridge, and in 1887 she was placed in division one of the first class. Her edn. of the seventh book of Herodotus was published in 1889. B, H[arold] E[dgeworth] (1878–1951). First class in literae humaniores, Oxford, 1900. Lecturer, 1901, and Fellow of New College, 1902–11; AEH’s successor as Professor of Latin at UCL, 1911–42. Publications include: an edn. of Propertii omnia opera (1905, with commentary; 2nd edn., with translation, 1912), to the former of which AEH gave ‘hardly what would be called a favourable review’ (his words) in CR 19 (1905), 317–20; a translation of Apuleius: Metamorphoses (1910), and, with A. S. Owen, an edn. of Apulei Apologia (1914); an edn. of The Sixth Book of the Aeneid (1914); a Loeb edn. of Institutes of Quintilian (1920–2); and an edn., with E. A. Barber, of Propertius: Elegies (1933). B, H[enry] M[ontagu] (1833–1918). Fellow of TCC, 1855; Headmaster of Harrow, 1860–85; Dean of Gloucester, 1885; Master of TCC, 1886–1918; ViceChancellor of Cambridge University, 1889–90; Publications include: Ten Great and Good Men (1909), Lord Chatham as an Orator (1912), and Some Leisure Hours of a Long Life: Translations into Greek, Latin, and English Verse from 1850 to 1914 (1914). B, J[ames] R[amsay] M[ontagu] (1889–1975). Son of H. M. Butler. Historian. Admitted to TCC from Harrow, 1907; first class, Part I, Classical Tripos, 1909, and Part II, Historical Tripos, 1910; Fellow, 1913–75, and tutor to Prince Albert (later George VI) and Prince Henry (later Duke of Gloucester); MVO, 1920; Senior Tutor, 1931–8. His The Passing of the Great Reform Bill was published in 1914. B, [Harold] W (1881–1968). American poet, translator, and playwright. Studied mainly English and philosophy at Harvard. Introduced to ASL by Richard Le Gallienne, he published in McClure’s Magazine, in the period Dec. 1903–Sept. 1908, thirteen of the poems, thus introducing them to an American readership. (Richards, 55, describes the magazine’s circulation at the time as ‘huge and important’.) He lived with Robert Hunt for thirty-four years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He knew D. H. and Frieda Lawrence from 1922 onwards, travelled with them on their first trip to Mexico the following year, and was the source for the minor character Owen Rhys in Lawrence’s The Plumed Serpent. He was a pacifist and a strong supporter of equality for women and for blacks, and later for Indians and Spanish-speaking Americans. Though AEH and he exchanged correspondence for over thirty-two years, the two never met. C, A[rchibald] Y[oung] (1885–1958). Classical scholar and poet. Fellow (1910–22) and Lecturer (1911–22) at St John’s College, Cambridge; Gladstone Professor of Greek at Liverpool University (1922–50). Publications include: Poems (1912), Horace. A New Interpretation (1924), Poems (1926), and edns. of Horati Carmina Viginti (1935) and The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (1936).

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C, J [Waynflete] (1905–75). Bibliographer and bibliophile. Educated at Eton and KCC; joined the London branch of the New York publishing house Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926–7, establishing the antiquarian bookselling side of the business, and becoming their London manager. Co-author with Graham Pollard of An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth-Century Pamphlets (1934). C, T C, née Anne Estella Penfold Matthews (d. 1938). Married George Cave (1856–1928) in 1885. He became Home Secretary (1916–19), Lord Chancellor (1922–8), and Chancellor of Oxford University (1925–8), and was created Viscount in 1918. On his death she was granted the title of Countess Cave of Richmond. C, R[aymond] W[ilson] (1874–1942). Literary scholar. A member of AEH’s Latin class at UCL (1892–4), he graduated with first class honours in English (1894). At UCL he became Quain Student (1899), Fellow (1900), Librarian (1901), Assistant Professor of English (1904) and, succeeding W. P. Ker, Quain Professor (1922–41). FBA, 1927. In 1904 he extracted The Parallelogram from AEH for anonymous publication in the University College London Union Magazine. Publications include: sympathetic reminiscences of AEH, particularly of the UCL years, in Recollections, 51–60, and in Man’s Unconquerable Mind (1939), 365–86; Widsith: a Study in Old English Heroic Legend (1912), an edn. of Beowulf (1914), Beowulf: an Introduction to the Study of the Poem (1921), and Thomas More (1934). See Naiditch (2005), 18–19, for further information. C, E E[lizabeth] (1896–1988). American writer and anthologist. C, C [Coniston] (1902–99). Cousin of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain). Founder the International Mark Twain Society in 1930, and editor of the Mark Twain Quarterly (later the Mark Twain Journal), 1936–82. Publications include numerous volumes and pamphlets on Twain, including Mark Twain Anecdotes (1929), Mark Twain Wit and Wisdom (1935), Mark Twain and Mussolini (1934), and Mark Twain’s Religion (1935). C, S [Carlyle] (1867–1962). Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1908–37; Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, 1910–16, and of Downing College, 1932–7; hon. Litt.D., Cambridge, 1930; knighted, 1934. Secretary to, and literary executor of, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, William Morris, and Thomas Hardy. C, G (1894–1992). Studied History at Cambridge, c.1918. Rector of Crawsley near Kettering, Northants., 1921–56, during much of which time he was Professor of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music. See Norman Marlow in HSJ 4 (1978), 45. C, A C[ecilia] (1878–1960). Editor of the American anthology Poems of Today (1924). C, F M (1874–1943). Classical scholar. Fellow of TCC, 1899; Lecturer in Classics, 1904; Laurence-Brereton Reader in Classics

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at Cambridge, 1927; first holder of the Laurence Chair of Ancient Philosophy, 1931–9. Husband of the poet Frances Cornford. Publications include: Thucydides Mythistoricus (1907), Microcosmographia Academica (1908), The Origin of Attic Comedy (1914), The Laws of Motion in Ancient Thought (1931), and Before and After Socrates (1932). C, C[harles] A[lfred] (1910–74). Educated at Clifton College, and admitted to TCC, 1928; took Part II of the Mathematical Tripos, 1931, and Part II of the Natural Sciences Tripos, 1932; Fellow of TCC, 1934–8. C, P[hilip] H[erbert] (1870–1949). Mathematician and astronomer. Educated at Eton and Cambridge; Fellow of TCC, 1894; FRS, 1906; Superintendent of HM Nautical Almanac Office, 1910. Recommended by H. H. Turner to Prof. Karl Pearson of UCL, and by Pearson to AEH, as an authority on calculating the position of planets (TCC MS, with Adv. c. 20. 26): Naiditch (1988), 93 n. C, W [Lucius] (1862–1948). BA (1885) and Ph.D. (1889), Yale University. Instructor (1894–7), Assistant Professor (1897–1902), Professor of English (1902–31), and Dean of the Graduate School (1902–30) at Yale, and editor of The Yale Review for thirty years. Publications include: The Life and Times of Laurence Sterne (1909), The History of Henry Fielding (1918), Four Contemporary Novelists (1930), and The Development of the English Novel (1933). C, F [-V M] (1868–1947). Belgian orientalist and historian of religion. Publications include: Catalogus codicum astrologum Graecorum (1898) as joint editor, Les Mystères de Mithra (2nd edn., 1902), and Les réligions orientales dans le paganisme romain (1906, etc.). D, L M, née du Puy (1861–1947). Born in Philadelphia. Wife of Charles Darwin’s son, the mathematician and geophysicist Sir George Howard Darwin (1845–1912). D, A[lexander] MK (1897–1979). Minor Scottish poet. Publications include A Few Poems (n.d.) and Tinkler’s Whussel (n.d.). D, [J. Irving] & O, [Pino]. London dealers in manuscripts and rare books. D  M, W [John] (1873–1956). Poet, short-story writer, and anthologist. Publications include: poetry, Songs of Childhood (1902), The Listeners (1912), Peacock Pie (1913), Motley (1918); prose, Henry Brocken (1904), The Return (1910); and the anthology Come Hither (1923). D, W[illiam] M (1866–1945). Professor of English at Glasgow, 1934. Publications include: the poetry anthology The English Parnassus with H. J. C. Grierson (1909), English Epic and Heroic Poetry (1912), and Tragedy (1924). D, J (1882–1937). Poet, dramatist and actor, and critic. Published The Death of Leander and other Poems (1906), Poems, 1908–1914 (1917), Tides (1917), Summer Harvest: Poems 1924–33 (1933), and two vols. of autobiography, Inheritance (1931) and Discovery (1932). Withers, 18, recalls AEH remarking that Drinkwater

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was ‘not a poet’. AEH’s meetings with Drinkwater were cordial, however: Withers, 38–9, 41–2. D, J D (1860–1940). Admitted to TCC, 1874. Won the Porson Prize, 1874; fifth Classic, 1882; Fellow of TCC, 1883–1940, and Tutor, 1899–1909. Published edns. of Lucretius V (1889), Juvenal (1898), Lucretius III (1902), Pliny, Letters VI (1906), a selection of Cicero’s correspondence (1911), three dialogues of Seneca (1915), Lucretius I (1923), Lucan (1928), and Silius Italicus (1934). He was a candidate for the chair of Latin at Cambridge in 1911 when AEH was appointed. See Naiditch (1995), 42–3, for further information. D, J[ames] F[itzjames] (1898–1970). Son of J. D. Duff. Awarded a scholarship at TCC, 1914; commissioned in the Royal Flying Corps, and invalided out in 1917; first class in the Classical Tripos, Part I, and second in Economics, Part II; Assistant Lecturer in Classics, Manchester University, 1921; Lecturer in Education, Armstrong College, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1922; Senior Lecturer in Education, Manchester University, 1927, and Professor, 1932. E, J[ohn] M[axwell] (1875–1958). Educated at Jesus College, Cambridge (1894–8), gaining first class in Part I of the Classical Tripos; taught classics at The King’s School, Canterbury, and at Repton School, returning to Cambridge in 1908; University Lecturer in Classics, 1926; Fellow of Jesus College, 1914–20, and from 1946. Publications include: An Introduction to Comparative Philology (1906), and edns. with translations of The Greek Bucolic Poets (1912), Longus: Daphnis and Chloe (rev., 1916), Lyra Graeca (1922–7), and The Characters of Theophrastus (1929). E, R (1834–1913). Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, 1858–1913; Professor of Latin at UCL, 1870–6; Reader in Latin at Oxford, 1883–93; Corpus Christi Professor of Latin at Oxford and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, 1893–1913; FBA, 1902. Publications include: edns. of Catullus (1866), Ovid’s Ibis (1881), and Noctes Manilianae (1891). AEH studied under him at Oxford, but did not greatly esteem his abilities. Under the pseudonym ‘Tristram’ he made fun of him (and others) in The Eleventh Eclogue, published on 22 June 1878, and in Ibis’ Reply to Ovid: see Poems (1997), 230–5, 525–8; 289, 564. Of his corrections to Manilius AEH later wrote that ‘one or two of them were very pretty, but his readers were in perpetual contact with the mind of an idiot child’: Preface to Manilius V (1930); Ricks (1988), 387. For further information on AEH and Ellis, see Naiditch (1988), 32–4, 41–52. E, [David] E (1891–1936). Principal of University College of North Wales, 1927–58; Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales, 1933–5. F, J. Son-in-law of collector of books and manuscripts Sir Thomas Phillipps, baronet (1792–1872), whose library at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham, contained a large collection of classical MSS. Fenwick later owned the collection. F, H[erbert] P[atrick] R[eginald] (1900–74). Educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and SJCO. Founder in 1928 of the Alcuin Press at Chipping Campden,

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where in 1929 a limited edn. (325 copies, 300 for sale) of ASL and LP were printed. He was director of the Alcuin Press until 1936. F, K (1911–72). A friend of Witter Bynner’s. He published a volume of poems, The Avalanche of April (1934), sent AEH a copy, and visited him in Cambridge in 1935. Bynner to AEH, 17 July 1935 (BMC MS): ‘Kimball Flaccus… has sent me a glowing report of you. I envy him.’ F, C[harles?]. The BL catalogue lists two works: Glimpses of our Ancestors in Sussex (1878, 1882), and Glimpses of our Ancestors in Sussex and Gleanings in East and West Sussex (1883). He lived in Brighton. F, G (1848–1933) Educated at The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove, 1857–66 (OBR, 43), and at Clare College, Cambridge. MRCS, LSA, 1872; MA, MB, 1873. He worked as a surgeon at St Thomas’s hospital, London, and lived in Highgate. His father Dr T. S. Fletcher had been the Housmans’ family doctor, and his daughter for a time attended AEH’s classes at UCL three or four days a week. See the textual note on the letter to him of 10 May 1928. See also Naiditch (1995), 23–4. F, F[rancis] H[oward] (1881–1957). Professor of Greek, Amherst College, Massachusetts, 1920–48. Editor of Aristotelis Meteorologicorum libri quattuor (1919). F, E[dward] M[organ] (1879–1970). Eminent novelist and man of letters. Publications include: The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), A Passage to India (1924), and the homosexual novel Maurice (1914; published in 1971). F, T[homas] G (1866–1931). Long associated with UCL: educated there, and taught in the English Department, 1894–1904; then, Secretary, 1900, Provost, 1904–29. Vice-Chancellor, London University, 1928–30; knighted, 1917; first baronet of Bloomsbury, 1930. F, W[illiam] C (b. 1856). Local and family historian. Publications include: Collections for the History of Staffordshire (1910); the introduction to Abstracts of the Bailiffs’ Accounts of Monastic and other Estates in the County of Warwick… (1923); and The Records of King Edward’s School, Birmingham (1924– ). F, E [David Mortier] (1888–1970). Studied in Berlin and G¨ottingen, where he received his doctorate in 1912; joined the staff of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in Munich, 1913; appointed Professor Extraordinarius in Berlin, 1917, Professor Ordinarius in Kiel, 1923, in G¨ottingen, 1928, and in Freiburg im Breisgau, 1931. As a Jew, forbidden by the Nazis to teach, 1933; Bevan Fellow of TCC, 1934; Corpus Professor of Latin at Oxford, 1935–53. Publications include Plautinisches im Plautus (1922), Iktus und Akzent im lateinischen Sprechvers (1928), and Kolon und Satz: Beobachtungen zur Gliederung des antiken Satzes (1932–3). F, J G[eorge] (1854–1941). Social anthropologist and classical scholar. Fellow of TCC, 1879. Publications include: The Golden Bough (1890, etc.) and many

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other works on anthropological subjects; a translation of Pausanius’s Description of Greece (6 vols., 1898); and edns. of Apollodorus: The Library (2 vols., 1921), and Publii Ovidii Nasonis Fastorum libri sex (5 vols., 1929). FBA, 1902; first British Professor of Social Anthropology, at Liverpool, 1908–22; knighted, 1914; FRS, 1920; OM, 1925. F, L, L, née Elizabeth Johanna de Boys Adelsdorfer (1854/5–1941). Writer and translator. Married J. G. Frazer, 22 Apr. 1896. Translated Adonis (1921) and the one-vol. epitome of The Golden Bough (1923) into French. G, R (1890–1972). Classical scholar (1910–12), Craven Student (1912–14), Junior Fellow (1919), Bursar (1919–60), and Senior Fellow (1923–60) of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. G, H[eathcote] W[illiam] (1878–1960). Literary and classical scholar. Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, since 1901, and tutor there, 1904–25. Published an edn. of Manilius II, 1911, which AEH declined to review, but which in 1930 he criticized roundly in the Preface to Manilius V : Ricks (1988), 388–91. Other publications include: an edn. of Statius (1906); several vols. of poetry (1912, 1919, 1925); studies of Wordsworth (1923), Keats (1926), and Collins (1928); The Oxford Book of Latin Verse (1912) and The Profession of Poetry (1912). CBE, 1918; Professor of Poetry at Oxford, 1923–8; FBA, 1931. G, J[ames] L[ouis] (1868–1947). Influential journalist. Editor of The Outlook (1904–6), The Pall Mall Gazette (1912–15), and The Observer (1908–42). G, S (1882–1943). Librarian and scholar. Educated at Eton and KCC; Librarian of the Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1908–19; Fellow, 1909–43; served in Foreign Office, 1916–19, where he was subsequently Librarian, 1920–43; Sandars Reader in Bibliography, Cambridge, 1935, specializing in the bibliography of Petronius; CBE, 1918; knighted, 1935. Publications include: the text of Petronius’ Satyricon with William Burnaby’s translation (1910); a revised edn. of William Adlington’s 1566 translation of Apuleius (1915); translations of Parthenius (1916) and Achilles Tatius (1917); and The Oxford Book of Medieval Latin Verse (1928). G, E (1869–1931). Daughter of the poet John Pattison Gibson. In 1911 she married the biblical scholar the Revd T[homas] K[elly] Cheyne (1841–1915). G, T[errot] R[eaveley] (1869–1943). Classical scholar and religious historian. Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, 1892–6; first Professor of Latin at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, 1896–1901; Classics Lecturer at St John’s College, Cambridge, 1901–11, and University Lecturer in Ancient History, 1911–39; Wilde Lecturer in Natural and Comparative Religion, Oxford, 1918–21; Proctor, 1914–15, 1919–20, and Public Orator, Cambridge University, 1920–39; Deacon at St Andrew’s Street Church, Cambridge, 1914–43. Publications include: Studies in Virgil (1904), The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire (1909), The Jesus of

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History (1917), Herodotus (1924), Democracy in the Ancient World (1927), The World of the New Testament (1930), and Greek Byways (1932). G, D (1887–1960). Publications include: a collection of poems, The Country Boy (1910), which shows AEH’s influence; a romance novel The Permanent Uncle (1912); and an autobiographical novel The Fortune (1923). He aired his anti-war, anti-imperialist views in the novels The Black Curtain (1920) and Nobody Knows (1923). In ch. 6 of The Nineteen Twenties (1945) he recounts a visit to AEH on 2 Jan. 1923: see HSJ 16 (1990), 50–3. G, I (1863–1930). Quain English student and lecturer at UCL, 1892–5; Professor of English Language and Literature at King’s College, London, 1903–30; a founder, original Fellow, and Secretary of the British Academy, 1902–30; knighted, 1919. His many publications concern works in the Old English, medieval, and Elizabethan periods. G, T (b. 1884). American composer. He was involved in composing music for The Mummy Monarch. A Musical Comedy (1907) and When Congress Went To Princeton. Musical Comedy (1908). G, E [William] (1849–1928). Man of letters and minor poet. He married Ellen (‘Nellie’) Epps (1850–1929) in 1875. Clark Lecturer in English Literature, TCC, 1884–5; moved to Hanover Terrace, Regent’s Park, London, in 1901, and there for many years entertained a large acquaintance on Sunday afternoons; friend of Asquith, who, as Prime Minister, sought his advice on many matters; Librarian of the House of Lords, 1904–14; knighted, 1925. Publications include the celebrated autobiography Father and Son (1907), The Life of Algernon Charles Swinburne (1917), and, with T. J. Wise, an edition of Swinburne’s letters (1918). G, Philip [Henry George] (1879–1959), naturalist, doctor, and author. Son of Edmund and Nellie Gosse. Author of A History of Piracy (1932). G, A[ndrew] S[ydenham] F[arrar] (1886–1978). Classical scholar. Fellow of TCC, 1911; Assistant Master at Eton, 1914–25; Teaching Fellow at TCC, 1925–46, and Lecturer in the University, 1925–51. He compiled a list of AEH’s writings and indexes to his classical papers, which was appended to his biographical study, A. E. Housman: A Sketch (1936). G, D[ouglas] L[eslie] (1909–91). Student at Trinity College, Dublin. BA, winter, 1931; MA, 5 Dec. 1934. G, I [Bertie] (1890–1937). English composer and poet. Born in Gloucester; entered the Royal College of Music, London, in 1911, and there studied under Sir Charles Stanford and later Ralph Vaughan Williams; served in the Gloucester Regiment as a private on the western front, 1915; wounded and gassed at Passchendaele, Sept. 1917, and sent to Bangour War Hospital near Edinburgh. Suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, he was admitted to Barnwood House Asylum, Gloucester, in 1922, and he died in the City of London Mental Hospital, Kent. He composed over 300 songs (including two Housman cycles, Ludlow and Teme, 1923, and The

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Western Playland, 1925), and published two vols. of poetry, Severn and Somme (1917), and War’s Embers (1919). H, R (1887–1957). Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, 1912; University Lecturer in Classics, 1926; editor of CQ, 1927–34. H, W G (1849–1928). Held a fellowship at Harvard, 1870–1, and taught there till 1880, except for the year 1876–7, which was spent in study at Leipzig and G¨ottingen; Professor of Latin at Cornell, 1880, and Chicago, 1892–1919; editor of CR, 1906. Publications include: The Art Of Reading Latin: How To Teach It (1887); with Carl Buck, Latin Grammar (1903); and A First Latin Book (1907). H, V. See Wood, Edward Frederick Lindley. H, F[rederick] W[illiam] (1868–1933). Fellow of SJCO, 1897, President, 1931; co-editor of CQ, 1911–30; co-editor of the Oxford edn. of Aristophanes (1900–1), and author of A Companion to Classical Texts (1913). H, G R (1888–1967). Writer and civil servant. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, 1909–11; worked for the Inland Revenue from 1912, becoming Assistant Secretary to the Board (1926) and Special Commissioner of Income Tax (1934). Publications (verse) include: Escape and Fantasy (1918), Pieces of Eight (1923), The Making (1926), Epigrams (1928), Light in Six Moods (1930), John Lord Satirist (1934) and Unknown Lovers (1934), and also the anthologies The Soul of Wit (1924), The Latin Portrait (1929), The Greek Portrait (1934), and Wit’s Looking Glass (1934). H, W (1908–88). Classical scholar. Entered TCC with major scholarship, 1926; won the Craven University Scholarship, 1927, the Chancellor’s Classical Medal, 1928, and the Porson Prize; distinction in Part II of the Classical Tripos, 1929; Assistant Lecturer in Classics, University of Manchester, 1931–2; taught at Eton, 1931–46; limited-term Fellow of TCC, 1932. H, D[onald] B[enjamin] (1901–94). Archaeologist. Entered TCC, 1922. Took part in excavations at Tunis (1923–4) and Carthage (1925, 1933), and in Egypt (1928–9). Professor of Latin at Aberdeen University, 1925; Assistant Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1929. Author of The Glass of the Greeks and Romans (1934) and Roman Glass from Karanis (1936). H, T (1840–1928). Eminent novelist and poet. He and AEH met on 18 June 1899, ‘for the first time probably’: Florence Emily Hardy, The Life of Thomas Hardy 1840–1928, rev. edn. (1972), 304. They held each other in esteem: see letters to Pollet and Martin, 5 Feb. and 28 Mar. 1933. AEH later contributed Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough (LP XXXVIII) to a MS vol. celebrating Hardy’s 80th birthday (2 June 1919), and was a pall-bearer at his funeral. For further information on the relationship between the two writers, see Naiditch (2005), 15–18. H, G ML, the Elder (1863–1947). American essayist and Wordsworth scholar.

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H, E (1877–1943). MA, Cambridge, LLD, Glasgow; Fellow of TCC, 1900, Lecturer, 1904–25, Tutor, 1914–25, and Senior Tutor, 1920–5; Registrar, Cambridge University, 1923; editor of CR, 1923. H, E[dmund] S[idney] P[ollock] (1877–1949). Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford (Brakenbury Scholar); articled to Hunter & Haynes of Lincoln’s Inn, 1900; Knight Commander of the Holy Sepulchre, 1926. Publications include: Standards of Taste in Art (1904), Religious Persecution, A Study In Political Psychology (1904) A Study of Bereavement: A Comedy in One Act (1914), Divorce as it Might Be (1915), The Decline of Liberty in England (1916), Lycurgus or the Future of Law (1925), and Much Ado About Women (1927). H, [Alexander George MacLennan] P (d. 1983). Student at Christ’s College Cambridge (BA, 1922, MA, 1926). He was the son of Alexander Pearce Higgins (on whom, see the letter of 28 Dec. 1924, n. 2). In 1924 his father took him as a dinner guest and introduced him to AEH. H, G[eorge] F[rancis] (1867–1948). Numismatist. Educated at University College School, UCL, and Merton College, Oxford; double first in classics, 1889, 1891; with AEH, an applicant for the Chair of Latin or Greek at UCL, 1892; Assistant in the Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum, 1893; Deputy Keeper, 1911; Keeper, 1912; FBA, 1917; Director and Principal Librarian of the British Museum, 1931–6; knighted, 1933. H, K T (1859–1931), née Tynan. Prolific Irish poet and novelist. She married Henry Albert Hinkson in 1893. H, H S. (b. 1887). American writer. Author of Invitation and Other Poems (1938) and For My Children (1943). H, M [James], MC (1870–1956). Son of the Revd Francis James Holland, Canon of Canterbury. Private Secretary to the Governor of the Gold Coast, 1896–7; served with Samory and Kazembe Expeditions, 1897, 1899, and during the First World War in France, 1915–16, and German East Africa, 1916–18. H, H [Arthur] (1884–1974). Lawyer. Admitted to TCC, 1903; Fellow, 1909–74; Dean of the College, 1922–50. Co-author with H. D. Hazeltine of Cambridge Studies in English Legal History (1921). H, J MD (1854–1905). Assistant Master, Radley College, 1881–2; Librarian and Secretary of the London Institution, 1882–6; Secretary of UCL, 1886–1900. For further information, see Naiditch (1988), 95–6. H, B [Williams] (16 January 1864–1 Dec. 1932). AEH’s younger brother; Foundation Scholar at The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove, 1875–82; won Sands-Cox scholarship to Queen’s College, Birmingham, 1882, and went on to Queen’s Hospital; FRCS, 1891, LRCP, London; on 24 July 1894, married Jane (‘Jeannie’), daughter of the late Matthew Dixon of Tardebigge, Worcestershire; Assistant School Medical Officer, Worcestershire County Council,

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1908; retired owing to ill health, 1929. A photograph appeared in the Housman Society’s Newsletter, 19 (Feb. 2004), 10. H, E (25 Jan. 1831–27 Nov. 1874). AEH’s father; Bromsgrove solicitor; Conservative in politics. For information on his two marriages, see under Lucy Agnes Housman. H, J. See under Basil Housman. H, K [Elizabeth] (10 Dec. 1862–17 Nov. 1945), AEH’s younger sister ‘Kate’. On 13 Aug. 1887 she married Edward William Symons, (q.v.). Her publications include: Unexplored Sources of Bath History (1921); The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bath, and its Ancient Foundations (1935), for research on which AEH made her a fully paid-up life member of the London Library (Pugh, Appendix E, lxiii); two reminiscences of AEH, reprinted from the school magazine The Edwardian as Memories of A. E. Housman and More Memories of A. E. Housman (1936); and a chapter on AEH’s boyhood in Recollections; and the Introduction to Richards (xi–xviii). H, L (18 July 1865–20 Feb. 1959), AEH’s younger brother. Writer, dramatist, art critic, book illustrator, and pioneer pacifist, feminist, and socialist. Publications include: vols. of poems Green Arras (1896), and Spikenard (1898); the notorious and much parodied An Englishwoman’s Love-Letters, published anonymously (1900); plays Bethlehem (1902), Angels and Ministers (1921), Little Plays of St Francis (1922), and Victoria Regina (1934); and novels John of Jingalo (1912), Sheepfold (1918), Trimblerigg (1924), and The Life of H. R. H. The Duke of Flamborough (1928), H, L A (b. Freshford, Somerset, 9 Oct. 1823, d. Hereford, 12 Nov. 1907). AEH’s stepmother. She married Edward Housman, her first cousin, in London on 26 June 1873. AEH’s mother, Sarah Jane Housman (b. Stroud, Glos., 24 Aug. 1828, d. Bromsgrove, 26 Mar. 1871), had married Edward Housman on 17 June 1858, with Lucy as bridesmaid. Sarah Jane was the daughter of the Revd John Williams, who was Rector of Woodchester, Co. Gloucester, from 1833 till his death on 30 June 1857. She died of cancer on AEH’s twelfth birthday when he was staying with the Wise family at Woodchester near Stroud. H D W, M [‘Margot’] D, L (1890–1974). Wife of Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis (1880–1946), 8th Baron Howard de Walden. H-W, A (1907–95). First class in Latin and in Greek, University of Wales at Bangor, followed by an M.Litt. at Cambridge University, 1928–30; Lecturer in the Department of Classics, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1934–62, and Senior Lecturer 1962–72. H, W G[eorge] (1873–1907). Translator of Tacitus and other Roman Studies by Gaston Boissier (1906), and author of The Oxford Movement: being selections from tracts for the times (1906). I, H ML (1862–1944). First class in both parts of the Classical Tripos at Cambridge, 1882, 1884; Fellow of TCC, 1886; called to the Bar and began to

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practise, but returned to TCC and was re-elected Fellow in 1894; elected Junior Bursar, and, in 1898, Senior Bursar, a post he held for thirty years. I, J (1888–1966), American letterpress printer, typographer, and publisher of radical materials; owner of the Oriole Press, Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. J, G C A (b. 1900). Fourth son of Moses Jackson (q.v.), and AEH’s godson. AEH’s light verse, Aids Towards Answering the First Question of the Catechism, is addressed to him: Poems (1997), 271. Over the years AEH wrote more than thirty letters to him (of which only one has come to light); they sent each other a number of publications; and he attended AEH’s funeral. See Naiditch (1995), 143, for further information. J, H (1839–1921). Fellow of TCC, 1864; Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, 1906–21; OM, 1908; Vice-Master of TCC, 1914; editor of The Journal of Philology, 1879–1921. Publications include The Fifth Book of the Nicomathean Ethics of Aristotle (1879) and Texts to Illustrate a Course of Elementary Lectures on the History of Greek Philosophy from Thales to Aristotle (1901). See Naiditch (1988), 165–71, for further information. J, H C (1879–1972). Son of Henry Jackson. Educated at TCC; joined 1st Bedfordshire and Herefordshire Regiment, 1899; Major, 1915; Director of Military Training, Army HQ, India, 1926–30; Major-General, 1930; Lieutenant-General, 1935; Knight Commander of the Bath, 1936. J, M (‘Marg’) A (alive, 1 Oct. 1936). Sister of Moses Jackson. Lived at Vales Court, Ramsgate, Kent: Naiditch (1995), 134 n. J, M [John] (14 Apr. 1858–14 Jan. 1923). ‘Dear Mo’, AEH’s ‘greatest friend’ who ‘had more influence on my life than anyone else’ and who was ‘largely responsible for my writing poetry’. At least two photographs of him hung in AEH’s rooms in TCC, and he was the only person to whom AEH publicly dedicated a book, the edn. of Manilius, which contained the dedicatory poem Sodali Meo M. I. Iackson. AEH maintained a life-long devotion to him. It is extremely doubtful that AEH’s feelings were reciprocated in like measure, and there is no evidence whatsoever that the relationship was, or could have been, at any time physical. AEH and he met at St John’s College, Oxford, where in the summer of 1877 they both won scholarships, Jackson in science, AEH in classics, prior to entry in Oct. 1877. From 1880 onwards they shared accommodation with A. W. Pollard. Jackson’s interests included rowing and running. After graduating with first class honours, from 25 June 1881 onwards he worked in HM Patent Office, London, and shared accommodation with his brother Adalbert. AEH joined them for about two years. In 1883 Jackson received a doctorate in science from UCL, and at the end of 1884, Adalbert graduated from UCL and moved away to become a schoolmaster. In 1885, probably after an altercation, AEH and Jackson decided to live apart. Jackson left at the end of 1887 to become Principal of Sind College, Karachi. He returned

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on leave to England in 1889, and married the widow Mrs Rosa Julia Chambers on 9 Dec., but AEH was not invited to the wedding. At AEH’s instigation, he was elected a fellow of UCL in Jan. 1894. He returned for a year-and-a-half of leave in 1897–8. He was not successful in his application for the Quain Chair of Physics at UCL, and AEH was not successful in having him appointed to the Headmastership of University College School. By 1898 AEH and Jackson seem to have become reconciled, and in 1900 Jackson asked AEH to stand as godfather for his fourth son, Gerald Christopher Arden Jackson. Jackson was again on leave in England in 1902, 1905, and 1908. After retiring in 1910, he lived on a farm (‘Applegarth’) in British Columbia. He died from stomach cancer on 14 Jan. 1923. For further information, see Naiditch (1995), 132–44 (the principal source); Poems (1997), 393–4, 454; and Robert B. Todd, ‘M. J. Jackson in British Columbia: Some Supplementary Information’, HSJ 26 (2000), 59–61. Only AEH’s last letter to Jackson (19 Oct. 1922) has come to light. J, R. See previous entry. J, M[ontague] R[hodes] (1862–1936). Biblical scholar, palaeographer, medievalist, and writer of ghost stories. King’s Scholar at Eton, 1876; Fellow of KCC, 1887; Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1893–1908; Provost of KCC, 1905–18; Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, 1913–15; Provost of Eton, 1918–36; FBA, 1913; OM, 1930. J, G. French translator. Published an adaptation of Patrick Kearney’s A Man’s Man in 1934. J, F[rancis] J[ohn] H[enry] (1853–1923). Fellow of TCC, 1878, and College Lecturer in Classics, 1881–9; University Librarian, 1889–1923; Sandars Reader in Bibliography at Cambridge, 1907–8. Publications include an edn. of the seventh-century Hiberno-Latin poem Hisperica Famina (1908). J, H F (1851–1928). Friend of the writer and artist Samuel Butler, with whom he collaborated on several musical compositions. Publications include various instalments of Butler’s notebooks, 1912–21, and a biography, Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (1835–1902) (1919). J, H S (1867–1939). First class in literae humaniores, Oxford, 1890; Non-official Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, 1890; Fellow, 1896; Camden Professor of Ancient History and Fellow of Brasenose College, 1919; Principal of the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth, 1927; Vice-Chancellor of the federal University of Wales, 1929–30; FBA, 1915; knighted, 1933. Publications include: an edn. of Thucydides’ Histories (2 vols., 1898, 1900), Companion to Roman History (1912), and the revised and augmented A Greek–English Lexicon, by H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, 9th edn. (1928–40). J, M. Founder in 1922 with A. J. A. Symons (1900–41) of the First Edition Club, a centre for bibliographical information and a dining club in Bloomsbury. Editor of the travel periodicals The Sandgate Budget (1897) and The Bungalow

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(1899–1909), and author of In the Days of Ancient Rome: being a Commentary on a series of etchings by W. Walcot (1913). K, C[harles] F[rancis] (1848–1917). Numismatist and minor writer. Began work in the department of medals and coins of the British Museum, 1872; resigned, 1887. K, G [Langdon] (1887–1982). Surgeon, bibliographer, and literary scholar. MD, 1918; FRCS, 1920. Publications include Blood Transfusion (1922); bibliographies of John Donne (1914), William Blake (1921), and Sir Thomas Browne (1924); and complete edns. of Blake and Browne (respectively, 3 vols., 1925, 6 vols., 1928–31). K, U (1902–68). German classical scholar. In 1926 he published ‘Die ¨ Uberlieferung Juvenals’ in Klassisch-philologische Studien, 6. His edn. of Juvenal was published at Munich in 1950. L, A (1902–70). Till 1919, Allen Lane Williams. He learned the book trade under his uncle John Lane (q.v.), and served on the board of directors of ‘The Bodley Head’ publishing house in 1925, chairing it in 1930. In 1936 he founded Penguin Books. L, J (1854–1925). Set up as bookseller and then publisher with Charles Elkin Mathews, 1887–94; published the first book under ‘The Bodley Head’ imprint, 1889; produced the Yellow Book, 1894–7, and works by several prominent writers of the fin de siècle (Davidson, Dowson, Le Gallienne, J. A. Symonds, Francis Thompson, William Watson, Wilde). L, G T (1871–1949). Fellow of TCC, 1904–49; Lecturer at TCC, 1904–32; Tutor, 1919–29; Reader in Constitutional History at Cambridge, 1931–7. L, H [Macilwain] (1894–1957). Open Scholar, Lincoln College, Oxford, 1914; first class in literae humaniores, 1918; Fellow of SJCO, 1919; University Lecturer in Roman History, 1927–36. He contributed to the Cambridge Ancient History: 6 chs. in vol. 9 (1932); 1 ch. in vol. 10 (1934); and 2 chs. in vol. 11 (1936). L, G[eorge] M[ervyn] (1915–88). Entered TCC from Bedford School, 1934; first classes in both parts of the Classical Tripos, 1935, 1937; Bell’s Exhibitioner, 1934; Davies Scholar, 1935. L, J G. Columbia University, 1929–33; Editor of Lion and Crown, 1932, corresponding with leading American poets of the day. Naiditch (1995), 41, identifies him as ‘James George Leippert alias ‘‘Alfred Housman’’ Leippert alias ‘‘Edwin Robinson’’ Leippert alias J. Ronald Lane-Latimer, a young man who had invented an unusual method for obtaining letters from notable literary men’. L, P (1858–1939). American collector, based in Cleveland, Ohio.

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L, W E (1876–1944). American poet. Ph.D., Columbia, 1904; Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin, 1906–44. Publications include: Sonnets and Poems (1906), Two Lives (1922), and a verse translation of Lucretius (1916). L, W[allace] M[artin] (1858–1937). First class in literae humaniores, Oxford, 1881; Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, 1884–99; Professor of Humanity, University of St Andrews, 1899–1937. Publications include: The Latin Language (1894); Introduction to Latin Textual Emendation (1896), in which he argued that emendation should be limited to the correction of scribal errors; edns. of Martial (1903) and Plautus (1904–5); and Early Irish Minuscule Script (1910), Early Welsh Script (1912), and Glossaria Latina (1926–32). On AEH and Lindsay, see Naiditch (1995), 75–9. L, R[obert] Y[oung] (b. 1905). Entrance Scholar at TCC, 1923; Senior Scholar, 1924; awarded 1: 2 in both parts of the Historical Tripos, 1925, 1926; BA, 1926. L, E[dward] V[errall] (1868–1938). Prolific English man of letters. Publications encompass fiction, cricket, travel, art, and the works of Charles and Mary Lamb. L, E P H (1865–1940). MRCS, LRCP. Educated at University School, Hastings and King’s College, London, and worked at Sussex County Hospital and Guy’s Hospital, London. Author of several vols. of poetry, including Devices and Desires (1904), Songs from the Downs and Dunes (1908), and The Other Side of Silence (1915). MC, D[ugald] S[utherland] (1859–1948). Painter, poet, and journalist. Art critic of The Spectator, 1890–6, and of The Saturday Review, 1896–1906. Keeper, Tate Gallery, London, 1906–11; Trustee, 1917–24. M, J[ohn] W[illiam] (1859–1945). Classical scholar, translator, and poet. Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, 1882–4; worked in the education department of the Privy Council (later the Board of Education), 1884–1919; Professor of Poetry at Oxford, 1906–11; FBA, 1914, and President, 1932–6; President of the Classical Association, 1922–3; President of the English Association, 1929–30. Classical publications include: a prose translation of the Aeneid (1885); Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology (1890), Latin Literature (1895), Virgil and his Meaning to the World of To-day (1923); and an edn. of the Aeneid (1930). AEH and he held each other in esteem: he was one of the three advisers AEH consulted on the contents of LP (see the letters of 18 and 25 July 1922). M, E [Robert Dalrymple] (1879–1951). Read classics at Christ Church, Oxford; third class in honour moderations, 1900, and a fourth in literae humaniores, 1902; worked in the departments of textiles, 1905, and of architecture and sculpture, 1909, at the Victoria and Albert Museum and, following war service chiefly in the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Information, was appointed as the Museum’s director, 1925. Produced English Ecclesiastical Embroideries (1907), the Catalogue of Italian Plaquettes (1924), and in collaboration with Margaret Longhurst, the Catalogue of Italian

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Sculpture (1932). His Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard were published as Italian Sculpture of the Renaissance (1935). CBE, 1919; knighted, 1933. ML, M [Shaw] (b. 1901). Poet and translator (into French). Publications include: Poems (1926); Anthologie de la poésie fran¸caise. Les modernes (1929), Douze Sonnets et Un Poème (1929), and Poèmes (1930). M, F [Orridge] (1851–1936). Publisher: chairman of Messrs Macmillan and Company, 1896–1936. Knighted in 1909 for his work as chairman, from 1903, of the board of management of the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic in London. M, W. Manager of the Richards Press. M L V, P (1872–1956). Youngest child of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (1831–1917) and Queen Victoria’s third daughter Princess Helena (1846–1923). She wrote 2,000 letters in her own hand to secure contributions (including AEH’s) to the elaborate doll’s house that was presented to Queen Mary. M, E (1852–1940). American poet and anthologist. Author of The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems. AEH made fun of one of his literary echoes: Poems (1997), 271, 553. M, H (1914–94). American bibliophile. Born in Wichita, Kansas; moved permanently to Philadelphia when 12; educated at the Friends’ Central School, Pennsylvania, and at the University of Pennsylvania; served three years in the Air Force in the South Pacific, and then worked for thirty years as international advertising representative (among other things) for the New York Times. He and AEH never met. His collection of Housmaniana is incorporated in that of Seymour Adelman at BMC. M, F[rancis] S[ydney] (1863–1943). Historian. Publications include: The Unity of Western Civilization: Essays (1915), Progress and History: Essays (1919), and Science and Civilization (1923). M, J [Edward] (1878–1967). Poet, novelist, and playwright. Poetry includes Salt-Water Ballads (1902), Ballads (1903), Ballads and Poems (1910), The Everlasting Mercy (1911), and Reynard the Fox (1919). Prose includes Dauber (1913) and Gallipoli (1916) and the novels Lost Endeavour (1910) and The Bird of Dawning (1933). His most successful play was The Tragedy of Nan (1909). Moved to Boars Hill near Oxford, 1917, and set up a theatre in his house. Poet Laureate, 1930; OM, 1935. M, A M B (1867–1959). Linguist, and author, 1901–32, of travel books, three of them on Russia; later FRGS. She attended AEH’s Latin classes at UCL from 1897 till spring, 1900: Meakin to Grant Richards, 22 June 1943 (LC-GR1 MS). In The Times, 7 May 1936, she testified to the high opinion of AEH’s scholarship held by Professor Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, whom

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she had visited in Charlottenburg in 1926: note reproduced in Richards, 84 n. AEH knew of her visit: see letter to Frazer, 22 Oct. 1927. M W[illiam] A[ugustus] (1860–1930). Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, 1894–1927. Published works are mainly on Lucretius and include an edn., 1907, and The Archetype of Lucretius (1913). M, E[dward] H[arry] W[illiam] (1889–1952). Writer. MA, FRSL. Only son of Sir Edward William Meyerstein. Assistant at the Department of Manuscripts, British Museum, 1913–18. Publications include: vols. of poetry The Door (1911), Selected Poems (1935); a translation, The Elegies of Propertius done in English Verse (1935); a novel, Terence Duke (1935); plays, Heddon (1921) and The Monument (1923); and a collection of short stories, The Pageant and Other Stories (1934). M, W [John] (1852–1948). Journalist, poet, editor, and biographer. Husband of poet Alice (1847–1922) from 1877. M-D, E [John Henry Vanderstegen] (1889–1972). British diplomat. First Secretary and at times Chargé d’Affaires at Brussels, 1924–7, and Copenhagen, 1927–8; Counsellor of Embassy, Buenos Aires, 1929–33; Minister to Uruguay, 1934–41. M, H [Edward] (1879–1932). Poet, editor, and bookseller. Founded Poetry Review (1912), Poetry and Drama (1913–14), and (Monthly) Chapbook (1919–25). Published four vols. of his own poetry (1917–28), and a survey, Some Contemporary Poets (1920); and founded the Poetry Bookshop, Bloomsbury (1912–35), an important venue for publications, poetry readings, and meetings. M, H (1860–1936). American poet and anthologist, and editor of Poetry (Chicago), 1912. Compiled The New Poetry: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Verse in English (1923). M, M A. Publishing house to which Grant Richards’s business was sold by the trustee, H. A. Moncrieff, after Richards’s bankruptcy in 1904/5. M, S[ylvanus] G[riswold] (1878–1970). Professor of Spanish at the University of California, Berkeley. M, T (1885–1974). Writer and anthologist. Edited Georgian Poetry 1918–1919 (1920), and The Best Poems of 1923 (1924), The Best Poems of 1925 (1926), etc. M, G [Bert] (1896–1969). American author and critic. Set up The New School, a pioneering creative writing programme, in New York’s Greenwich Village, 1931; editor of various literary magazines (e.g. Secession, 1922–4); member of faculty of Middlebury College, Vermont, 1930–3, 1935. M, [George] G [Aimé] (1866–1957). Classical scholar. Born in Sydney, Australia; educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and SJCO; first class in literae humaniores, 1888; Fellow of New College, Oxford, 1888; Professor of Greek,

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Glasgow University, 1889–99; returned to New College, Oxford, 1905; Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, 1908–36; FBA, 1910. Publications include: History of Greek Literature (1897); an edn. of Euripides (1902–9); translations of Euripides and Aristophanes (1902 onwards); The Rise of the Greek Epic (1907); Four Stages of Greek Religion (1912), extended in 1925 to Five Stages, Euripides and his Age (1913); and The Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey (1915). N, H F (1857–1944). Demonstrator in Experimental Physics, Cambridge University, 1886–90; FRS, 1902; Fellow of TCC, 1909; President of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1907–9; Professor of Astrophysics at Cambridge, 1909–28; first Director, Solar Physics Observatory at Cambridge, 1913–28. Publications include The Spectroscope and its Work (1910). N, A[rthur] D[arby] (1902–63). BA at TCC, 1922; Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, 1923–30, and University Lecturer in Classics, 1926–30; Visiting Lecturer on the History of Religions at Harvard, 1929–30; Frothingham Professor of the History of Religions at Harvard, and editor of the Harvard Theological Review, 1930–63. Publications include an edn. of Sallustius: Concerning the Gods and the Universe (1926), and Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (1933). O, F[rancis] W[all] (1864–1951). Quain Professor and Emeritus Professor of Botany at UCL, 1888–1929, 1929–35; Professor of Botany, Cairo University, 1929–35. His recollections of AEH are included in Richards, 438–40. O, E [Alexandra], daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Phineas Cowan. In 1902 she married Lassa [Francis Lawrence] Oppenheim, and they had one daughter, Mary. Oppenheim (1858–1919) studied law in Germany before moving to England in 1895. He was Lecturer in Law at the London School of Economics, 1898–1908, and Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge, 1908–19. His publications include International Law: A Treatise, 2 vols. (1905, 1906), and Manual of Military Law (1912). O, F[rederick] C[harles]. Literary journalist. Author of Kultur and Anarchy (poems, 1917), Chatterton’s Apology, with a short essay on Blake and a note on Cowper (1930), and Francis Thompson (1936). P, R S J (1858–1935). Fellow of TCC, 1881; Vice-Master, 1919. P W[illiam] G[eorge] (b. 1888). English man of letters. Publications include Smoke Rings and Roundelays: Blendings from Prose and Verse since Raleigh’s Time (1924) and The Private Letter Books of Sir Walter Scott (1930). P, L[eonidas] W[arren], Jr (1873–1945). Professor of English in the University of Texas, 1919, author of textbooks, and compiler of anthologies. P, A[lfred] C[hilton] (1861–1935). Gladstone Professor of Greek at Liverpool, 1919; Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, 1921–8, and Fellow of TCC. Publications include: Fragments of Sophocles, begun by Jebb and continued by

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Headlam (1917); Sophoclis fabulae (1924), in a review of which AEH described him as ‘an acute grammarian, a vigilant critic, and an honest man’ (Classical Papers, 1093); and edns. of Euripides’ Helena (1903), Heraclidae (1907), and Phoenissae (1909). FBA, 1924. He resigned at Cambridge owing to ill health. P, A S (1881–1964). Ph.D., Harvard, 1905; Instructor in Classics, Harvard, 1906–9; Assistant Professor, University of Illinois, 1909–24; Professor of Latin, Amherst College, 1924–7, and President, 1927–32; Professor of Latin Language and Literature, Harvard, 1932–50. Publications include edns. of Cicero’s De Diuinatione (1920) and of the fourth book of the Aeneid (1935). P, J[ohn] S[winnerton] (1873–1926). First class in literae humaniores, Oxford, 1895; Lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford, 1896; Tutor, 1898; Professor of Greek at Glasgow University, 1899; Professor of Humanity, 1906. Publications include: texts of Propertius (1901) and of Statius’s Silvae (1905); an Index verborum Propertianus (1906); a translation of Philostratus, in Honour of Apollonius of Tyana (1912); and two vols. of poetry (1902, 1918). P, J B.,  S. London literary agents. P, [John] A (11 July 1860–16 Mar. 1925). Fellow of TCC, 1884; married Mildred Barham Bond, 1885; tutor at Wren and Gurney’s coaching establishment, Bayswater, 1886–94; Professor of Greek at UCL, 1894–1925. He was one of AEH’s best friends, and AEH wrote an admiring and affectionate memoir of him as the preface to Nine Essays by Arthur Platt (1927): see Selected Prose, 154–60; Ricks (1988), 344–8. P, M. See the previous entry. Her father was Sir Edward Bond (1815–98), Principal Librarian of the British Museum, 1878–88; her grandfather, R. H. Barham of Ingoldsby Legends fame. P A[rthur] W[illiam] (1859–1944). English bibliographer and editor. Met AEH and shared rooms with him and Moses Jackson during their time at SJCO; first class in literae humaniores, 1881; entered the printed books department of the British Museum, 1883; Keeper of Printed Books, 1919–24; Honorary Professor of Bibliography, University of London, 1919–32; Director of the Early English Texts Society, 1930–7. Publications include: Chaucer (1893); edns. of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella (1888), Herrick’s poems (1891), Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1894), The Towneley Plays with George England (1897), and The Macro Plays with F. J. Furnivall (1904); Shakespeare Folios and Quartos: A Study in the Bibliography of Shakespeare’s Plays, 1594–1685 (1909); Fine Books (1912); and A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475–1640, begun by Gilbert Richard Redgrave (1926). P, M. Professor of English at the Lycée d’Oran, Algeria. P, J P (1853–1926). Fellow of TCC, 1878–1926; Professor of Comparative Philology at UCL, 1880–1910, and, for the last three years, at the University of London; 1884–1909, Lecturer, and, for the last six years, Senior

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Lecturer in Classics at TCC; FBA, 1907; 1909–26, Professor, and, for the last six years, Emeritus Professor of Latin at Liverpool. Editor of the Corpus Poetarum Latinorum (2 vols., 1894, 1905), for which respectively AEH edited the texts of Ovid’s Ibis and Juvenal. Editor of CR, 1898–1906, and of CQ, 1907–10. Other publications include: Select Elegies of Propertius (1881); edns. of Lucan, books 7 and 8 (1896, 1917); and a text and translation of Tibullus (1913). Naiditch (1988), 74–91, provides further information. P, J[ohn] E (1912–98). Attended King Edward VI School for Boys, Birmingham, 1926–30; won a Scholarship at TCC, 1930, and graduated in the first class of both parts of the Classical Tripos, 1931, 1933; awarded a Craven Scholarship, the Greek prose prize, the Porson Prize, and Sir William Browne medal; elected limited-term Fellow of TCC, 1934, following a thesis on The Moral and Historical Principles of Thucydides. Published The Rendel Harris Papyri of Woodbrooke College, Birmingham (1936). P, J[ohn] B[oynton] (1894–1984). Novelist, playwright, and broadcaster. P, H T[rowbridge] (1886–1948). American poet. Published vols. of poetry include Mothers and Men (1916), Harvest of Time (1933), and First Symphony: A Sonnet Sequence (1935). P, J (1877–1961). MA, Edinburgh University, 1900; Lecturer in Italian at Edinburgh, 1920, and Reader, 1938–47; editor of anthologies The South African Book of English Verse (1915) and A First Book of Italian Verse (1930); and a collector of MSS and rare books. P, T (‘Tom’) W (1885–1945). Admitted to TCC, 1905; BA, third class in the Classical Tripos, 1908; MA, 1912; as a student took part in amateur dramatic productions and was president of the Amateur Dramatic Club; ordained curate of Lytham, 1909; Chaplain of TCC, 1911–14; Chaplain to the Forces, 1914–19, and Assistant Chaplain-General, 1918; Head of Cambridge House, the university mission in Camberwell, 1919–25; Chaplain to the King from 1922; Warden of the College of St Saviour and Canon of Southwark, 1925–9; Canon of Bristol, 1929–32; Chaplain of Balliol College, Oxford, 1932–8. Publications include Psychology and the Christian Life (1921) and A Parson’s Dilemmas (1930). His wife Dora, whom he married in 1918, wrote a reminiscence of AEH reading Horace, Odes, 4. 7, and his own version of it (More Poems V) in one of his lectures: see Richards, 289. She also wrote a memoir of her husband: Tom Pym: A Portrait (1952). Q -C, A (1863–1944). Editor of The Oxford Book of English Verse (1900, etc.) Knighted, 1910. Appointed King Edward Professor of English Literature at Cambridge, 1912. Fellow of Jesus College, 1912. R, H. (1868–1944). Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, 1894–1934; University Lecturer in Classics, 1926–34. R, A[llen] B[eville] (1872–1955), Assistant Master at Eton, 1895–1925; Master of Magdalene College, 1925–47. Nicknamed ‘The Ram’.

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R, L M J, née Buchanan (d. 1936). From 1881 wife of AEH’s UCL colleague William Ramsay (1852–1916), Professor of Chemistry at UCL, 1887–1912, who was knighted in 1902 and won the Nobel Prize in 1904. R, W  G C (1859–1939). American author and lecturer. R, [Franklin Thomas] G (21 Oct. 1872–24 Feb. 1948). Publisher and author. Son of Franklin Richards, who from 1894 was a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford; left school at sixteen and served on the staff of The Review of Reviews, 1 May 1890–end of 1896; founded publishing firm, 1 Jan. 1897; published the 2nd edn. of ASL, 1898; following marriage that year, his first wife Elsina and he had three sons, Gerard, Geoffrey, and Charles, and a daughter, Gioia; 1897–9, published works of Maurice Materlinck, G. B. Shaw, Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, Grant Allen, Alice Meynell, and also the first works of John Masefield and G. K. Chesterton; went bankrupt, 1905, 1926; author of Caviare (1912), Valentine (1913), Bittersweet (1915), Double Life (1920), Every Wife (1924), Fair Exchange (1927), The Coast of Pleasure (1928), The Hasty Marriage (1928), Vain Pursuits (1931), and Memories of a Misspent Youth (1932); published LP (1922), and AEH’s edns. of Manilius (1903–30) and Juvenal (1905); divorced, 1914; married Maria Magdalena Csan´ady (b. 1889/90), 2 July 1915; shared AEH’s enjoyment of food, wine, and travel. His Housman 1897–1936 (1941; corrected reprint, 1942) gives particulars of their business dealings and long friendship. R, O[liffe] L[egh] (1881–1977). Fellow of KCC, 1905, and College Lecturer, 1909; Professor of Humanity, Edinburgh University, 1919–48. R, M[aurice] R[oy] (1890–1969). Literary scholar. BA, Balliol College, Oxford, 1913; Ordained, 1919; Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Balliol, 1920–45; Chaplain, 1920–32. R, F E[gleston] (1884–1963). BA and MA, Wesleyan University, 1906, 1907; Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1911; Fellow in Greek, 1909–11, and Assistant in Greek, 1911–12, at Chicago; Instructor and Assistant Professor of Greek, University of Michigan, 1912–20; Assistant to the President, University of Michigan, 1921–53; Director of Michigan University Press, 1930–54. R, D[enys] K[ilham] (1903–76). Secretary to the Society of Authors, London, 1930–63. R, R[ichard] Ellis (1879–1953). At SJCO, 1897–1901, where he was vicepresident of the Essay Society; Literary Editor of the New Statesman, 1928, of Time and Tide, 1933, and of Life and Letters, 1934–5, and also a writer, critic, and minor composer. Publications include: Henrik Ibsen (1912); a short story The Other End (1923); and Reading for Pleasure, and Other Essays (1928). R, S[ydney] C[astle] (1887–1966). Assistant Secretary, 1911, and Secretary to Cambridge University Press, 1922–48; Lecturer for the English Tripos, 1919–45;

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President of the Johnson Society, 1929. Fellow, 1929, and Bursar, 1935–6, of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Publications include A Picture Book of British History (1914–32), The Story of Doctor Johnson (1919), and A History of Cambridge University Press (1921). R, D[onald] S[truan] (1885–1961). Fellow of TCC, 1909; Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, 1928. Publications include A Handbook of Greek and Roman Architecture (1929) and The Early Age of Greece (vol. 2, from the notes of Sir William Ridgeway in collaboration with A. S. F. Gow, 1931). R, P [Coursolles] (1883–1941), daughter of Major Charles Jones of the Royal Artillery, and wife of D. S. Robertson, whom she married in 1909. R, O (1911–72). BA, DePauw University, 1933; Assistant Instructor of English at Vincennes University, 1934. R, [Edward] D (1871–1940). Professor of Persian at UCL, 1896–1901; Principal of Calcutta Madrasa, 1901–11; Director of the School of Oriental Studies, and Professor of Persian, London University, 1916–37; knighted, 1918. R, A [Mary] (1869–1955). Eldest child of artist Walter John Knewstub of Chelsea, who was a friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Actress: stage name ‘Alice Kingsley’. Married William Rothenstein on 11 June 1899. R, W (1872–1945). English painter. Did three portrait drawings of AEH in 1906, and two more in 1915. Professor of Civic Art, Sheffield University, 1917–26; Principal of the Royal College of Art, 1920–35; Trustee of the Tate Gallery, 1927–33; Member of the Royal Fine Art Commission, 1931–3; knighted, 1931. R, W[illiam] H[enry] D[enham] (1863–1950). Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, 1888–94; taught at Bedford Modern School, 1888–90, Cheltenham College, 1890–5, and Rugby School, 1895–1902, and was Headmaster of Perse Grammar School, Cambridge, 1902–28; Editor of The Year’s Work in Classical Studies, 1906–10, and, with A. D. Godley, CR, 1911–20. Publications include: Demonstrations in Greek Iambic Verse (1899), Demonstrations in Latin Elegiac Verse (1899), Greek Votive Offerings (1902), and an edn. of Lucretius (1924). R, W E. (1876–1931). American printer and typographer. R, E (1871–1937). Physicist. Published Radioactivity (1904), and developed the nuclear theory of the atom, 1906–14; Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge, 1919–37; FRS, 1903, and president, 1925–30; Nobel Prize for chemistry, 1908; knighted, 1914; OM, 1925; baron, 1931. S, J (1862–1931). Literary editor (of William Blake) and philologist. Publications include The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales (1926), Romane Gilia: Poems in Romani with English Renderings (1931), and XXI Welsh Gypsy Folk Tales (1933)

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S, S [Louvain] (1886–1967). Poet. Publications include: war poems in The Old Hunstman (1917) and Counter-Attack (1918); and semi-autobiographical vols. Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (1928) and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930). S, G [Helen]. Attended AEH’s Latin lectures at UCL as an undergraduate, 1900–3. S, C E (1864–1924). Poet and bibliographer. A member of the staff of the CUL, and Secretary to the club of Oxford men at Cambridge. S, A[lwyn] F[aber] (1884–1969). Librarian of TCC, 1919–23; The Librarian, University Library, Cambridge, 1923–49; Professorial Fellow of KCC, 1923. S-J, R[olfe] A[rnold] (1878–1959). Journal editor and literary scholar. Worked on The Daily News (1902–13), founded The New Weekly (1914), wrote leading articles for The Daily Chronicle (1919–30), and The Spectator (1933–5), of which he was also assistant editor; and became editor of the London Mercury (1934–9), which strove to publish writers both new and established. Publications include Modernism and Romance (1908) and Personality in Literature, 1913–1931 (1931). S, M (1882–1978). Till 12 July 1910, Percy Martin Secker Klingender. Publisher since 1910, and founder of London firm known as Martin Secker Ltd (1917–36). S, W[illiam] H[ugh] (25 Feb. 1900–10 Mar. 1981) Research student at St John’s College, Cambridge, under AEH’s supervision, 1925; Ph.D. thesis on Quaestiones Exegeticae Sidonianae, being new interpretations of difficult passages in the works of Apollinaris Sidonius approved, 27 June 1927, and published in Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society, 1930; Lecturer in Classics, University of Reading, 1927; Reader, 1931; Hulme Professor of Classics, University of Manchester, 1937–67. See Ian Rogerson, ‘W. H. Semple: A Research Student of A. E. Housman’, HSJ 25 (1999), 70–2 (where, on p. 71, the date of AEH’s testimonial and letter of 2 June 1927 are given wrongly as 27 Mar. 1927). Richards, 327, quotes a letter he received from Semple: ‘I was Housman’s pupil during the years 1925–7, and later I often consulted him about points of Latinity which puzzled me and, when in Cambridge, I always went to see him. To his direction and criticism and support I owe more than I could ever express.’ S, W[alter] W[arren] (1882–1927). Entered UCL in 1899, taking classes in various languages, including Latin with AEH, 1899–1902. Placed in the third class in English Language and Literature; MA, 1903; D.Litt., 1915; served as Assistant Secretary and then as Secretary on the executive and administrative staff of UCL, 1903–27, and as Lecturer in Scottish History, 1923–7. Publications include: Two Fifteenth Century Franciscan Rules (1914), Some New Sources of the Life of Blessed Agnes of Bohemia (1915), and Blessed Giles of Assisi (1918).

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S, B. ‘Lecturer in English at the University of Allahabad’: Maas, 386 n. S, J [Tressider] (1881–1968). Fellow of KCC, 1906; University Lecturer in Classics, 1908–33; Vice-Provost of KCC, 1929–33, Provost, 1933–54; specialist in Greek tragedy, both in publications and in productions; Co-editor with R. W. Livingstone of CR, Feb. 1921–Feb. 1923; MBE, 1919. S, W[alter] H[ayward] [Francis] (1906–90). English classical scholar and poet, noted principally for translations. After taking a second class in literae humaniores at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1928, he taught classics at Ampleforth. S, P (1865–1962). Worked for the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1913; first Librarian of the new English Faculty Library, 1914; Fellow of Oriel College, 1921–36; University Reader in Textual Criticism, 1927; Goldsmith’s Reader in English Literature, 1930–5. Published Shakespearian Punctuation (1911) and ProofReading in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1935), and, with his wife Evelyn, completed the edn., begun by C. H. Herford, of the works of Ben Jonson (11 vols., 1925–52). S, O (1906–90). Took his doctorate at the University of G¨ottingen in 1931 with a thesis entitled Prosodische und metrische Gesetze der Iambenk¨urzung (published, 1934). Received a government scholarship to work at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Institute at Munich, but his scholarship was not renewed under Nazi rule in 1934, whereupon he emigrated to Scotland. S, D[avid] A[nsell] (1866–1938). AEH’s pupil at The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove, 1881–2. He found AEH a singularly inspiring sixth-form teacher: Proceedings of the British Academy, 25 (1939), 340. After a career as a schoolmaster, he became Lecturer in Latin, Glasgow University, 1900, and held Professorships of Latin at Cardiff (1903), Bedford College, London (1914) and Liverpool (1920). In 1911 he applied for AEH’s chair at UCL: Naiditch (1988), 35 n., 228. Principal publication: Towards a Text of the ‘Metamorphoses’ (1927). S, A (1873–1949). Lecturer in Latin at Aberdeen University, 1897–1903; Yates Professor of New Testament Greek and Exegesis at Oxford University, 1903–11; Regius Professor of Humanity, Aberdeen University, 1911–37; Editor of the Oxford Latin Dictionary, 1933–9. Other publications include: A Study of Ambrosiaster (1905), Novum Testamentum Graece (1910), The Text and Canon of the New Testament (1913), and Pelagius’s Expositions of Thirteen Epistles of St Paul (1922, 1926, 1931). S, J [Hanbury Angus] (1906–92). Bibliophile, editor, and essayist. Educated at Winchester College, 1919–25, and New College, Oxford; first class in literae humaniores, 1929; Fellow of All Souls College, 1929–52; awarded the Chancellor’s Prize for Latin Verse, 1929; called to the Bar, Middle Temple, 1931, and practised in Chancery Division, 1931–9. Publications include: edns. of John

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Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1923), The Poems of Bishop Henry King (1925), and selected poems by Abraham Cowley (1926); Half-Lines and Repetitions in Virgil (1931) and Sense and Poetry: Essays on the Place of Meaning in Contemporary Verse (1934). He wrote the pioneering study ‘Echoes in the Poetry of A. E. Housman’, Nineteenth Century and After, 115 (Feb. 1934), 243–56. His Housman collection is now at SJCO. S-S, T (1871–1929). American sculptor and portrait medallist. His medallions of English writers are reproduced in his Men of Letters of the British Isles (1924). S, J[ohn] C[ollings] (1884–1958). Poet, anthologist, essayist, and influential literary journalist. Literary editor of the New Statesman, 1913; founder and editor of the monthly literary periodical The London Mercury, 1919–34; chief literary critic of The Observer; knighted, 1933. Publications include: parodies Imaginary Speeches (1912) and Steps to Parnassus (1913); vols. of poetry The Three Hills (1913) and The Survival of the Fittest (1916); and anthologies A Book of Women’s Verse (1921), The Comic Muse (1921), and Selections from Modern Poets (1921–34). S, L (1849–1931). Arthur John Bigge. Assistant Private Secretary to Queen Victoria, 1880–95; Private Secretary, 1895–1901; Private Secretary to Prince George (later King George V), 1901–10, 1910–31; knighted, 1895; created baron, 1911. S, P[aul] P[earman]. One of AEH’s students at UCL, where he graduated in 1911: Maas, 206 n. 1. S, H (1884–1934). Professor of Latin at Leeds University, 1926; Principal of University College, Nottingham, 1930. S, W (1835–1919). Professor of Divinity, Glasgow University, 1873–1910; Clerk of the Senate of the University, 1876–1911. S, [Arthur] D (13 Sept. 1891–1951). MD, DPH. AEH’s nephew, eldest son of Katharine (née Housman) and Edward Symons; married Phyllis Alexander (1892–1979), daughter of the Revd E. P. Alexander. S, E [William] (1857–1932). BA (first class) in Mathematics, Oxford, 1879; Fereday Fellow, SJCO, 1880; Second Master, The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove (1886–7); Headmaster of Huddersfield College (1887–93), of Banbury Secondary School (1893–6), and of King Edward’s School, Bath (1896–1921). He and AEH’s sister Katharine married on 13 Aug. 1887. S, K E. See under Katharine Elizabeth Housman. S, P. Wife of AEH’s nephew Denis: see letter of 25 Feb. 1932. T, L (d. 1952). Author of fictional works Egeria (1896), Two Sinners (1897), and Stuff o’ the Conscience (1899), and of Poems (1901) and Poems Old and New

List of Recipients

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(1909). LH describes her as ‘a friend whose suffrage sympathies he [AEH] did not share’: Memoir, 203. Her husband, Ralph Thicknesse (1856–1923), was the author of two vols. on the Married Women’s Property Acts (1882, 1884) and of The Rights and Wrongs of Women: A Digest with Practical Illustrations and Notes on the Law in France (1909, etc.). She told Richards on 7 Apr. 1940 that ‘of the long talks I had with him [AEH], I chiefly remember the delicious humour of his descriptions of things and people’: LC-GR MS. T, D’A W (1860–1948). Scientist, classicist, mathematician, naturalist, and philosopher. Entered TCC, 1880; first class in Parts I and II of the Natural Sciences Tripos, 1882–3; Professor of Biology at University College, Dundee, 1884, and of Natural History, United College, St Andrews, 1917–48; CB, 1898, for his part in the International Fur Seals Commissions, 1896–7; FRS, 1916; Fellow of the Royal Society of London, 1916, Vice-president, 1931–3; President of the Classical Association (of Great Britain), 1928–9; Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1885, and President, 1934–9. Publications include: A Glossary of Greek Birds (1895), a translation of Aristotle’s Historia Animalium (1910), and On Growth and Form (1917). T, E J[ohn] (1886–1946). Poet, playwright, anthologist, and expert on India. T, J[oseph] J[ohn] (1856–1940). Physicist. Minor Scholar, Major Scholar, Fellow, and Master of TCC, 1876, 1878, 1881, 1918–40 respectively; Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge, 1884–1919; FRS, 1884, and President, 1915–20; Nobel Prize, 1906; knighted, 1908; OM, 1912. T, [George] H (1859–1941). Secretary to the Society of Authors, London, 1892–1930. A solicitor by training, he was the author of The Marketing of Literary Property: Book and Serial Rights (1933). T, G (1905–69). Lecturer in English at UCL, 1931; Professor of English, Birkbeck College, London, 1944. T, H (1862–1937). Surgeon, painter, and teacher of art. FRCS, 1888; assistant to Frederick Brown following Brown’s appointment as Slade Professor of Fine Art at UCL, 1892; Slade Professor, 1918–30. A traditionalist, especially in draughtsmanship. T, [Frederick] R (1875–1950). American writer. Author of The House of a Hundred Lights (1900) and Hesperides (1925). T, G[eorge] M[acaulay] (1876–1962). Fellow of TCC, 1898; Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, 1927–40; FBA, 1925; OM, 1930. Publications include: History of England (1926); England under Queen Anne (1930–4); and lives of John Bright (1913) and Sir George Otto Trevelyan (1932). T, B. Neighbour and close friend of AEH’s friends the Wise family of Woodchester. Her name appears numerous times in their Visitors’ Books.

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List of Recipients

U, L (1885–1977). American scholar and anthologist. Publications include American Poetry since 1900 (1923) and American Poetry from the beginning to Whitman (1931). V D, I (1891–1966). Literary editor of the New York Herald and Tribune, 1926–63, and a leading light in New York literary society. V D, M (1894–1972). American poet and man of letters. V, F K (1867–1923). German classical scholar; Professor at Munich. Publications include: an edn. of Statius, Silvae (1898); of Horace (1907), reviewed by AEH in CR 22 (May 1908), 88–9 (Classical Papers, 771–2); and of Poetae Latini Minores (1910–23), in the first vol. of which Vollmer thanks AEH (Naiditch, 1988, 138). AEH owned copies of some of Vollmer’s publications: Naiditch (2003), 109, 147, 151; Naiditch (2004), 153, 154. His comments in their margins are sometimes scathing: Naiditch (2005), 130, 178, 180, 181. W, C (1856–1927). Until 1918, Waldstein. Lecturer in Classical Archaeology, University of Cambridge, 1880–3; Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1883–9; first Reader in Classical Archaeology, 1883–1907; Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge, 1895–1901, 1904–11; knighted, 1912. He had rooms at TCC. Publications include: Balance of Emotion and Intellect (1878); The Work of John Ruskin (1894); What May We Read? (1912); Patriotism, National and International (1917); and Harmonism and Conscious Evolution (1922). W, L ’O (b. 1880). Poet and anthologist. W, [Thomas] H (1853–1930). Fellow, President, and Honorary Fellow, Magdalen College, 1877, 1885–1928, 1928; Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, 1906–10; knighted, 1914. Warren’s 1892 testimonial in support of AEH’s application to UCL praised him as being ‘one of the most interesting and attractive pupils I can remember. He had even then, as quite a young student, a combination of force, acumen and taste which I shall never forget’: Naiditch (1988), 18. See ibid. 225–8, for further information. W, P[hilip] G[eorge] L[ancelot] (1856–1937). Educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford; Clerk in the Patent Office, 1880; Private Secretary to Comptroller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks, 1883–8; Chief Clerk, 1898; Establishment Officer, Ministry of Munitions, 1915–16; Deputy Controller of Petrol, 1917–19; Assistant Comptroller of the Patent Office, 1920–1; CBE, 1918; CB, 1919. Publications include Translations from Heine and Goethe (1912), More Translations from Heine (1920), and Poems (1927). W, K (1911–95). As a student at Peterhouse, Cambridge, took a first in the Classical Tripos (with a distinction in History) in 1934, and later taught Latin at Edinburgh University. W, L (1862–1937). Born Mary Constance Wyndham, daughter of the Hon. Percy Scawen Wyndham. In 1883 she married Hugo Richard Charteris, Lord Elcho (1857–1937), who in 1914 became ninth Earl of Wemyss.

List of Recipients

liii

W, E (1862–1937). American novelist, famous for her depictions of New York society. Married Edward Robbins Wharton in 1885 and they settled in France in 1907. Publications include The House of Mirth (1905), The Custom of the Country (1913), and The Age of Innocence (1920). W, J H (1886–1978). American poet and writer on poetry. Published vols. of poetry include Black Panther (1922), Bright Doom (1927), and Poems, 1911–1936 (1936). W, G. H. Publications Manager at the Richards Press. W, M [Ogden Bigelow] (1883–1928). American poet and anthologist. Compiled New Voices: An Introduction to Contemporary Poetry (1919, 1921, etc.) and Contemporary Poetry (1923). W, C [Walter Stansby] (1886–1945). Poet, religious writer, and novelist. Reader for Oxford University Press, 1908–45. W, C (1891–1967). The ‘Pitman Poet’ of Willington, Co. Durham, where four small collections of poems were published: ‘On Sick Leave’, ‘Warriors Three’, and other poems (1915), ‘When Duty Calls’, and other poems (1915), ‘The Unseen Guest’, and other poems (1915), and Time Will Tell (1916). The Poetical Works of Charles Wilson, 159 pages, was published in 1916. Maas, 245 n.: ‘In later years he dealt in books and autographs, and appears to have corresponded with Housman chiefly in order to acquire his answers.’ Naiditch (1995), 162, notes that ‘Some at least were sold by Wilson: see, e.g., James F. Drake cat. 196, 1928, no. 93’. W, E (1895–1972). American journalist and man of letters. Managing Editor, Vanity Fair, 1920; Associate Editor, New Republic, 1926–31. Publications include The Undertaker’s Garland with John Peale Bishop (1922), and Axel’s Castle (1931). W, D[enys] A[rthur] (1877–1947). Fellow of TCC, 1906; Tutor, 1919; Senior Tutor, 1925; Vice-Master, 1935. W, E. See next entry. W, E [Mary] (1827–1911). Wife of Edward Wise (1809–74) of Woodchester near Stroud, and mother of Edward (‘Ted’) [Tuppen] Wise (1851–1934), Edith (‘Edie’) [Madeline] Wise (1854–1930), and Wilhelmina (‘Minnie’) [Harriet] Wise (1958–1931). She was AEH’s godmother, his mother having been the daughter of the Rector of Woodchester. AEH was a lifelong friend of the family. The verses he wrote in, or for, their Visitors’ Books are included in Poems (1997). W, A (1905–2001). Younger daughter of Percy Withers, who recalls the spontaneous rapport between her and AEH at their first meeting: Withers, 70–1. Second class in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Somerville College, Oxford, 1927; worked on Vogue magazine, 1931–60. Her autobiography, Lifespan (1994), 181–6, contains an account of AEH. W, M W, née Summers (1870–1947). Wife of Percy Withers.

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List of Recipients

W, P (1867–1945). Physician and writer. He made AEH’s acquaintance after being transferred to war service in Cambridge in the early summer of 1917. After Withers’s year on the National Service Board in Cambridge, a long friendship ensued: from 1921 onwards AEH was a regular visitor at his house, first Souldern Court, near Bicester, Oxon., and, from 1935, Epwell Mill near Banbury, Warwickshire. Withers occasionally visited AEH in Cambridge. He wrote a sympathetic but somewhat baffled memoir of AEH: A Buried Life: Personal Recollections of A. E. Housman (1940). W, E F L (1881–1959). Created Baron Irwin, 1926; third Viscount Halifax, 1934; Viceroy of India, 1926–31; President of the Board of Education, 1932–5; and Chancellor of Oxford University, 1933–59, in which capacity he wrote personally to ask AEH to accept an honorary degree. W, M L[ouisa Daisy], née Bradley (1855–1945). Novelist and poet. Daughter of G[eorge] G[ranville] Bradley, master at Rugby School and later Dean of Westminster. In 1879 she married the Revd Henry G[eorge] Woods (1842–1915), Fellow and later President of Trinity College, Oxford. Novels include A Village Tragedy (1887), The Vagabonds (1894), Sons of the Sword (1901), The Invader (1907), A Poet’s Youth (1923), and The Spanish Lady (1927). She was also the author of several vols. of poetry: Lyrics (1888), Lyrics & Ballads (1889), A¨eromancy, and other poems (1896), Wild Justice. A Dramatic Poem (1896), Songs (1896), The Princess of Hanover (1902), Poems Old and New (1907), and The Return, and other Poems (1921) W, E M (1803/4–79). The Wise family gravestone in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, Woodchester, states that Elizabeth Mary Woollright died on 24 Nov. 1879 aged 75. Naiditch (1995), 3 n., suggests that she was related to AEH’s godfather John Woollright, and notes that various Woollrights appear in one of the Visitors’ Books of the Wise family. W, [John] E [Leslie] (1882–1966). Promoter of the British Empire, and author. Editor of The Spectator, 1925–32; knighted, 1932. W, [William] A (1831–1914). Literary and biblical scholar. Librarian, Fellow, and Vice-Master of TCC, 1863–70, 1878, 1888–1914; Joint Editor of The Journal of Philology, 1863–1913; Secretary to the Old Testament Revision Company, 1870–85. A wide range of publications includes: an edn. of Bacon’s Essays (1862); the 2nd edn. of the Cambridge Shakespeare (1891–3); the Globe Shakespeare, with William George Clark (1864; rev. 1904); and edns. of Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning (1869), of FitzGerald’s Letters and Literary Remains (7 vols., 1902–3), of Milton’s Poems with Critical Notes (1903), and of the Authorized Version of the Bible as printed in the original two issues (5 vols., 1909). Y, W[illiam] S[iddons]. Author of various vols. of Latin verses, such as Senilia, 1891–1894 (1895), Ruris Laudatio (1899), and Lamenta (1900).

LETTERS

1872–1926

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1872 [Perry Hall, Bromsgrove c.1 Jan. 1872] We the undersigned do hereby wish You, our Great Aunt Mary,1 and our Cousin Agnes;— 2 A happy New Year.3 (Signed.) Alfred Edward Housman4 Robert Holden Housman Clemence Annie Housman Katherine E. Housman Basil Williams Housman Laurence Housman. George Herbert X Housman5 BMC MS. AEH has written the greeting and his signature, and the others have signed for themselves, apart from George Herbert, who has written a cross and has had his name written for him. 1 Aunt Mary would either be Mary Brettell Housman (1833–1917), also referred to in the verse letter of 22 Apr. 1875, or Felicia, wife of Joseph Brettell Housman (1842–1926), who was known in the family as ‘Aunt Mary’ (Pugh, 105); however, a great aunt would have to be the aunt of one of AEH’s parents Edward and Sarah Jane Housman, and no such relative of that name is known. 2 Possibly Helen Agnes (m. 1892). It is unlikely that it was her sister Lucy Agnes (1823–1907), whom Edward Housman married in 1873: LH recalled (The Unexpected Years, 57) that the children had met her only once, in 1872, before she became their stepmother, which would make a New Year greeting to her seem improbable. 3 ‘1872’ written on the MS by KES. 4 Though he signs ‘Alfred Edward Housman’ here, ‘Alfred Housman’ [after late July 1873] ‘Alfred E. Housman’ (not before 9 Oct. 1873, 10 May 1880), ‘A. E. Housman’ (9 Jan. 1875, 23 Mar. 1880), ‘Alfred’ (29 Jan. 1875) ‘Alfred Edouard Maisonhomme’ (8 July 1877), and, again humorously, in verse epistles, ‘A. E. H.’ and ‘A. Edward. H .’ (22 Apr. 1875, 19 June 1878), his preferred form from 5 Apr. 1877 onwards is ‘Alfred E. Housman’; until, on 4 Apr. 1881, he opts permanently for ‘A. E. Housman’, even in ‘Your loving son | A. E. Housman’ (29 Mar. and 10 June 1885). With the exception of the lighthearted letter to Pollard of 27 Mar. 1880, the notes on Silius Italicus sent to Duff on 11 July 1933, and the letter to KES of 27 Dec. 1935, which was written during illness, he reserved ‘A. E. H.’ for brief notes. He is also represented as ‘A. E. H.’ in letters to newspapers: 12 Mar. 1894, before 8 May 1924, and c.13 Dec. 1928. 5 The ages of the children and the years of their births are entered on the MS by KES. In order, their ages are: 13, 12, 11, 10, 8, 7, and 4.

1873 TO LU CY H O U S M A N [After late July 1873] [… ] three spires of Coventry, as well as of Harrow. Give my love to father, & all the others, I remain my dearest mamma1 Your loving son Alfred Housman UCL MS Add. 126: a fragment. Edward Housman married his cousin Lucy on 26 June 1873, and LH, The Unexpected Years, 58, places the meeting with the family ‘in late July’, when AEH was 14. 1 LH notes that AEH’s letters to his stepmother began with ‘My dear Mamma’: Memoir, 128. ‘Mamma’ was the title agreed between her and the children on the evening of their first meeting: The Unexpected Years (1937), 58. Though LH also states that as they grew up they called her ‘Mater’ and ‘Mamma’ fell into practical disuse, AEH still addresses her on 13 Sept. 1901 as ‘My dear Mamma’ and refers to her as ‘mamma’ on 7 Feb. 1907 and on 22 May 1913 (when he is respectively 42, 47, and 54).

1875 TO LU CY H O U S M A N [London] January 9th [1875] My dear Mamma I have now seen Oxford St, Regent St, Holborn, Cheapside, Cornhill, Piccadilly &c, but not much of the Strand. On Wednesday we went to Waterloo Place, Pall Mall & St James’ park where I saw the band of the Grenadier Guards, & some of the 1st Life Guards. We went to the Chapel Royal for service,—the queen’s present was given1 by an attenuated person with gorgeous trimming, who Cousin Mary2 thinks is an earl, as there was one of those coronets on his carriage. Then we went to Trafalgar square, which is quite magical, & to Westminster. I explored the north transept where the statesmen are, I looked at Pitt’s & Fox’s monuments & went into Poet’s3 corner. Service was at 3, with an anthem by Greene4 which was like a boa constrictor—very long & very ugly. We had a beautiful one by Goss5 at the Chapel Royal in the morning. On Thursday we went by Omnibus to Holborn Viaduct, got out & walked about the city, we saw the little boy in Panyer Alley,6 & crossed Paternoster Row, which is not so narrow as you told me, after all; at St. Paul’s I went up to the golden gallery, but Cousin Mary did not wish to repeat the experiment which she had tried before, [and] remained on terra firma. They would not allow me to go into the iron gallery inside. The day was so foggy that one could scarcely see the other side of the river, from the dome; & the mist had got into the cathedral. 1

He means the queen’s presence was represented. Maurice Greene (1696?–1755). Organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, 1718, of Chapel Royal, 1727. 3 John Goss (1800–80). Organist of St Paul’s, 1838–72; knighted, 1872. 4 5 Lucy Housman’s sister, Mary Theophania (d. 4 Mar. 1905). For ‘Poets’ ’. 6 The ‘Panyer Stone’, a statue, set into the wall of a house, of a nude boy sitting on a bread basket, commemorating the inn The Panyer Boy which was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. Beneath it is the inscription: ‘When ye have sought | the citty round | yet still this is | the highest ground | August the 27 | 1688’. Panyer Alley in the vicinity of St Paul’s Cathedral was not in fact the highest ground: there are higher spots in Cornhill and in Cannon Street. 2

6

Letters 1872–1926

We saw the Guildhall, Mansion House, Bank & Exchange, then the Monument, London Bridge & London stone. In the evening I went to the Creation7 at the Albert Hall. Mme Lemens-Sherrington,8 Vernon Rigby9 & Lewis Thomas.10 I think what charmed me most was By thee with Bliss [.] Mme Lemens-Sherrington has a most exquisite voice, so completely unaffected, but Mr Vernon Rigby’s voice has not nearly power enough for that great building. I saw nothing more than the outline of the Albert Memorial. Though I was half an hour early, I could not get a seat in the shilling places, so I stood for the first part, & sat or lay on the floor for the rest. I was exactly opposie11 the orchestra & heard very well. Yesterday I went to the British Museum & spent most of my time among the Greeks & Romans.12 I looked at your Venus—the Towneley Venus—in the alcove, but I do not admire her. What delighted me most was the Farnese Mercury. I examined some of the Niniveh13 bulls & lions, & I went through the Zoological gallery. I met cousin Henry14 there, but he had only ten minutes to spare,—& those were of course geological. I have come to the conclusion, which you may tell the readers of The Centre of the Earth,15 that if the Mastodon and Megatherium were to fight, it would decidedly be a very bad job for the Megatherium.16 I may also remark that the Ichthyosauri & Plesiosauri are by no means so large or terrific as those met by Professor Hardwigg & Co.17 To-day I am going to the Houses of Parliament, & to a ballad Concert in the afternoon. On Monday the Zoological gardens, & on Tuesday The south Kensington Museum. 7

By Haydn. Helen Lemmens-Sherrington (1834–1906). First appeared at London concerts, 1856; leading English soprano from 1860, particularly in oratorio, and celebrated for her performances in Haydn’s The Creation. AEH writes ‘Lemens’ for ‘Lemmens’. 9 [George] Vernon Rigby (b. 1840). Tenor. 10 11 Lewis [William] Thomas (1826–96). Bass. For ‘opposite’. 12 In the Graeco-Roman Room at the British Museum. Cf. ASL LI 1–2 (written over twenty years later): ‘Loitering with a vacant eye | Along the Grecian gallery’. 13 For ‘Nineveh’. 14 Lucy Housman’s brother, the Revd Henry Housman (1832–1914). Curate of All Saints’, Notting Hill, London, at the time; Lecturer, Chichester College, 1879–1912; Rector of Bradley, Worcestershire, 1898–1912. 15 Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864). 16 In ch. 27 of Verne’s novel, Professor Von Hardwigg, his nephew Henry, and the Icelander Hans Bjelke discover bones of these prehistoric creatures. In ch. 29, Henry dreams of seeing them when they were alive. 17 In ch. 30, there is a fight between an ichthyosaurus (fish lizard) and a plesiosaurus (sea crocodile). The former is said to be not less than 100 feet long, and the neck of the latter to tower more than 30 feet above the waves. 8

7

29 January 1875

I like the view from Westminster bridge, & Trafalgar square best of all the places I have seen, & I am afraid you will be horrified to hear that I like St. Paul’s better than Westminster Abbey; The Quadrant[,] Regent St, & Pall Mall are the finest streets; but I think that of all I have seen, what has most impressed me is—the Guards. This may be barbarian, but it is true. I hope your cold is getting better. I am serenaded every morning by some cocks, who crow as if their life depended upon it. If they were in my hands their life would depend upon it. With love to my father & all I remain Your affectionate son A E Housman UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | Fockbury House | Bromsgrove’, and bearing a note in her hand: ‘Alfreds first visit to London Jany. 1875’. Memoir, 26 (excerpt); Maas, 5–6, with a facsimile of an excerpt after 202.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N [The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove]1 Friday. [29 Jan. 1875] My dear Mamma I am very much obliged to you for sending Sir Walter Raleigh2 which I return, as you wished, now that I have copied it. I am also very much obliged for the Standard you sent me, though I am sorry to say that I did not go to that concert, for though I arrived there in plenty of time, all the shilling places were full, & I did not happen to have two shillings with me. However I went to Baker St & saw Mme Tussaud’s,3 which I should not otherwise have had time to see, though of course I should have preferred the concert. It was however, in a great measure, a repetition of the one which I heard on the Saturday after I went to London; Santley,4 especially, sang exactly the same songs.

1

Where AEH temporarily boarded: see Lucy Housman’s note on the envelope (above). AEH’s poem, which was awarded the Head Master’s Prize for English Poem, Dec. 1873: Naiditch (1995), 5. AEH also won the prize with The Death of Socrates (1874) and St Paul on Mars Hill (1875): Naiditch (1995), 5; Poems (1997), 193–9, 504–8. 3 Waxworks museum. 4 Eminent baritone Charles Santley (1834–1922); knighted, 1907. 2

8

Letters 1872–1926

Please thank Clemence5 for her letter & tell her that I am glad to hear that she has begun ‘‘H,’’ & that I hope she progresses with it. I hope that the glandular swellings of your two patients are abating, and that Cook’s appetite is reviving. Yesterday I went into the churchyard, from which one can see Fockbury quite plainly, especially the window of your room.6 I was there from 2 o’ clock till 3. I wonder if you went into your room between those hours. One can see quite plainly the pine tree, the sycamore & the elm at the top of the field. The house looks much nearer than you would expect, & the distance between the sycamore & the beeches in the orchard seems very great, much longer than one thinks it when one is at Fockbury. Give my love to my Father, & to my brothers & sisters & Believe me Your affectionate son Alfred. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 2. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | Fockbury House | Bromsgrove’ and bearing a note in her hand: ‘Alfred. When Scarlet Fever was in the house & he was at the Grammar School. Lines on Sir Walter Raleigh enclosed. Jany. 1875’. Memoir, 27 (excerpt); Maas, 7.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N [Fockbury House, Bromsgrove 22 April 1875]1 My dear Mamma, I cannot say That much, since you have gone away, Has happened to us, so of course I must fall back on that resource,— That great resource, which o’er the earth Precedence holds, & which is worth All other topics put together, I mean, (I need not say) THE WEATHER. 5 Clemence (‘Clem’) Housman (23 Nov. 1861–Dec. 1955). Younger sister of AEH. Later, militant suffragette, imprisoned for refusing to pay rates; talented embroiderer, dressmaker, and woodcut artist. She wrote Were-Wolf (1896) and the Arthurian romance The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis (1905). Throughout her adult life she lived with LH. 6 The family home was Fockbury House, previously known as ‘The Clock House’, in the hamlet of Fockbury, about two miles from Bromsgrove. Edward Housman had moved the family there from Perry Hall in 1873. 1 Date on postmark.

9

22 April 1875

The weather has been clear & bright The sun has shed a vivid light So hot & torrid, that my stout Aunt Mary2 has not ventured out, Until the shades of evening fall And gentle moonbeams silver all, When lunatics are wont to prowl As also are the bat & owl.3 Then to the shadowy garden fly My relative,4 & Clem, & I. Clemence becomes a fancied knight In visionary armour dight And waves her lance extremely well Terrific but invisible. I turn into a dragon dire Breathing imaginary fire, Obscuring all the starry sky With vapours seen by fancy’s eye. Aunt Mary is a hapless maid Imprisoned in a dungeon’s shade, And spreading streams of golden hair Impalpably upon the air. Such is she ’neath the moon’s pale ray But during all the burning day At open window she has heard The notes of many a chattering bird, Receiving quite an education From all this feathered conversation. ‘‘Look here! look here!’’ one of them cries,5

2

See n. 1 on the single letter from 1872. John Fletcher (1579–1625), Hence, all you vain delights, 14–15: ‘Moonlight walks, when all the fowls | Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!’ AEH identified the anonymous author on p. 397 of his copy, now in the Bodleian Library, of Fugitive Poetry 1600–1878, ed. J. C. Hutchieson [?1878]. See also At peep of day we rise from bed, 19–20: Poems (1997), 270. 4 Aunt Mary. 5 Some of the bird calls are identifiable: ‘‘Look here! Look here!’’ (the song thrush starting a bout of song); ‘‘Peter’’ (the great tit); ‘‘Quick! quick! quick!’’ (the blackbird’s semi-alarm cry, usually heard in the evening before roosting). (I owe this information to the late Dr Denis Owen of Oxford Brookes University.) In other cases AEH seems to be inventing his own verbal equivalents of the calls, as William Allingham did notably in The Lover and Birds, Day and Night Songs (1854), No. 21. 3

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Letters 1872–1926

‘‘Peter’’ another one replies. (Perhaps a Roman Catholic bird,) And scarcely has he said this word When one of more ferocious mind Screams out in fury ‘‘Whip behind!’’ And scarcely has his clamour ceased When shrieks arise of ‘‘You’re a beast!’’ Another, rest one moment brings Saying in French pacific things, Then one (piano) ‘‘Pretty Dick!’’ One more (crescendo) ‘‘Quick! quick! quick!’’ (Forte) ‘‘Look here! look here!’’ once more, And so da capo, as before. Far other sounds thine ears delight, Far other shapes are in thy sight, Where the pellucid Thames flows by The towers of English liberty,6 Where he of Stoke7 brays forth his din, (That famous ass in lion’s skin,) Waves his umbrella high in vain And shakes off dewdrops from his mane. Or where, high rising over all Stands the Cathedral of St. Paul And [in] its shadow you may scan Our late lamented ruler, Anne; Or where the clouds of legend lower Around the mediaeval Tower,8 And ghosts of every shape & size With throttled throats & staring eyes Come walking from their earthy beds With pillow cases on their heads

6

The Houses of Parliament. Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy, the Irish barrister (1819–80). He acted as junior counsel for the surgeon William Palmer, who was hanged in 1856 after poisoning his wife, his brother, and a friend for the purpose of obtaining money. Kenealy also acted as leading counsel for the Tichborne claimant, Arthur Orton, 1873, and was disbarred in 1874 for his violent conduct of the case. As MP for Stoke-on-Trent (Feb. 1875–80) he tried on 23 Apr. 1875, the day after AEH’s verse letter, to instigate an inquiry into the case, but found no support. 8 The Tower of London, the oldest part of which, the White Tower, was begun in 1078. 7

11

22 April 1875

And various ornaments beside Denoting why or how they died.  Or where all beasts that ever grew  All birds, all fish, all reptiles too  Are congregated at the Zoo. Where singing turtles soothe the shade, And mackarel9 gambol through the glade, Where prisoned oysters fain would try Their wonted flight into the sky, And the fierce lobster in its rage Beats its broad wings against its cage. Or where soft music’s rise & fall Re-echoes through St. James’s hall, Or where of paintings many a one Adorn the House of Burlington,10 Or where the gilded chariots11 ride Resplendent through the Park of Hyde Or where, when he’s been doomed to feel Death from Laertes’ poisoned steel, The lifeless corpse of Hamlet draws Resuscitation from applause; Or where— You will perceive perhaps These ‘‘wheres’’ have come to a collapse; ‘‘The waxen wings that flew so high’’12 Etcetera. Mamma, goodbye. You will be glad to hear it told Father has almost lost his cold, Miss Hudd is healthy, & all we Are well as we could wish to be. Our love for you we all declare 9

For ‘mackerel’. The Royal Academy of Arts mounted exhibitions in Burlington House, Piccadilly, from 1869 onwards. 11 gilded chariots. Propertius, Elegies, 1. 16. 3: inaurati … currus. Also Pope, The Rape of the Lock, 1. 55; Gay, Trivia, 2. 525. 12 Icarus escaped from exile in Crete with his father Daedalus by donning wings, but fell into the Aegean Sea when he flew too near the sun and the wax securing the feathers melted. Perhaps Marlowe’s ‘His waxen wings did mount above his reach’ (Dr Faustus, 21) was in AEH’s mind. 10

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Letters 1872–1926

And our relations at Kildare,13 Hopes for your pleasure in Lond`on, And I remain your loving son. A. E. H. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed E. Housman | 39 Kildare Terrace | Bayswater | London W.’, and bearing a note in her hand: ‘Letter in rhyme from A. E. H. 1875’. Recollections, 15 (excerpt); Maas, 7–10. Detailed notes on the MS are given in Poems (1997), 509. ‘Mrs

13 Not ‘The house in Hereford belonging to Lucy Housman’s family’ (Maas, 10 n.), identified in Pugh, Appendix E, lxix, as Kildare, Cantiloup Street, Hereford: see the address on the envelope (above).

1876 TO M R S WO O L L R I G H T Mrs Woollright, with many and sincere congratulations on the manner in which (in spite of adverse circumstances & upset donkey-chairs) she has attained her present venerable age.1 Now thou’st passed the age the Psalmist Kindly has allowed to men, When the pulse is (mostly) calmest, i.e. threescore years & ten.2 Now thou hast an honoured station, Children’s children3 round thee are, And the rising generation Speaks of thee as ‘‘Grandmamma.’’ But thou art as warm as whiskey, Headstrong youth doth still survive, And I think thou art as frisky As thou wast at twenty-five. Hearken all & pay attention While a wondrous tale I tell Almost past one’s comprehension,— —What to Grandmamma befel! Bad the road, & bad the weather, Yet that Grandmamma did dare 1 The events of this poem are mentioned in AEH’s poetic prophecy for 1877, The world with its old velocity, 49–50: Poems (1997), 208. This suggests a date of 1876, as Naiditch (1995), 3, notes. 2 Ps. 90: 10: ‘The days of our years are threescore years and ten’, echoed also in ASL II 5. 3 OT phraseology: Gen. 45: 10, Deut. 4: 25, 2 Kgs. 17: 41, etc.

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Letters 1872–1926

To confront them both together Seated in a donkey-chair. Plate-basket was put beside her, Sophie’s4 waterproof she wore, Ted5 walked on before to guide her, Donkey also walked before. Darkness kept around her growing, Deep in mud the chair-wheels sank, And the ass, the road not knowing, Wandered calmly up the bank. Then that wondrous woman wondered, ‘‘Wonder where we’re coming to,’’ And moreover deeply pondered, ‘‘Wonder what I’d better do.’’ Through her aged constitution Pulsed again youth’s hasty blood, And she took her resolution, And she popped into the mud. With a flutter, with a splutter, Like a soda-water cork, 4 Sophie Becker (c.1844–1931) was the German governess-companion to the two daughters in the Wise family, Edith Madeline (‘Edie’), 1854–1930, and Wilhelmina Harriet (‘Minnie’), 1858–1931. She was AEH’s senior by some fifteen years. Henry Maas established the year of her death by having her will examined: letter to John Carter, 20 Aug. 1971 (copy in Sparrow collection, SJCO). LH, Memoir, 24–5: ‘When in late middle age she returned to Germany he [AEH] continued to correspond with her … I remember her coming to stay with us in 1874—a dark and rather plain woman, but sharp, shrewd, sensible, and brightly humorous.’ KES to GR, 7 Dec. 1939: ‘Alfred talked to Dr Withers about her soon after her death … I have a letter from him about it, telling me it was the German governess whom Alfred mentioned as one of his three chief friends’ (LC MS). Withers, 129: ‘He had loved and revered her from youth. In the earlier years companionship had been close and constant. Then distance and the exigencies of occupation had rendered meetings few and difficult, and of late years they had never met … as a consequence of her having returned to her homeland, Germany, to end her days.’ AEH gave her address as ‘Weissenburg Strasse 6II | Wiesbaden’ in a list, dated 19. 10. 22, of those who were to be sent complimentary copies of LP: SIU MS. No letters to her have been traced. 5 Edward [Tuppen] Wise (1851–1934), only son of Edward (1809–74) and Elizabeth [Mary] Wise (1827–1911).

15

1876

Down went she into the gutter, Down went carving-knife & fork. Startled at this crash untimely Donkey said ‘‘Haw-he! Haw-he!’’ But serenely & sublimely Down into the ditch went she. Then, when lights at last appearing Glimmered down the lane so steep, And when Grandma, reappearing, Rose like Venus from the deep,6 From galoshes unto bonnet, From her left hand to her right, All her form, & all upon it, Was completely out of sight. Not a flounce & not a gusset Not a button could you spy, Everything was dirty russet, Everything except—her eye! But the sight her eye presented Was the finest ever seen, Every hue was represented,— Black & yellow, blue & green. But it was no consolation For so horrible a mess, All the eyes in all creation Cannot clean a blue silk dress. And she had to change her clothing, And she had to go to bed, And she had to take with loathing Nasty medicine, it is said. 6

According to Hesiod, Aphrodite (Venus) rose from the foam of the sea.

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Letters 1872–1926

So old people should be cautious How they skip, when past three-score, Or the physic will be nauseous Which they down their throats must pour. BMC MS. Above the prefatory note is written ‘Alfred Housmans verses’, apparently in the hand of Mrs Wise. I have changed a full-stop after ‘Woollright’ in the headnote to a comma. A reduced facsimile of the MS was published in NNAEH, 8–9. Poems (1997), 203–5.

1877 TO E L I Z A B E T H W I S E Bromsgrove April 5th [1877]1 My dear Mrs Wise It is very kind of you to ask me to Woodchester for the holidays, & I am sure nothing could give me more pleasure, but I am afraid I shall be obliged to forego it on account of the pressure of work. I shall have a great deal to do in the holidays, as Mr Millington2 has set his heart on some very wonderful achievements on the part of the school at next Midsummer, which can only be attained by constant working from now till then. Life is evidently becoming a very serious thing (!) & with the awful responsibility of breaking Mr Millington’s heart (which is extremely liable to break on all possible occasions) hanging over me, I am chained to my books. Apropos of your intended transit to Rome,3 I will give you an anecdote about the Pope, which will show you that he is capable of defending 1 Dated ‘pre-1875’ in Sotheby’s catalogue, London, 15 Dec. 1970, no. 811, and ‘1876’ on the MS in what appears to be KES’s hand. However, as Naiditch (1995), 12 n., argues, AEH’s comments on prospective midsummer achievements for his school suggest the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examinations for which he sat in 1877. He passed in elementary mathematics and in divinity, and with distinction in Latin, Greek, French, and History, an achievement which placed him in the top 1.66% in a field where over 47% of the candidates did not pass at all: Naiditch (1995), 7–8. 2 Herbert Millington (1841–1922). Headmaster of The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove, 1873–91. A staunch admirer of AEH, he very probably arranged for him to teach the sixth form after his failure at Oxford in 1881. In his 1892 testimonial in support of AEH’s application to UCL, he praised him as being ‘a thorough and sympathetic teacher, warmly interested in his work and his pupils’ who had ‘left upon them and me a vivid impression of literary ability, ripe scholarship, and vigour and lucidity in communicating his knowledge of and enthusiasm for the Classics’: Naiditch (1988), 21. In the preface to Translations into Latin Verse (1889), he acknowledged the ‘valuable criticism’ produced by the ‘keen eye and sound learning’ of his ‘old pupil and distinguished friend’, and sent AEH an inscribed copy of the volume (now in SJCO). AEH sent him copies of ASL and LP on publication. For further information, see Naiditch (1988), 232–4. 3 See also AEH to Mrs Wise, 17 Feb. and 24 Nov. 1878. Naiditch (1995), 12, notes that in AEH’s writings of the late 1870s ‘appear anecdotes about Catholics, references to anti-Catholic sermons, and anti-Catholic sentiments’. AEH jokes about Mrs Wise converting to Roman Catholicism in The world with its old velocity, 59–60, written c. Jan. 1877 (‘Yet still Mrs. Wise (to no one’s surprise) | Will take and go over to Rome’): Poems (1997), 208, 513–14. He also makes fun of Catholic recruitment at Oxford in Over to Rome, 31–64, published in 1878: Poems (1997), 221–2, 523. In 1861 Mrs Wise had donated the land for a new parish church and graveyard in Woodchester, near Stroud, where the family lived. Woodchester had, however, been made a centre for Roman Catholicism by William Leigh, who bought Woodchester estate in 1846.

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Letters 1872–1926

himself against howling Protestants. At one of his audiences there were two Protestant ladies, whose curiosity had brought them into the den of the Beast, but whose consciences operated like strychnine, & kept them sitting bolt upright, instead of kneeling to receive the pontifical benediction. Accordingly, the successor of Peter pauses in front of them, and turning round to his Cardinals remarks with an amiable smile ‘‘I perceive we have here some new additions to the gallery of statues in the Vatican!’’ I should have liked to be a witness of the mingled emotions depicted on the faces of the Protestant Rocks! Give my love to all who are at home & Believe me ever very affectionately yours Alfred E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO E L I Z A B E T H W I S E [Bromsgrove] Lundi | 8me Juillet [1877] Très chère Madame Guise J’y suis; j’y reste. Je suis revenu chez moi; mais je ne suis pas un Revenant. Je suis venu par le chemin de fer; mais je ne suis pas un Parvenu. Nous sommes venus, nous deux, moi et ma mère; mais ni l’un ni l’autre de nous n’est pas Vénus. Qu’il est drôle, ce monde-ci! Nicht war? Et que je suis polyglotte! Et que je suis rempli de votre bonté; et que je vous donne mille reconnaissances; et que je hurlait de joie ce matin en regardant mes ‘‘collars’’ et en lisant la lettre de Mdlle Becker; et que j’ai pitié pour Henri Salle et pour Perry Salle;1 et que je me trouve prochain au temps de poste! et que je suis tout à vous et à votre famille[.] Alfred Edouard Maisonhomme Mme Guise Maison de Chestre à bois Stroude Shire de Gloucestre Angleterre. BMC MS. Reduced facsimile in NNAEH, 6. Woodchester became the principal house of the Dominican Order, and in 1860 a house of Franciscan nuns was opened. Some anxiety is indicated by the local feeling in 1863 that AEH’s mother’s memorial window in the new parish church was too Roman Catholic in manner. See The Victoria History of the Counties of England, A History of the County of Gloucester, 11. 296, 302–3; Pugh, Appendix C, xxxix–xliii. 1 Perry Hall, Bromsgrove, where the Housman family moved in the summer of 1877.

19

21 October 1877

TO LU CY H O U S M A N St. John’s Coll. Sunday. [21 October 1877] My dear Mamma, The ceremony of matriculation, which you want to hear about, was as follows. At a quarter to five, on the Saturday afternoon all the freshmen of this college, twenty-two in number, were collected in Mr Ewing’s1 rooms, & were there instructed how to write our names in Latin in the ViceChancellor’s books. Alfred, he said, became Alfredus, Edward, Edvardus, & so on; the surnames of course remaining unchanged. Then he marched us off to New College, where we found the Vice Chancellor2 seated in dim religious light3 at the top of the hall. Another college was just concluding the ceremony, & when they had finished, we one by one inscribed our names in a large book, in this wise. ‘‘Alfredus Edvardus Housman, e Coll. Di. Joh. Bapt. Gen. Fil. natu max.’’ which is being interpreted4 ‘‘A. E. Housman, of the College of St. John the Baptist, eldest son of a gentleman.’’ Sons of Clergymen write ‘‘Cler. Fil.’’ & sons of officers write ‘‘arm. fil.’’ Then I wrote my name in English in a smaller & less dignified book, & then paid £2. 10. 0. to a man at the table, & then we sat down one by one in a row till all had written their names & paid their fee. Then an attendant brought in twenty-two copies of the Statutes of the University, bound in violet, & piled them on the table, hiding the Vice-Chancellor from the eye. Presently his head appeared over the top, & we got up & stood in a sort of semicircle in front of him. Then he called up each of us by name & presented each with a copy of the Statutes, & with a paper on which was written in Latin, or what passes for Latin at Oxford:— ‘‘At Oxford, in the Michaelmas term A.D. 1877, on the 13th day of the month of October: on which day Alfred Edward Housman of the College of St. John the Baptist, gentleman’s son, appeared in my presence, & was admonished to keep the laws of this University, & was enrolled in the register (matricula) of the University. J. E. Sewell Vice-Chancellor’’ 1 ‘Robert Ewing (1847–1908), Tutor at St John’s College, 1872; Rector of Winterslow, Wiltshire, 1889; Canon of Salisbury Cathedral, 1905’: Maas, 11 n. 2 James Edwards Sewell (1810–1903). Warden of New College, Oxford, 1860–1903; Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, 1874–8. 3 Milton, Il Penseroso, 160: ‘a dim religious light’. 4 Biblical phraseology: Matthew 1: 23, Mark 5: 41, etc.

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Letters 1872–1926

Then he settled his gown over his shoulders & said, ‘‘Gentlemen of St. John’s College, attend to me.’’ We attended. He said, in Latin, ‘‘Allow me to inform you that you have this day been enrolled in the register of the University, & that you are bound to keep all the statutes contained in this book’’ (with the violet cover) ‘‘as far as they may concern you.’’ Then we went. As to keeping the statutes contained in the violet cover, you may judge what a farce that is, when I tell you that you are forbidden to wear any coat save a black one, or to use fire-arms, or to trundle a hoop, among other things. I went to Mr Warren5 at Magdalen yesterday. I am going to him three times a week. Then I have nine lectures a week in college besides. Two men have invited me to breakfast next week, & Mr Ewing has asked me to tea today along with several others, apropos of some Sunday-Night Essays, which are read by him & others in his rooms & at which he invites us to attend. Reginald Horton6 called on me the other day: he is a Commoner7 at Worcester,8 & lives in the vicinity, with his wife & children. He asked me to remember him kindly to my father. I hear that the gale did dreadful damage at the School. I am very glad that we suffered so comparatively little. I was afraid those beeches in the orchard would go. With many thanks for your letter, which is dutifully burnt, & with love to my father & all I remain Your loving son Alfred E. Housman, or, as the Vice-Chancellor with superior scholarship writes,— Aluredus Edvardus &c. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | Fockbury House | Bromsgrove’. I have changed the full stop after ‘My dear Mamma’ to a comma. Memoir, 40–2 (incomplete); Maas, 11–12.

5

Thomas Herbert Warren: see List of Recipients. ‘1852–1914; son of a Bromsgrove doctor; educated at Bromsgrove School; assistant curate at St Barnabas, Oxford, 1880; Vicar of Dymock, 1883; Canon of Gloucester Cathedral, 1902’: Maas, 12 n. 7 A student who has not obtained a scholarship or other distinction. 8 Worcester College, Oxford. 6

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29 November 1877

TO LU CY H O U S M A N [Oxford Union Society] Thursday [29 November 1877] My dear Mamma Thanks for the Bromsgrove papers. This letter is indited at the Union, pending the beginning of the debate; please therefore excuse its probable disjointedness. Nothing very remarkable has happened. I go to Ruskin’s1 lectures, which end on Saturday. I have received the great-coat, which is very nice: though the weather has not been such as to cause me to use it. It has been raining a little at unexpected times, but nothing much recently; about a fortnight ago a great deal of rain fell, & the Cherwell2 & then the Isis3 were flooded, as they still remain, altering the lanscape4 to a great extent, & making Oxford look very picturesque from the Berkshire side. In times when the floods were more frequent than they are now, it must have been almost a moated fortress. This afternoon Ruskin gave us a great outburst against modern times.5 He had got a picture of Turners,6 framed & glassed, representing Leicester & the Abbey in the distance at sunset,7 over a river. He read the account of Wolsey’s death out of Henry VIII.8 Then he pointed to the picture as representing Leicester when Turner had drawn it. Then he said ‘‘You, if you like, may go to Leicester to see what it is like now. I never shall. But I can make a pretty good guess.’’ Then he caught up a paintbrush. ‘‘These stepping-stones of course have been done away with, & are replaced by a be-au-ti-ful iron bridge.’’ Then he dashed in the iron bridge on the glass of the picture. ‘‘The colour of the stream is supplied on one side by the indigo factory.’’ Forthwith one side of the stream became indigo. ‘‘On the other by the soap factory.’’ Soap dashed in. ‘‘They mix in the middle,—like curds’’ he said, working them together with a sort of malicious deliberation. 1 John Ruskin (1819–1900) was the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University, 1870–8, and held the position again, 1883–4. 2 The river which meets the Thames at Oxford. 3 4 The name for the Thames within Oxford’s boundaries. For ‘landscape’. 5 Ruskin’s habit of airing his ‘own peculiar opinions’ in his lectures alarmed the University authorities and partly led to his resignation in 1878. 6 For ‘Turner’s’. 7 ‘Leicester Abbey, Leicestershire’, c.1832, by J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851). The painting is untraced, but the provenance shows it to have been owned by Ruskin, who maintained a lifelong devotion to Turner after the two met in 1840. Ruskin’s biographer Tim Hilton describes the painting as ‘one of the Turners that were so close to his [Ruskin’s] life and feelings’: John Ruskin: The Later Years (2000). 560. Ruskin collected Turner’s drawings eagerly and, as his executor, catalogued them. 8 4. 2. Wolsey died in Leicester Abbey.

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Letters 1872–1926

‘‘This field, over which you see the sun setting behind the abbey, is now occupied in a proper manner.’’ Then there went a flame of scarlet across the picture, which developed itself into windows & roofs & red brick, & rushed up into a chimney. ‘‘The atmosphere is supplied—thus!’’ A puff & cloud of smoke all over Turner’s sky: & then the brush thrown down, & Ruskin confronting modern civilisation amidst a tempest of applause, which he always elicits now,9 as he has this term become immensely popular, his lectures being crowded, whereas of old he used to prophesy to empty benches. How he confuted the geological survey,10 & science in general, by the help of the college cook I have no time to tell you, but remain, with love to father & all Your affectionate son Alfred E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | Perry Hall | Bromsgrove’. Date as postmark. Memoir, 42–3 (incomplete); Maas, 12–13. 9 Cf. Edward Symons (see List of Recipients) to Lucy Housman, 27 May 1896 (UCL MS Add. 126), on a similar Ruskin performance: ‘Ruskin greatly added to the dramatic effect by having the picture which was covered with a black cloth brought in by an attendant with great secrecy & solemnity just at the very moment when the interest of the audience was on tip-toe & he then fairly lifted it off its feet by cunningly adding a few touches with his head under the black cloth & his back to his listeners. When all was complete he kept everybody in roars of laughter by the unusual energy—not to say violence with which he rubbed in the colours for the factory chimney-smoke &c.’ 10 A typical Ruskin target. ‘The labour of the whole Geological Society, for the last fifty years, has but now arrived at the ascertainment of those truths respecting mountain form which Turner saw and expressed with a few strokes of a camel’s hair pencil fifty years ago, when he was a boy’: Stones of Venice (1851–3), 3. 2.

1878 TO E DWA RD H O U S M A N [Oxford Union Society] Tuesday. | February 12th [1878] My dear Father As this is likely to be a long letter, & as I have a good deal to tell you, I had better begin with a few little things that I may forget at the end. Please thank Mamma for the two Bromsgrove Messengers1 which I got this morning. I sent a copy of the Round Table2 to Mrs Wise, & the other day I had a letter from her, inviting me to go to Woodchester in the Easter Vacation. The weather is now clearer, though rather cold, & the roads are dry at last: the mud here is quite à la Gloucestershire. Last Thursday a motion was brought on at the Union,3 to the following effect. That the Eastern policy of Lord Beaconsfield has been from the first, & remains[,] utterly unworthy of the confidence of the country.4 This was moved by a Balliol Liberal. Mr Gladstone had been in Oxford a few days before, & a meeting was held at the Corn Exchange, where Mr Gladstone spoke,5 &, I believe, moved some motion or other. A good many undergraduates in the hall held up their hands against this motion. Some of them were turned out, but I suppose Mr Gladstone was 1 The local newspaper, The Bromsgrove, Droitwich, & Redditch Weekly Messenger, County Journal, and General Advertiser. 2 Ye Rounde Table: An Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, Thos. Shrimpton & Son [and] J. Hall & Son: Oxford [and] Cambridge. It was first published on 2 Feb. 1878, and its sixth (and last) issue appeared on 22 June 1878. A complete unbound set is in the Sparrow Collection, SJCO. AEH served on the editorial board, and under the pseudonym ‘Tristram’ made contributions, in poetry or prose, to every issue. For his poetical contributions, see Poems (1997), 214–23, 230–5, and notes, 519–28. 3 The Oxford Union Society, founded in 1823 as a debating society. 4 The policy of the government led by Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield (1804–81), was to support Turkey in order to prevent Russian control of the Dardanelles. (War between Russia and Turkey had broken out in the Balkans in 1877.) Gladstone (1809–98) and the Liberal Party condemned the Turks for atrocities committed in Bulgaria in 1876. 5 On 30 January, under the auspices of Thorold Rogers (see next note) and Oxford philosopher T. H. Green, Gladstone made a speech to the Oxford Liberal Association at the Corn Exchange. He announced that for the previous eighteen months he had been bent on unrelentingly counteracting the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield.

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disconcerted, for thereupon uprose Thorold Rogers,6 who holds, or rather has just vacated, the Professorship of Political Economy, & can therefore perhaps be scarcely held accountable for his actions,—he rose from Mr Gladstone’s side, & bade the rt. hon. gentleman be of good cheer, & pay no attention to ‘dissipated undergraduates’. Now undergraduate Oxford was rather riled at this, & Professor Thorold Rogers, who goes by the name of the Beaumont Street Gorilla, was considerably groaned for at the anti-Russian demonstration last Saturday, of which more anon,—and on Thursday this opprobrious epithet was rankling in our hearts, & most were disposed to do anything to spite W. E. G.7 Owing to the excited state of the public mind, the attendance at the debate was tremendous: & then at the last moment before it began came those telegrams that the Russians were in Constantinople, & that Mr Forster had withdrawn his amendment.8 The crush & the frantic excitement were such as the oldest inhabitant &c. The debate began with most of the House perpendicular, & some floating off their legs. Private business was got through in speed & silence; & then the terms of the motion were read. Then ensued seven good minutes of storm & tempest, & the cheering & groaning were such that neither could roar down the other, & they ceased from pure exhaustion. Then the speech began. It was not violent, which was a mercy, & not rhetorical, which was a greater mercy still. The man was nothing of the orator, but he was fluent, & very cool & impudent. The speech lasted an hour, but the greater part of this time was occupied by the speaking of the House, & not of the honourable member. I should not say that his remarks took more than twenty minutes, but they only cropped up as islets in the oceanic demonstrations of opinion. About the middle of the speech, chairs were set on the dais usually reserved for speakers; then the back ranks made a rush forward, & more pressed in at the door: the poor new president9 was always on his legs to maintain order, 6 James Edwin Thorold Rogers (1823–90), Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford, 1862–7, 1888–90; Lecturer in Political Economy, Worcester College, Oxford, 1883; MP for Southwark, 1880–5, and Bermondsey, 1885–6. Author of History of Agriculture and Prices, (6 vols., 1866–87). 7 William Ewart Gladstone. 8 William Edward Forster (1819–66), Liberal MP for Bradford and a former member of the Cabinet, on 7 Feb. withdrew his amendment to the Vote of Credit (which had been devised for military support of the British Empire in the East) at the news that the Turks had surrendered the defences of Constantinople. 9 The Hon. William St John Freemantle Brodrick (1856–1942); educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford; President of the Union, 1878; Conservative MP, 1885–1906; Financial Secretary to the War Office, 1886–92; Under-secretary for War, 1895–8; Secretary of State for War, 1900–3, for India, 1903–5; Viscount Midleton, 1907, first Earl of Midleton, 1920.

12 February 1878

25

& only the orator’s head could be seen, which occasioned suggestions that he should stand on the table:—rejected however, as savouring of stump oratory. There came then three other speakers, one for the motion & two against; the two were baldly bad, & the one was gaudily bad. Perhaps one bye-cause of the great throng was the belief that Baumann,10 who is the best Union speaker, a Conservative, was going to speak. But he did not: the crowd diminished a little after the third speech: then, after the fourth speech, came the only glimmer of light in the darkness of debate: Burrows,11 the popular buffoon. He was better than I have heard him. It was rather ludicrous to hear him say that this was not the first time it had been his duty to vindicate Lord Beaconsfield’s character, & that he hoped it would not be the last. Not that he did, in reality, vindicate it at all. He merely stated that Lord Beaconsfield’s fame was a thing that would come—& come—& come, when the honourable mover was gone—& gone—& gone. He then said that the honourable mover would rot. We must all rot. He did not however anticipate any precipitate action in that direction on the part of the honourable mover. Etc. etc.—sometimes slightly coarse, as you see, & sometimes really slightly witty. Then there came a priest from Keble, with an amendment which was precisely the same as the motion. He was a liberal. Then a conservative priest from Christchurch,12 in reply: then vociferations for a division. But there were several more speakers all the same. Then it was half past eleven. Then someone proposed the adjournment of the debate, & someone else seconded it. The President stated that twelve honourable members had informed him they wished to speak on the question, & that some of them had left the House in anticipation of the adjournment of the debate. This struck us as highly insolent on their part, & we determined to serve them out by refusing to adjourn, especially as we had our majority on the spot. The last straw was laid on the camel’s back by Lord Lymington[,]13 an ex-president, who stated that he wanted to speak. His oratory is generally considered the one thing worse than death, & so the adjournment was negatived by a vast majority. The amendment was lost without a division. The division on 10 Arthur Anthony Baumann (1856–1936). President of the Union, Easter 1877; MP, 1885–6; editor of The Saturday Review, 1917–21. 11 Frank Robert Burrows (b. 1856). Treasurer of the Union, 1878; President, 1879; Assistant Master at Blackheath School, 1883; author of a paper on the teaching of geography (1896) and of Geographical Gleanings (1906). 12 For ‘Christ Church’. 13 Newton Wallop, Viscount Lymington (1856–1917). BA (second class) in History, Balliol College, 1879; President of the Union, 1877; MP, 1880–91; sixth Earl of Portsmouth, 1891; Under-secretary for War, 1905–8.

26

Letters 1872–1926

the motion was—for the motion 68; against the motion 146,—majority against the motion—unheard in the transports of enthusiasm, & the general rush back to college; for you can only understand the patriotic state of excitement in which we were, when you consider that the division took place between ten & five minutes to twelve: & if you are not back in college at 12 the penalties, I believe, are something very fearful indeed. I did not go to Gladstone: I did not discover he was in Oxford till the moment before. He was rather feeble, as he tried to be humorous, which was very unwise. I believe he was very fine at the Palmerston Club,14 in the passage where he described his antagonism to Lord Beaconsfield. On Saturday night an anti-Russian demonstration was held in the Corn Exchange. I went, because Sir Robert Peel15 was coming: he did not come; but I heard Alfred Austin.16 The hall was crammed. The orators were late. First Rule Britannia17 was sung by the crowd; latent English Liberalism testifed by scattered hisses its decided objection to the marine rule of Britannia. Then we took up our parable & sang that we didn’t want to fight, but by jingo, if we did, we’d got the ships, we’d got the men, we’d got the money too.18 As a matter of fact we had not got the money yet, but that was immaterial; & growing impatience soon made it clear, by several ‘‘mills’’ in the body of the hall, that when we did want to fight we could perfectly well dispense with money, & ships too, for the matter of that, in the attainment of our desire. When it was getting towards eight, the orators came. Then there was great cheering, & the Mayor was unheard, & Mr Hall,19 member for the city of Oxford, (along with Sir William Harcourt!)20 began to speak. Then there was much cheering again, & much desultory ejection of malcontent Liberals, at intervals, between which the orator 14

Inaugurated by Gladstone and Edward, Viscount Cardwell (1813–86), on 30 January. 1822–95. Eldest son of Sir Robert Peel, the former Prime Minister (1834–5, 1841–6); MP since 1850; a supporter of Disraeli’s Eastern policy. 16 1835–1913. Leader writer to the Standard, 1866–96; Co-editor of the National Review, 1883–7; Editor, 1887–95; Poet Laureate, 1896–1913. 17 Jingoistic song with words by James Thomson and music by Thomas Arne, first performed in 1740. Its refrain is ‘Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; | Britons never will be slaves.’ 18 Music hall song We Don’t Want to Fight by G. W. Hunt (1878), made popular by G. H. Macdermott: ‘We don’t want to fight, but, by jingo if we do, | We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too. | We’ve fought the Bear before, and while Britons shall be true, | The Russians shall not have Constantinople.’ 19 Alexander William Hall (1839–1919). Conservative MP for Oxford, 1874–80, 1885–92. 20 William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt (1827–1904). President of the Union, 1849; Liberal MP for Oxford, 1868; Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge, 1869–87; knighted on appointment as Solicitor-General, 1873; denounced Turkey, 1876–8; following defeat at Oxford, MP for Derby, May 1880; Home Secretary, 1880–5; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1886, 1892–5; Leader of the Liberal Party, 1896–8. 15

12 February 1878

27

struggled on. I was close to the platform, so I heard well. He said nothing worth remark, except that the Christians of Turkey hated one another with a hatred passing the love of woman. This I relished very much, especially as his wife was sitting beside him. Then came Sir Henry Drummond Wolff,21 weak; then Mr Hanbury,22 frantic, but gentlemanly: then Alfred Austin, pointed & clever, but insufficiently audible. These speeches formed the interludes to about a dozen patriotic ejections,—one being that of an eminent liberal undergraduate who speaks much at the Union, & on this occasion attempted to scale the platform with an amendment. These ejections were vigorously prompted by a man on the platform with a long black beard. This I thought bad taste, so as I was close to the platform, I caught hold of Sir Drummond Wolff,—selecting his left hand, because he wore a large gold ring upon it, & was therefore likely to consider it the most valuable portion of his frame—and told him that I thought we should have scored off Gladstone, if we had abstained from following the ejective example set by his meeting, and I asked him whether he could not suppress the man with the black beard. But Sir Drummond Wolff was in a helpless state of imbecility, & could do nothing, & as Mr Hanbury looked as if he was going to faint after his oratorical exertions, & Alfred Austin was bent upon sitting immoveable & looking as much like Mr Disraeli as he could manage,—there was nothing to be done. But the result was a rather rowdy meeting. The motion —Conservative and Turk—was of course carried with acclamation, & then the meeting fought itself out of doors & culminated in the combustion of an effigy of Mr Gladstone just outside our college. On the Sunday before last, Canon King23 of Christchurch24 preached at St Mary’s on ‘binding & loosing’—a counterblast to Dean Stanley in the Nineteenth Century.25 The sermon was unconscionably long, & considerably over our heads, brimming as it did with patristic learning, until, at the end of an hour & a quarter, he concluded with an apology to his younger brethren 21 Henry Drummond Charles Wolff (1830–1908). Civil servant in the Foreign Office; knighted, 1862; Conservative MP for Christchurch, 1874–80, for Portsmouth, 1880–5; sent on mission to Constantinople to negotiate with Turkey over the future of Egypt, Aug. 1885; negotiated second convention with Turkey, May 1887, which was not ratified; subsequently envoy to Persia, Romania, and Spain. 22 Robert William Hanbury (1845–1903). Conservative MP, 1872–80, 1885–1903; Financial Secretary of the Treasury, 1895–1900; President of the Board of Agriculture, 1900. 23 The Revd Edward King (1829–1910). High Churchman and Tory; Professor of Pastoral Theology and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, 1873–85; Bishop of Lincoln, 1885–1910. 24 For ‘Christ Church’. 25 ‘Absolution’ by A[rthur] P[enrhyn] Stanley (1815–81), Dean of Westminster (1864–81), in The Nineteenth Century, 3 ( Jan. 1878), 183–95.

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Letters 1872–1926

for having bored them, & giving as his reason that Our Lord grieved Peter,26 which I did not quite see the force of. But I felt it was quite worth sitting still for an hour & a quarter to watch such an interesting personality. He is tall, but stoops; & haggard in the face but without grey hair; & his sermon was most masterly here & there. The exquisitely deprecating way & affected timidity with which he put his strongest points, & the mournful & apologetic modulation of his voice where he was pulling Dean Stanley to pieces, were really almost worthy of Disraeli, & not altogether unlike, were it not for the deadly earnest, which was rather detrimental to the oratorical effect. Last Sunday, Dean Church27 in the morning. Dean Church, I regret to say it, is dull. He is very nice to look at, & particularly ethereal in countenance, & he speaks in earnest, & everything, but he is certainly tedious. I thought so last term, & now I am confirmed. In the Afternoon, the Bishop of Manchester,28 who commenced operations by blowing his nose, which is a rhetorical device he has apparently just found out, & which in the first ecstasy of novelty he uses with injudicious profusion. In the bidding prayer he prayed that this country might not be drawn into war. He took a text to the effect that when we saw devils being cast out, the kingdom of God would be at hand. As he went on it became apparent that the first devil was the Turk. The second devil was the Pope, over whose death-bed the Bishop uttered a wild whoop of triumph,29 & then proceeded to inveigh against the Romish Church, which inspired him with much despair, as it did not seem inclined to die. This part of the sermon was garnished with several quotations from Macaulay’s essay on Von Ranke’s history of the Popes.30 Now Canon Liddon31 was present, & up to this point of course he must have found himself in unexpected sympathy with the Bishop,—on both the Turk & Rome. This was particularly kind on Dr Fraser’s part, as, in the morning, Canon Liddon, in getting into the pew at the end of which the Bishop sat, had almost taken his seat on his Lordship’s knees, for which the Bishop had rewarded him with a smile of such Christian forgiveness that Canon Liddon hastily made his way to the middle of the pew, &, 26

John 21: 17: ‘Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me?’ Richard William Church (1815–90). Select preacher at Oxford, 1868, 1876–8, 1881–2; leading member of High-Church party; Dean of St Paul’s, 1871–90. 28 James Fraser (1818–85). Fellow and Tutor, Oriel College, Oxford, 1840–60; Bishop of Manchester, 1870–85. 29 Pope Pius IX died on 7 Feb. 1878, aged 85, after the longest pontificate in history (1846–78). 30 Edinburgh Review (Oct. 1840). Repr. in Critical and Historical Essays, 3 (1850). 31 Henry Parry Liddon (1829–90). Vice-Principal, St Edmund Hall, Oxford, 1859; Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral, 1870, Chancellor, 1886; celebrated preacher. 27

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17 February 1878

taking up a prayer book, began to read it with an avidity & apparent sense of novelty which that interesting work does not often excite in the clergy of the Established Church of England. Well, the Bishop, having shown us a great deal of reason why the church of Rome was unlikely to go down quick into the pit, now began to give us a few slight crumbs of consolation, on which we might base a hope, though not a belief, that she would do so. And then he somehow got upon the subject of Ritualism & the Confessional in England. Poor Canon Liddon! He always sits with his hand over his face, so I could not see his emotions; but the revulsion of feeling must have been great, when the sermon[,] which began so promisingly, developed into this. But the Bishop was now far above canons & all the rest of the inferior clergy. He began to plunge into eloquence, in which he rather staggered. He even began a sentence with ‘‘Methinks,’’—but got rather bewildered towards the end of it, & so found it time to conclude with a remark about freedom of conscience, which was calculated to bring down the house, & then blew his nose in the middle of the doxology or whatever you call it, to show how little trouble it had all cost him. Here it is time to conclude these irrelevant recitals, which I hope will interest you a little. With love to Mamma & the rest, I remain Your loving son Alfred E. Housman. P.S. The Union authorities decline to supply one with stamps up to more than a certain weight. Such is my wiliness that I intend to frustrate their parsimony by posting this letter in two envelopes, differently directed. I have numbered the sheets of this letter, that you may not be confused. UCL MS Add. 126. Memoir, 44–51 (incomplete); Maas, 13–19.

TO E L I Z A B E T H W I S E [Oxford] Sunday. [17 Feb. 1878] My dear Mrs Wise You were going to receive a Valentine from the Pope, but as the cantankerous old ruffian chose to shuffle off his mortal coil1 at that inopportune moment, I was far too much overcome by the frustration of 1 Hamlet, 3. 1. 69: ‘When we have shuffled off this mortal coil’. On the death of the Pope, see previous letter, n. 29. See AEH to Mrs Wise, 5 Apr. 1877 and 24 Nov. 1878, about going ‘over to Rome’.

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Letters 1872–1926

my scheme to turn my poetic genius to any thing else. I enclose however some nonsense verses which will appear in the next number of the Round Table, composed by several members of the Editorial Staff together: the last verse is mine.2 I am glad you liked the Round Table: the second number will be published next Saturday, & I will send it. I expect it will be considerably better than the first. It is selling here very well, & seems likely to become popular. You are kind enough to ask me to come to Woodchester at Easter, if not better engaged. Setting aside the obvious absurdity of the notion that any engagement could be better, I shall be most delighted to come: only I must explain that the Easter Vacation does not begin at Easter, but just towards the end of March. It lasts about five weeks or a month; & if at any period starting from that date you can take me in, I shall like nothing better. I hope you are better in health than when I saw you last. I also hope that Miss Becker has got over the preliminary horrors of her pupils. I should be learning German myself this term, but for the great pressure of classical work for the time: I shall begin next term:3 it is to some extent a necessity, as a great many of the most learned editions of Latins & Greeks are in German. I hope still more fervently that the cookery class enjoys itself: I was most edified when I heard who were its component parts. Have you heard of a physician in fragments being found anywhere in the neighbourhood as yet? We have had Gladstone here, as you know: & about a week ago we had a counterblast, in the shape of a great anti-Russian meeting, to which I went: but it was rather a boisterous affair, though considerably more unanimous & enthusiastic than Gladstone’s meeting. While that latter gentleman was describing the government as a bag, which he did in the course of his speech, some one called out ‘‘Why don’t you put your head in it?’’ Mr Gladstone happily did not hear the unfeeling remark. I may remark, for the consolation of so noted a Papist as yourself, that the Bishop of Manchester4 was here preaching last Sunday, & that even he considers that the Roman Candlestick Religion has still a long life before

2 Attributed to ‘King Arthur’. It is not known whether, or to what extent, AEH had a hand in verses 1–3. The third bears a resemblance to The shades of night were falling fast, 10, 12 (‘desperate fellah… umberella’): Poems (1997), 210. 3 Naiditch (1995), 67–9, presents evidence to suggest that AEH did not begin serious study of the German language until 1890. 4 See the previous letter, n. 28.

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17 February 1878

it, & will continue to spread. After this ecstatic news I will send my best love to you & the rest and remain Yours affectionately Alfred E. Housman. These are the Verses.5 1. Oh, fair is the lovely peˆony, Serene is the mildew of hate, Most gay is the tail of the pony, All poets must yield unto fate. 2. Oh, sour are the succulent juices That blow on the banks of the Cam:6 ’Tis mustard the maiden induces To wallow in marmalade jam. 3. Oh, fair was my new umberella Although its sweet handle was bent; Oh, cursed be that desperate fellah To whom in my weakness ’twas lent. 4. For it sank in a flatulent fluid And imbibed its auricomous7 roar, Till the deadly & dew-spangled Druid8 Had dabbled his tendrils in gore. BMC MS.

5

Published in Ye Rounde Table, 1. 2 (23 Feb. 1878), 18. See Poems (1977), 214–15. Cambridge river. 7 Of or pertaining to golden hair. OED’s first example is from 1864. 8 Member of an order of priests in ancient Britain and Gaul, who appear in Welsh and Irish legends as prophets and mystics. 6

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Letters 1872–1926

TO LU CY H O U S M A N [Woodchester House | Woodchester | Stroud 3 March 1878] My dear Mamma It was very good of you to write, for I believe as a matter of fact I owed you a letter. The reason why I have been so remiss lately is that I have been in for the Hertford,1 the result being that I am among the first six. Which is better than any one else thought I should do, and better than I myself fancied I had actually done. I enclose Kate’s letter which I have copied out with scrupulous accuracy, reproducing even the erasures of the marvellous work.2 If she chooses to compare it with my answer she will see how very closely & humbly I have trodden in her footsteps. I am glad you are well enough to be about again. Lucky, considering youthful Louisas & unprotected dinner-plates. I expect I shall come back on Lady Day.3 I have called on Mrs Sankey.4 The Third Round Table will be out tomorrow.5 There will be a considerably larger number of writers in it than heretofore. With best love I remain Your loving son Alfred E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Edward Housman | Perry Hall | Bromsgrove’, and postmarked Stroud, 3 March 1878. Maas, 19, where it has the wrong date and address heading.

1

The University Latin scholarship. KES’s letter of 25 Feb. 1878 is copied out (UCL MS Add. 126) with errors of spelling and punctuation faithfully reproduced. 3 25 March. 4 ‘Mother of Housman’s contemporary at Bromsgrove School, G. M. Sankey’ is Maas’s guess (19 n.); but AEH is in Woodchester, which would make this unlikely though not impossible. 5 It did not appear until 16 March. 2

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19 June 1878

TO K AT H A R I N E H O U S M A N [Oxford Union Society 19 June 1878] I began this tune On the day of Wednesday, The 19th of June, And it wasn’t a saint’s day.1 My dearest Kate: I need not state That these words are hollow And it doesn’t follow That I love you dearly Or that you are really My dearest Kate: Oh dear me no! Don’t fancy so; But I know quite well Miss Milward Hell2 Would raise a yell (And her voice does grate), If I didn’t call you My dearest Kate: And yet for all you Can possibly tell There may be thousands Of dearest Kates All hung on the boughs’ ends Or hid in the grates (You notice, ‘‘boughs’ ends’’ Will rhyme with ‘‘thousands’’ Quite well enoúgh for me —As well as ‘‘cows’ hands’’ —Which is too great stúff for me For you’ll surely allow 1 ‘1879’ is pencilled on the MS, apparently by KES. However, 19 June was a Thursday in 1879, but a Wednesday in 1878. 2 Possibly a relative of Ensign (later Captain) Milward of Bromsgrove, mentioned in Pugh, 138, 172–3.

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Letters 1872–1926

Hands don’t grow on a cow) And ‘my dearest Kate’ Means nothing great, It may mean loathing, Or bitterest hate It may mean nothing —Or anything, Kate. And now I’m aware That in a short time I shall want a rhyme To rhyme with ‘‘sèche’’:3 Therefore prepare Your Dictionaire And look out ‘‘fraˆiches’’4 And do they grow At Fockbury,5 oh? They do. Just so. Perhaps you consider That I’m a goose To put a French word In constant use, And as absurd As the hopes of a spider (Rhyme to ‘‘consider’’) To catch a tench, And you think I’m a nuisance to ladies who blench At the sound of French, As perhaps you do: (Sing tootle-tum-too! One must force rhymes In short lines, sometimes) But ah-ha! oh-ho! You do not know That a rhyme will come 3 5

4 ˆ sèche: dry. fraiches: fresh (for fraises, strawberries). Fockbury: AEH’s birthplace.

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19 June 1878

(Sing tootle-too-tum) —A rhyme to fraˆiches As well as sèche— At the very end. Therefore attend. Yes, yes, be sure That you shall have My ‘‘signiture’’6 Ere I go to my grave. Before I end With honours rife That ‘‘Shakespears life’’ You so kindly portend. One night, (you said) You went to bed. But I, oh no, I didn’t do so: Such indolence scorning I got up one morning! ˆ (Etes-vous donc sèche?7 ) I took my candle, I was so quick! I took my candle (Oh, j’aime les fraˆiches8 ) I took by the handle My candle-stick. Though good health blessed me Something ‘oppresed’ me: A sort of preséntiment, —The same thing you meant, I meant. Oh dear, oh me! What’s that I see? Coffee? or milk? No, something better, A sealèd letter Containing blue silk. 6 8

On such errors, see the previous letter, n. 2. ˆ ‘Oh, I love strawberries’ (fraiches for fraises).

7

‘Are you dry, then?’

36

Letters 1872–1926

I read it through Boo-hoo! boo-hoo! Alas, alas, Can I endure When I write to her To know what’s certain To come to pass? By her bed-curtain She reads my epistle When she ought to be reading A pious missal Or some such proceeding Or saying a prayer Or combing her back-hair

(Aimes-tu les fraˆiches?9 ) And first she catches A box of matches (La boite est sèche10 ) And she smears these matches All over the scratches Made by my pen. She does; and then She makes quite sure Of the ‘signiture’,— She smears it over With quite a cover Of Lucifers11 (Which are not hers) And she lights a taper With careful care And she shoves the paper Right bang in there And when by dint of caressing She’s coaxed it into a blaze She gives it a motherly blessing And wanders forth on her ways. 9 11

10 ‘Do you like strawberries?’ ‘The box is dry’. Lucifers: brand of matches, from c.1829.

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19 June 1878

And leaves it to burn to cinders With a peaceful smile on her face So innocent, nobody hinders Her dawdling all over the place: And she can’t think of anything better Than down the stairs to jump, And hunt for her brother’s letter— —Where?—‘‘In the kitchen pump.’’ ! ! ! ! ! ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ Ah, cease, my passion; Poem! refrain: I think I’ll fashion Short lines again. Good-bye. I’m screening My wounded pride. The late Miss Greening,— 12 She took & died. And if Miss Greenings Can take & die When they have leanings That way, mayn’t I? Prepare the coffin, The bier prepare. To walk me off in— No matter where! I break my fetters, Adieu, les fraˆiches! Kate burns my letters,— Elles sont trop sèches!13 When Greenings shuffle Their mortal coil,14 Fond friends go ‘snuffle!’’15 —Their sorrows boil:— 12 Miss Greening: possibly a relative of the late W. Greening of Bromsgrove mentioned in Pugh, 144, 146, 147. 13 14 ‘They are too dry’. shuffle | Their mortal coil: die (Hamlet, 3. 1. 69). 15 AEH mixes single and double quotation marks.

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Letters 1872–1926

With lavish purses They make their heads With plumy hearses Like feather-beds16 With ringlets ghostly Their heads they cram,— Miss ‘‘Perins’’ mostly Or ‘‘Bilingham’’. But when this bosom No more shall be, And daisies blossom Atop of me, Will brows be gloomy Will gladness cease Will heads grow plumy At my decease? When bells are tolling And I interred ’Twould be consoling Although absurd To think they’d bought her A funeral hat:— My parents’ daughter Would look like that! But no, ’tis fancy. That hat, that grief That graceful pansy That handkerchief:— No! when my mortal Career is o’er, She’ll laugh & chortle And simply roar! Yet p’r’aps her wishes, In midnight deep, 16 Fiona Clark, Hats (1982), 36, remarks on ‘the enormous popularity of birds’ plumage as a trimming’: ‘This began in the 1860s with the use of a single feather or small wing … By the late 1870s … whole birds were frequently used.’

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19 June 1878

When beasts & fishes Are gone to sleep, May damp her spirits And make her see How many merits Belonged to me: In sorrow’s fetters She then may yearn For other letters To take & burn: ‘‘Had I another’’ She then may sigh, ‘‘Another brother To write to I! But no! my candle Must flare in vain: He’ll never handle The pen again!’’ Then come, I ask it, When roses bloom And put a basket Upon my tomb: And honey-suckle And roses rare, And do not chuckle At putting it there, Nor sit down on the daises17 ˆ To eat the wild fraiches Unless the place is Entirely sèche, ’Cause then you’d smother Your doting brother A. Edward. H. P.S.

‘‘That is a rhyme If you take it in time’’ Old Song. Address to this Letter

P.P.S. 17

For ‘daisies’. (Perhaps another parody of KES’s bad spelling.)

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Letters 1872–1926

Fly forth O letter! Though skies be damp, Though even wetter Your postage-stamp; A hotter hand will Soon seal your fate:— —The tallow candle Of Katherine Kate! BMC MS. Stamped Oxford Union Society writing paper. Part of the MS, with AEH’s drawing of KH wearing a funeral hat, is reproduced in Richards, 376 (and wrongly dated 17 June 1879). Graves, 46–7, prints ll. 110–16 and 223–30. For the full text, see Poems (1997), 223–30.

TO E L I Z A B E T H W I S E [Oxford Union Society] Sunday. | November 24th [1878] My dear Mrs Wise This shamefully late answer to your long letter comes from an industrious youth who has a deal to do, which must be his excuse, if any. In a letter from Aunt Kate1 I heard that you had returned from Bournemouth, & also, what I was very glad to hear, that Ted2 had come back much better, & you yourself too. I had not the least idea that Bournemouth, or indeed any other sea side place in these days, was at all like what you describe it: pine-trees & sepulchres & the sea, & the greatness of the company of the preachers3 engaged in damming a stream with spades instead of damning their fellow-creatures with the Commination Service4 (one penny!) are certainly superior to parades & things: you must have enjoyed yourselves much, being a perfect colony, what with you & Mrs Joseph & the Cartwrights: rather a dissolute colony too, if two of the ladies corrupted their minds with novels all day. It has come into my mind, can Bournemouth be the place described in the World 5 some time ago under a feigned name? The scenery was said to be lovely, especially the pine trees: but the atmosphere was said 1

AEH’s mother’s sister-in-law, Mrs Basil Williams: P. G. Naiditch, HSJ 23 (1997), 38. See AEH to Mrs Woollright, 1876, n. 5. 3 Ps. 68: 11: ‘great was the company of the preachers’ (Coverdale’s Book of Common Prayer version). 4 In the Anglican Liturgy for Ash Wednesday, the recital of divine threats against sinners. 5 The Pictorial World, an illustrated weekly newspaper, 1874–92. 2

24 November 1978

41

to be scented with Patchouli,6 which was the title of the article. What is Patchouli? Is it a kind of scent? And did you smell any? And what is the force of saying that an atmosphere is scented with Patchouli? Is it a scent particularly admired & used by the giddy votaries of fashion (this is not meant for you), & do they throng Bournemouth when the season comes? It is a conundrum which I have given up. I heard from Miss Becker when she got to Siegen.7 She prophesied that she should make herself ill with eating cakes at tea. From Aunt Kate’s letter I gather that this prophecy has come true. Giddy young thing!8 Did she cram them into her mouth at intervals to smother her emotion at meeting Otto,9 or what? I wrote her a letter: but as they don’t provide foreign paper at the Union, I wrote it on this paper. It was one sheet & a half. They stamp the letter here for you, if they are not over weight. It struck me afterwards that that might be over weight. Do you suppose it was? & would she be let in for ten shillings at the other end or something dreadful, owing to the morose indignation of Bismark10 at an Englishman not having put enough stamps on his letter? He might suspect that the Bank of England was breaking, & declare war on the spot:11 what a shindy one might create: it would be well worth trying. I will now write down some intelligence for your Roman ear.12 About the beginning of last vacation the authorities announced to Dr Pusey13 that he would have two turns in the University pulpit in October: who would he like to preach for him? They asked this because he had not been able to preach himself for some time: but he sent back & said ‘‘I’ll preach myself.’’ But when October came, Dr Pusey had the asthma, & they found it would be a moral impossibility to get him up the pulpit stairs without machinery: and they didn’t think he would look 6 Asiatic tree with leaves yielding oil used in perfume manufacture; or, the perfume made from it. 7 8 Siegenburg, later in W. Germany. She was c.34. 9 Possibly a reference to Bismarck, whose names were Otto Eduard Leopold. 10 1815–98. The ‘Iron Chancellor’ of Germany (1871–90). 11 Bismarck had orchestrated wars with Denmark (1864), Austria (1866), and France (1870–1) in order to effect the unification of Germany. 12 See AEH to Mrs Wise, 5 Apr. 1877, and n. 3, and 17 Feb. 1878. 13 Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–82). Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, 1828, and Canon of Christ Church. He was suspended from the office of university preacher on a charge of heresy in 1843, resuming in 1846. A leading figure in the Oxford Movement, he aimed at restoring the High Church ideals of the seventeenth century. His efforts from 1865 to effect the union of English and Roman churches were razed by the decisions of the Vatican Council in 1870.

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well in machinery: so when the morning came, & the Church doors had been besieged a quarter of an hour before they opened, after all Canon Liddon made his appearance & preached Pusey’s sermon for him. The sermon was the best I ever heard: I believe he has taken years in writing it, & it is the coping stone of the work of his life: it was about Religion & Natural Science. Canon Liddon of course preached it much better than Pusey could have done it himself, but still I was sorry to miss hearing the old man. On the next Sunday Dr Pusey was announced again, but again he had to depute some-one else; and this time the sermon was rather dull: perhaps it suffered in the delivery. You apparently have no chance of stagnation, with all the doings of your frisky Mutton. But what I wanted to say was, that here every one is going over to Rome like wildfire: the Pope’s Chamberlain has taken up his abode here, though what becomes of the Pope & the Pope’s Chamber in the mean time I’m sure I don’t know: he asks men to breakfast, & leads them into a private oratory where Mass is going on: & he says ‘‘Doesn’t it look grateful, comforting?’’ and they say yes it does,—& then they think they should like to try how it feels, & then they go over to Rome. If you would only come & pay me a visit you might go over with great éclat & quite a string of young men at your heels, looking for all the world like Murillo’s Madonna with her sky-full of Cherubs.14 The Pope rushes out of the Vatican with ‘‘Are you my long lost daughter?’’—you intimate that such is the case, & then you go into St. Peter’s & get canonised quietly. In expectation of this glorious event, & with much love to yourself & all I remain Yours most affectionately Alfred E. Housman. BMC MS. Stamped Oxford Union Society writing paper. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Wise | Woodchester House | Stroud’. Year as postmark. 14 Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1618–82), Spanish religious painter. AEH’s reference is to his Immaculate Conception of Soult.

1879 TO E L I Z A B E T H W I S E Sunday [Hilary Term: 14 Jan.–5 Apr. 1879] Oxford. My dear Mrs Wise I hope your influenza is retreating by now, tho’ I can’t say the weather is likely to assist it: we have got the river frozen over again as it was at the end of last term, a most unusual thing: & though I have not got a cold or anything myself, a good many have, & as the poet1 observes White is the wold, & ghostly The dank & leafless trees, And M’s & N’s are mostly Pronounced as B’s & D’s something like this Dever bore bedeath the bood Shall byrtle boughs edtwide, Dever bore thy bellow voice Bake belody with bide and I suppose it is much the same with you, & you go about the house saying ‘‘Where is Biddie?’’ and Minnie answers ‘‘Here I ab, Babba.’’ I was very much amused by your account of all your pets. I think Dachshunds2 are dear creatures: there is one belonging to a fellow of our college who lives on the same staircase with me: sometimes it is shut out & sits howling on the stairs & then I entice it into my rooms & put it on an armchair in front of the fire & feed it on milk, by which means I am rapidly alienating its affections from its master. Young England’s appointment & Miss Billings’s disappointment (or ought I to call her Old England?) at New Zealand is very interesting: England & New Zealand are said in the Geography books to be antipodes to one another: you should point out to Miss Becker that this is another 1

Imaginary.

2

The Wise family had a pet dachshund called Minka.

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proof that the world is round. It is very curious too how the result of marriage always seems to be to ‘‘escape Australia.’’ I have it on my mind to thank Miss Becker for my socks which are beautiful: I do not gather whether she is at Woodchester or not. You seem doomed to miscreants in the way of clergymen: I wonder you dont3 start a waxwork collection of them as ‘‘the Woodchester chamber of Horrors.’’ I am surprised to hear of the Searanckes4 going to Italy: I thought Mr Searancke had sworn by all the gods & goddesses that he would never set foot oversea again: however I suppose l’homme propose, la femme dispose.5 With best love to all I remain Always yours affectionately Alfred E. Housman. P.S. I just remember that I heard Hamilton was not to be married: Which has he chosen—Australia? or the Woodchester dramatic company? BMC MS. 3

For ‘don’t’. Mr Searancke was the second husband of AEH’s mother’s sister-in-law Mrs Basil Williams (‘Aunt Kate’). Naiditch (2005), 5, makes the identification from the Housman family album. The name ‘Alice E. Searancke’ appears in the Visitors’ Book of the Wise family on five separate occasions, 1883–6. 5 A variant on Thomas à Kempis’s saying ‘Man proposes but God disposes’ (The Imitation of Christ, 1. 19). 4

1880 TO A. W. POLLARD Bromsgrove Tuesday [23 Mar. 1880] Dear Alurede G.1 Arnold’s Thucydides2 I shall very certainly bring up with me this term, but that I shall be able to lend it to you with any continuity I cannot expect. I may as well hereby give you fair notice that any questions as to what I have done in the Vac. will not evoke an answer. Heaven has always hitherto given me strength to tell such lies as might be from time to time generally necessary to my salvation, but supererogatory fiction I abhor & am not going to treat you to any of it, tho’ I hope for a continuance of heaven’s favours in the regular line, my first interview with Bob3 &c. That my birthday falls on Good Friday or Good Friday on my birthday is tidings which fails to harrow me much. They nearly always have fallen on one another ever since I can remember,4 & the sensation is growing insipid. The Millingtons5 spent a week in London & as a consequence Bertie Millington6 has come back with Lyceum7 on the brain & must needs have a trial scene, which comes off next Saturday, the actors consisting chiefly of this family, & one or two other children, before an audience of parents. Rehearsals & manufacture of raiment are progressing with much fervour: Laurence is Shylock: apparently he will 1 Aluredus Gulielmus is Latin for ‘Alfred William’, Alurede being the vocative. See the subscription to the letter of 21 Oct. 1877 to Lucy Housman. 2 Thomas Arnold’s three-volume edn. of Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War (1830–5). Thucydides was a set author for Finals. 3 Robert Ewing. See the letter to Lucy Housman, 21 Oct. 1877, n. 1. AEH seems to have held him in contempt as a scholar: Graves, 49; Page, 34. 4 AEH’s birthday (26 Mar.) fell on Good Friday in 1869, 1875, and 1880. 5 Herbert Millington’s family. 6 The Millingtons’ son Herbert Ashlin Millington (1868–1933). He was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Bromsgrove, until 1882: OBR, 90. He then attended Clifton College, 1882–6. He was appointed Town Clerk for Yarmouth in 1901 and Clerk of the Peace for Northamptonshire in 1904, and was awarded the OBE in 1918: Clifton College Annals and Register 1862–1925, ed. F. Borwick (1925), 179. 7 The Merchant of Venice, with Henry Irving as a sympathetic Shylock and Ellen Terry as Portia, opened at the Lyceum Theatre on 1 November 1879 and ran for over 250 performances.

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make up rather well: he conceived the character originally in a decidedly comic vein, but Mr Millington enforces Irving. Clemence is Portia: Herbert Antonio: the misery of his stage countenance suggests rather a ton than a pound of flesh as the forfeiture. I daresay Irving’s conception is as you say wrong, but I rather fancy Shakespeare’s is a good deal wronger: such slight acquaintance as I possess with the works of that fertile playwright enables me to see that several of his characters are superstitions, he learnt them in the nursery, they are traditions which he has not thought out. Richard III is one & Shylock is another; they are plausible guesses at what certain types might possibly be, by an outsider: they are admirable: they talk as men might be supposed to talk by a clever person unacquainted with the human race: but the things they say are not the things which human beings do say. I look forward to your essay:8 especially the French clearness of style. Fast falls the eventide:9 please remember me to Mr & Mrs & Misses Pollard: I hope he is still going on well. I remain several persons’ very sincerely A. E. Housman. P.s. This is the new form of subscription which you require. On reading this letter over again, my remarks on Avon’s bird10 strike me as rather dishevelled. That I do not reconsider them is due to my disinterested haste that you should get this letter. Private MS.

TO A. W. POLLARD Easter Eve [27 Mar. 1880] | Bromsgrove Dear Gulielme1 It was very kind of you to recollect me:2 henceforth I hope I shall be less conspicuous for ignorance of Avon’s bird. The book much interests my father who for some reason or other regards me as a devoted adherent of the accomplished author: he spends really much of his time at meals in 8 Possibly an entry for the Chancellor’s English Essay Prize, to be submitted at the end of March. 9 ‘Abide with me, fast falls the eventide’: opening line of the hymn by H. F. Lyte. 10 Shakespeare, called ‘Sweet swan of Avon’ by Ben Jonson in l. 71 of his commendatory poem in the First Folio (1623). 1 The vocative form of the Latin. 2 It looks as though Pollard had sent AEH a copy of A. C. Swinburne’s A Study of Shakespeare (1880) as a birthday present.

27 March 1880

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making disparaging remarks on Mr Swinburne’s versification at which he expects me to inly writhe:3 whether this refers to my Newdigate that should have been,4 or to what, I can’t say: as a matter of fact he uses Swinburne as an algebraical symbol for the Modern Spirit, concise, if inaccurate. I am getting on decently at my compositions. Walter Sickart5 is a bold man to set foot in Birmingham at this crisistic hour: I expect his relations will receive home some well-arranged ashes in urns of brass à la first chorus in the Agamemnon.6 I had seen in the papers that as I prophesied Oscuro Mild7 was to be the next attraction in Time:8 also that that abandoned woman Violet Fane was a contributor, to show how little she minded a touch of additional infamy.9 Laurence does not seem much wrecked by his illness: Basil10 is being confirmed to-day. The system of dating adopted at the head of this letter is out of honour to Lord Beaconsfield.11 Remember me please to Mrs Pollard & your sisters & fervently congratulate Mr Pollard from me 3 AEH admired Swinburne’s early poetry, and his own translation of three Greek tragic choruses, published in 1890 in Pollard’s anthology Odes from the Greek Dramatists, he acknowledged to be Swinburnian (letter of 22 Mar. 1933 to W. R. Agard). There were, however, signs of disaffection towards Swinburne in his letter to LH of 31 Mar. 1895, and by 1909 or 1910, when he gave his paper ‘Swinburne’ (Ricks, 1988, 277–95) he was openly critical. For further information, see Poems (1997), 483. 4 AEH’s unsuccessful entry for the Newdigate Prize for English Verse at Oxford, Iona, was written at an all-night sitting, c.30–31 Mar. 1879. The subject and the metre were not of his choosing. 5 Walter R[ichard] Sickert (1860–1942) had been a pupil and a friend at King’s College School in The Strand, London, which Pollard attended, 1870–7. From 1877 until he entered the Slade School of Art in 1881, he played minor parts in Sir Henry Irving’s company and those of other well-known actors. He appeared under the name ‘Mr Nemo’, and often toured the provinces. ‘Sickart’ seems to be a joke. He studied painting under J. A. M. Whistler, and was also influenced by Pissarro among the French Impressionists. ARA, 1924; RA, 1934–5. 6 Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 438–44: ‘For Ares bartereth the bodies of men for gold; he holdeth his balance in the contest of the spear; and back from Ilium to their loved ones he sendeth a heavy dust passed through his burning, a dust bewept with plenteous tears, in place of men freighting urns well bestowed with ashes’ (trans. H. Weir Smyth and H. Lloyd-Jones). This is from the second chorus: by ‘chorus’ AEH seems to mean specifically a stasimon. 7 Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), at this time living in London and working as a secretary to the actress Lillie Langtry (1853–1929). Writing on her behalf at the end of April, Wilde declined an invitation to dinner from Violet Fane: The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, ed. Merlin Holland and Rupert Hart-Davis (2000), 91–2. 8 Time: A Monthly Miscellany of Interesting & Amusing Literature, edited at the time by Edmund Hodgson Yates (1831–94). The issue for Mar. 1880 contained ‘Songsters of the Day. No. 1 The modern Sappho’, signed ‘Triolet Vane’. In the Apr. 1880 issue, the second Songster produced ‘one of the first caricatures of ‘‘aesthetic Wilde’’ ’ (The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, 137 n. 3): a parody of ‘Oscuro Mild’ as ‘The Bard of Beauty’. 9 Violet Fane—the name comes from Disraeli’s first novel Vivian Grey, 1826–7—was the pen-name of Mary Montgomerie Lamb (1843–1905). Her Collected Verses appeared in 1880, and Time had begun the serialization of her novel Her Sophy in its issue of Apr. 1880. 10 AEH’s brother. See List of Recipients. 11 Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) was created Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876. He adopted pious High Anglican practices in his ‘Young England’ novels of the 1840s.

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on his turning to the bosom of our fold: there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety & nine that don’t.12 Your ever sincerely A. E. H. Private MS.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N Monday [10 May 1880] | Oxford My dear Mamma You have seen by now that the strife is o’er, the battle done, the triumph &c.1 Last week of course has been a scene of great excitement: the campaign opened by the Vice-Chancellor announcing that any undergrad who should take part in any political meeting would be fined £5, which was gall & wormwood to a pretty large number of Liberals especially, who had been promising themselves the honour & glory of standing by Sir William Harcourt on the platform & spreading the wings of the University over him: Conservative undergraduates were less hard hit, as they none of them can speak decently. Hall himself however is an undergraduate, the senior undergraduate of Exeter;2 whether they have fined him £5 I can’t say. We had great fun with Mr Ewing who is one of the pro-Proctors3 this year; we told him we knew of an undergraduate who had spoken at every Conservative meeting during the election, which wrought him up to wild excitement till we mentioned the name Alexander William Hall,4 after which his ardour seemed to cool. All the nights there have been crowds of both parties promenading the streets & singing on the one hand Rule Britannia & on the other the following new & lovely lyric, composed I believe at the general election:— ‘‘Hurrah! Hurrah! Two Liberals there shall be! 12 Luke 15: 7: ‘joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance’. 1 Francis Pott’s hymn Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!, 2–3: ‘The strife is o’er, the battle done; | Now is the Victor’s triumph won’. Pott is indebted to the Latin hymn Finita jam sunt praelia, which is of uncertain date and authorship. 2 Exeter College, Oxford. 3 Members of the university faculty assisting the two university proctors in executing their duties, which included keeping order, disciplining students, and punishing minor offences. 4 In Mar.–Apr. 1880 the Liberals had won the General Election. Sir William Harcourt had held Oxford, and on his appointment as Home Secretary had submitted himself for re-election, only to be defeated by the Conservative candidate A. W. Hall.

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10 May 1880

Hurrah! Hurrah! For Harcourt & Chitee!’’5 On Friday they were chairing Harcourt from the station to a mass-meeting at the Martyr’s6 Memorial, just outside college;7 we kept shouting out of the front windows Hurrah for Hall, at which the crowd looked up & made the scathing rejoinder—‘‘Yah! yer ain’t got no votes!’’ which I daresay however was just as true for them as for us. On Saturday (election day) both the candidates were driving about all over the town: Hall had got his infant sons in an open carriage with him, by way of appealing to the feelings. About midday there came out a flaming poster in the Liberal colour (red) announcing that ‘‘Frank Hedges had been detected endeavouring to record his vote twice, & was now in custody.’’ This I believe was true: but their8 instantly came out a blue placard that ‘‘Frank Hedges had not recorded his vote twice & was now pursuing his ordinary avocations[,]’’ which was also true, as Frank Hedges, whoever he may be, had of course only tried to record his vote twice, & had since been bailed off. At about a quarter to seven the poll was declared with a Conservative majority of 54, & immediately afterwards the numerous spectators crowded round the front of the Roebuck,9 Hall’s headquarters, observed an exciting scene. This was Mr Hall at the centre window endeavouring to burst on to the balcony, & restrained by arm after arm thrown round his chest by his committee-men who dare not let him speak a word in that state of excitement. At intervals you saw him saying ‘‘I will speak to them!’’ & breaking from his keepers halfway out of the window, & then he would be overwhelmed again & disappear. Finally one of his committee came out instead: this gentleman’s eloquence was confined to taking off his hat & whirling it round his head, & directing frightful grimaces of scorn & derision at the Randolph10 where Sir William Harcourt was. That evening we we[re] forbidden to leave college after seven; but a good many got over that by leaving before seven: & we were also forbidden to look out of the windows or in any way attract the attention of the mob; however we blew horns out of the windows in great profusion, & on one of the dons coming 5 Joseph William Chitty (1828–99). Fellow of New College, Oxford, 1852; called to the Bar, 1856; MP for Oxford, 1880; appointed justice of High Court, Chancery division, and knighted, 1881; Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal, 1897. 6 For ‘Martyrs’’. 7 The monument erected in 1841 in St Giles outside St John’s College to commemorate the martyrdom of Protestant prelates Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer, who were burned at the stake in 1555 and 1556. 8 9 10 For ‘there’. Public house in Market Street. Hotel.

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round to demand the offending instrument he was presented with an aged & decrepit horn which had no inside & would not blow: so that in the morning he restored it with an apology, saying that he thought he must have made a mistake, as he could not make it give out any sound at all. We heard Sir William Harcourt booming away from the Randolph opposite, & he drove off for the first train with a bodyguard of six policemen but we could not make out what he said; he said however that he bore no ill-feeling &c &c, so I suppose there will not be a petition, though of course this morning everyone is talking about bribery, just as I believe they did after the last election. The Searanckes are in Oxford, they arrived in the thick of it on Saturday afternoon & were conveyed to the Randolph in a scarlet-streamered omnibus intended for voters: Mr Searancke contrived to make his way into Harcourt’s committee room while he was making his speech at the window: he says he looked utterly upset & taken aback & was even on the verge of tears (taken aback by the poll, I mean, not by Mr Searancke’s entrance). I am going to dine with them to-morrow: they stay here probably till Thursday. At the Randolph they have fallen in with a Mr Moss, member for Winchester,11 who turns out to be an old friend of Mr Searancke’s, & who says that the Provost of Eton12 told him that Princess Christian13 told him that ‘‘Mr Gladstone had forgotten that mamma was a lady, & had forgotten that she was his queen.’’ They were in Italy about seven weeks & came home earlier than they intended for the elections. Have they made Mr Vernon14 a baronet yet as the wages of sin?15 I see by the papers you sent you have been having a fine exiting16 fire, & Stillman17 tells me Edith Sanders18 is engaged to be married: so? As I don’t see a letter-weight anywhere in sight & am not 11 Richard Moss (1823–1905). Secretary (later Chairman) of the County Brewers’ Society; MP for Winchester, 1850–85, 1888–92. 12 The Revd Charles Old Goodford (1812–84). Headmaster of Eton, 1853–62; Provost, 1862–84. 13 Princess Helena (1846–1923), daughter of Queen Victoria and wife of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. 14 Harry Foley Vernon of Hanbury Hall, Droitwich (1834–1920). MP for East Worcestershire, 1861–8; created baronet, 1881, Maas, 22 n. 2, notes that he was a cousin of Lucy Housman. 15 16 ‘The wages of sin’: Rom. 6: 23. For ‘exciting’. 17 William Beaufoy Stillman (1857–1903), formerly a contemporary of AEH’s at school; at this time an undergraduate at Worcester College, Oxford; Rector of Downham Market, Norfolk, 1894 (Maas, 22 n. 1). 18 Probably a member of a family with Bromsgrove connections. Several persons with the surname (but not Edith) are mentioned in Pugh (7, 148, 162, 168, 171; Appendix B, xxxviii), and in addition there is the son of the Revd Robert Sanders, Robert Coles Sanders (b. 1853), who left King Edward VI Grammar School, Bromsgrove, in 1868: OBR, 67.

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clear about the weight of one of these sheets of paper, I shall employ two envelopes & put the Union Society to the expense of an extra penny. Give my love to my father & all & believe me ever Your loving son Alfred E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘M rs E. Housman | Perry Hall | Bromsgrove’. Date as postmark. Memoir, 51–4 (incomplete); Maas, 19–22.

1881 TO K AT H A R I N E H O U S M A N St. John’s Coll. Oxford April 4th [1881]1 My dear Kate ‘‘Sir’’, said the census-taker, ‘‘the first thing is to write your name in full.’’ I wrote down ‘Albert Matilda Hopkins’2 & waited for further instructions. ‘‘We will now have’’ proceeded he, ‘‘your relation to the head of the house’’. ‘‘My relations with the President,’’ replied I, ‘‘are, I regret to say, rather strained. He makes me go to chapel every day now I am in college, & I do not like it. No,’’ I continued, taking out my handkerchief & howling, ‘‘I can’t abear it. I think I had better fill up that column with ‘down-trodden slave’.’’ I did so. ‘‘How old are you[?]’’ said he. ‘‘303’’ responded I. ‘‘You bear your great age well,’’ he observed. ‘‘I bear your great impudence well,’’ I retorted. ‘‘What restrains me, I wonder, from drawing my revolver from my breast-pocket & blowing out your apology for a brain? What restrains me?’’ He trembled & was silent: yet this was not a difficult question to answer. What restrained me was the fact that there was no revolver in my breast-pocket. I then went on to tell him that I was married privately to the Queen, but she didn’t want it known just yet; so we agreed that I had better put myself down as a widow, which I did. ‘‘Where,’’ said he, ‘‘were you born?’’ ‘‘Where,’’ said I, snatching up the poker, ‘‘will you die? in that corner or in this? on, or under the table, or on the ground outside the window? Oh, pray don’t hurry,’’ I continued, as he rushed in terror from the apartment, ‘‘wouldn’t you like to ask some more questions?—what my godfathers &

1 2

The year of the census is pencilled on the MS by KES. The first of three sets of single quotation marks in a letter that otherwise favours double.

4 April 1881

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godmothers did then for me? or how, when, & where I like it? or why a miller wears a white hat? Pray don’t go.’’ But he went: he told the porter that I was much more sublimer than a raging lion, & he hastily filled up the last column of my census-paper with the words ‘‘Imbecile, probably from birth’’. I went down & corrected it into ‘‘Imbecile, probably from having been asked a string of impertinent questions’’. Finding that there was a good deal of room on the paper unoccupied, I filled it up by mentioning that my sister Kate was a woman of genius who had just written an affectionate & entertaining letter, & that though perhaps she spelt Napoleon with two a’s instead of two o’s & put a grave accent over the e, & deprived ‘immensely’ of an e and presented it to ‘dancing’,3 yet still she was an ornament to her sex & I remained her affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Then I had to scratch this out & put Albert Matilda Hopkins instead. Private MS. A copy in KES’s hand, ending at ‘impertinent questions’ was inspected at Sotheby’s, 14 Dec. 1998. Pugh, Appendix F, lxxiv–lxxv. 3

AEH again makes fun of Kate’s misspellings. See the letter to her of 19 June 1878.

1882 TO T H E BU R S A R , S T J O H N ’ S C O L L E G E , OX F O R D 15 Northumberland Place | Bayswater. Dec. 4. 1882. Dear Sir, I beg to acknowledge with thanks the receipt of your cheque for £3. 19. 10, as balance of my scholarship.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. S JCO MS. 1

The Open Scholarship he had been awarded by the College in the summer of 1877.

1885 TO LU CY H O U S M A N 82 Talbot Road | Bayswater W. 29 March ’85 My dear Mamma I was delighted to get your long letter on the 26th : it was quite the best epistle I have ever seen, with the possible exception of the second of the apostle Paul to the Corinthians. The violets also were very sweet: I don’t know whether St Paul used to enclose violets. Also please thank my father for his letter. Clemence and Laurence sent me a post card with a very lovely drawing on the back, representing Cherubim and Seraphim continually crying, and an inscription in Spanish or Portuguese, I think. I saw the boat race yesterday, from the Thames boat house at Putney this time, so that I saw the start. It was a perfect day, beautiful sunshine but not too hot. There were many objects of interest on the river besides the crews: especially boats with brilliantly coloured sails displaying advertisements of various newspapers and theatres. There were much fewer people than usual, at least at Putney, and very little wearing of colours. Palm branches seemed to be the commonest decoration among the lower orders. The blue which they wore was a very artful shade, which could be made out to be either Oxford or Cambridge with equal plausibility, whichever might happen to win.1 Last Sunday morning there was a rather deep fall of snow here, but it soon melted. It is almost the only specimen of snow we have had all the winter. The juvenile son of a friend of mine at the Office2 has the loftiest ambition I ever heard tell of. When he goes to heaven, which he regards as a dead certainty, he wants to be God, and is keenly mortified to learn that it is not probable he will. However his aspirations are now turning into another channel: it has come to his knowledge, through the housemaid, 1 Oxford won by two and a half lengths: Richard Burnell, The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, 1829–1953 (1954), 154. 2 Naiditch (1995), 19, conjectures that this was Henry Vize Maycock, son of John Maycock, AEH’s colleague at HM Patent Office.

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that the devil has horns and a tail; and in comparison with these decorations the glories of heaven have lost their attractiveness. I will go and see Basil when he comes to town. I suppose he is going to stay with C. and L.3 I should think his most convenient place to dine when at the College4 would be the restaurant of the Inns of Court Hotel, just on the opposite side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I daresay he will not be too much occupied to go to a theatre with me some evening. An elaborate new Index of Trade Marks is being compiled at the Office. It goes on very remarkable principles which I do not quite understand. Under the head of ‘‘Biblical Subjects’’ is included a picture of an old monk drinking out of a tankard; and the Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist are put among ‘‘Mythical Figures’’. I hope you and your household are well; and with love to my father and all I remain Your loving son A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | Perry Hall | Bromsgrove’. Memoir, 128–9 (incomplete); Maas, 23–4.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N 82 Talbot Road | Bayswater W. 10 June ’85. My dear Mamma, You would never guess what I was doing on Tuesday week: serving on a Coroner’s Jury. This comes of having one’s name on the register of voters. Civil Servants I believe are exempt from serving on ordinary Juries, but not on Coroners’. Of course for once in a way it is rather amusing, and it is not likely to happen oftener than about once in four years. We sat on five bodies: one laundryman who tied a hundred-weight to his neck and tipped over into the water-butt; one butcher’s man who cut his throat with a rusty knife and died a week after of erysipelas1 (moral: use a clean knife on these occasions); one old lady who dropped down in a fit; one baby who died in convulsions; and one young woman who died of heart disease after eating spring onions for supper. I really do not know what is the good of a Jury or of witnesses either: the Coroner does it all: his mind seemingly is lighted by wisdom 3 4 1

Clemence and Laurence Housman. The Royal College of Surgeons, on the S. side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Inflammation of the skin caused by streptococcus.

10 June 1885

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from on high, so he tells the Jury what their verdict is and the witnesses what their evidence is: if they make mistakes he corrects them. The butcher’s man had a brother-in-law: he looked radiantly happy: a member of his family had distinguished himself, and he was revelling in the reflected glory. I think if there were an Inquest held on this Government of ours the verdict would have to be deliberate suicide: there does not seem to have been the least reason why they should have been beaten unless they wanted it.2 I should say whether they go out or not the whole affair will do a lot of damage to the Conservatives,3 because if they take office before the election they will have a fearful muddle to deal with, and if they do not, everyone will call them unpatriotic. Who is the Mr Seymour who is your vicar elect?4 I had not heard of the appointment. There was a mild sort of scare at the Office the other day: a loud bang which collected quite a crowd. Civil Servants in these days of course live in hourly expectation of being blown up by dynamite for political reasons,5 and the Patent Office has the further danger of the ingenious and vindictive inventor of explosives, who might try to lay the place in ruins if his patent did not go on smoothly. The room I sit in is considered the likeliest place, because it has a charming deep area outside which looks as if it was made to drop dynamite into; so when this explosion was heard, several people came trooping into the room in hopes of finding corpses weltering in their gore. However they had to go empty away: I believe the noise was really the firing of a charge of powder in a neighbouring chimney to bring the soot down. I hope you have not been drowned in the last few days: the state of London you will have seen from the papers. Love to my father and the rest and believe me always Your loving son A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | Perry Hall | Bromsgrove’. Memoir, 130–1 (incomplete); Maas, 24–6. 2 On 8 June 1885, Gladstone’s Liberal government was forced to resign after defeat by 12 votes in the Budget division, 76 Liberals having failed to attend. 3 The Conservatives under Lord Salisbury formed a caretaker government, but were defeated by the Liberals under Gladstone in the General Election of Nov.–Dec. 1885. 4 ‘The Revd Albert Eden Seymour became Vicar of Bromsgrove in 1885’: Maas, 25 n. 5 In 1884–5 advocates of Irish independence conducted what they called a ‘Dynamite War’ against the British. On Saturday, 24 Jan. 1885, there were two dynamite explosions in the House of Commons and one in the Tower of London. Property was damaged and a few police officers and civilians were injured.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO M E S S R S M AC M I L L A N A N D C O 39 Northumberland Place | Bayswater W. 11 Dec. 1885. Gentlemen, I propose that you should, if you think fit, publish my recension of the text of Propertius, a specimen of which, consisting of the first book with its apparatus criticus, I send by the same post with this letter.1 There are few authors for whose emendation and explanation so much remains to be done. The collation by Baehrens, in his edition of the text in 1880, of four important MSS previously overlooked has in a measure rendered obsolete all texts preceding or simultaneous with his own; while he himself was prevented, partly by haste and partly by a very natural bias of judgment, from making a really scientific use of his materials. No commentary possessing original value, with the exception of Mr Postgate’s Selections,2 has been published since Hertzberg’s of 1845. Six years ago I formed the design of producing an edition and commentary which should meet the requirements of modern critical science, and have now completed the first of these two tasks:—the emended text accompanied by a register of such among the MS readings as are of import for constituting the words of the author or for classifying the MSS themselves.3 The collection and arrangement of materials for the commentary will naturally demand further time and labour;4 and I therefore judge it best that the text with its apparatus criticus should be issued separately, especially as I annually find not a

1 Macmillan replied on 14 Dec. (BL Add. MS 55420, fo. 1458) that ‘after due consideration’ they could not offer to publish the book. Their reasons were that the sale would be very slow and the cost of publication might never be recouped, and they advised AEH to try the university presses of Oxford and Cambridge rather than a ‘private publisher’ like themselves. They were to reject ASL in 1895, allegedly on the advice of their reader John Morley, and, in 1924, AEH’s edn. of Lucan. Charles Whibley (1859–1930) was one of Macmillan’s chief readers. AEH did approach Oxford University Press: Naiditch (1988), 42. 2 Published by Macmillan & Co, who issued a 2nd edn. in 1885: Naiditch (1995), 162. 3 Gow, 12, comments that ‘Propertius had been Housman’s first love, and probably some of the emendations … were produced in the hours which he refused to the curriculum of Greats’. He also notes that a complete transcript of the text, with apparatus, in careful handwriting, was found among his papers after his death. The MS does not survive: see Naiditch (1988), 41 n. 10–16. 4 It seems certain that AEH never undertook the full commentary (Gow, 12–13). But see the next note.

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few of my corrections anticipated by German scholars in philological periodicals. I am, Gentlemen, Yours faithfully A. E. Housman.5 Messrs Macmillan & Co. Macmillan MS. Copies in TCC Add. MS c. 112 and in BL Add. MS 55258, fos. 54–5. Letters to Macmillan, ed. Simon Nowell-Smith (1967), 241–2; Maas, 26. 5 AEH published ‘Emendationes Propertianae’, JP 16 (1887), 1–35; ‘The Manuscripts of Propertius [ I ]’, JP 21 (1892), 101–60; ‘The Manuscripts of Propertius [II]’, JP 21 (1892), 161–97; ‘The Manuscripts of Propertius [III]’, JP 22 (1893), 84–128. Naiditch (1995), 149, gives correct dates for the first, second, and fourth of these publications, and this implies the correct date of the third. See Classical Papers, 29–54, 232–76, 277–313, 314–47. Naiditch (1988), 27 n., notes that AEH appears to have abandoned his plans to publish an edition after an acrimonious controversy with Postgate over the relation between the MSS of Propertius late in 1894 and through the first four months of 1895. He outlines the controversy (80–3).

1887 TO K AT H A R I N E H O U S M A N Byron Cottage, North Road | Highgate N. 26 Feb. ’87. My dear Kate I rather expected this. Well, as I do not agree with the stern parent in Why They Eloped 1 who said to his daughter ‘‘I do not wish you ever to marry’’, I am very glad to hear it and I should think you would have every prospect of being happy with Symons.2 Being in love and engaged is the best thing that ever happens to any one in this world, and it makes them good as well as happy. The great thing is to make sure that one really is in love and not deceived by the pleasure one naturally feels at being paid the greatest compliment possible; but I have no doubt you are able to feel certain about your mind, so there is no advice to be given you, but only congratulation and good wishes. I suppose mamma is very happy, as she seemed to be in a wonderfully matrimonial frame of mind at Christmas. I remain your affectionate brother A. E. Housman Private MS. Pugh, Appendix F, lxxvi.

TO R. Y. TYRRELL The phrase1 plainly is one which a comic writer would hardly himself invent; and, if Aristophanes did employ it, the surmise would be natural that Aeschylus in the Persae had actually called Xerxes πόρις ∆αρείου as a variation on πῶλος. I think perhaps he had. The epode Pers. 677 sqq. Is handed down in this nonsensical form:— ὦ πολύκλαυτε φίλοισι θανών, τί τάδε δυνάτα δυνάτα 1 A composition by their younger brother George Herbert Housman (1868–1901). There is a t.s. copy at BMC. 2 Edward Symons: see List of Recipients. 1 ‘πόρι ∆αρείου’: Aristophanes, Ranae, 1028.

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28 December ’87.

π ε ρ ὶ τ ᾷ σ ᾷ δίδυμα διαγόεν δι’ ἁμάρτια πάσᾳ γᾷ τᾷδε ἐξέφθινται τρίσκαλμοι νᾶες ἄναες ἄναες. Blomfield suggested τί τάδε δυνατὰ δυνατὰ π α ι δ ὶ τ ῷ σ ῷ; perhaps Aeschylus wrote π ό ρ ε ι τ ῷ σ ῷ, which would explain the alteration τ ᾷ σ ᾷ by a scribe unfamiliar with πόρις masculine. The rest of the passage might possibly run thus: δίδυμα διὰ γοέδν’ ἁμάρτια πάσᾳ γᾷ τᾷδε ἐξέφθινται τρίσκαλμοι νᾶες ἄναες, λαὸς ἄλαος, which would make sense of δίδυμα. CR 1. 10 (Dec. 1887), 313. Tyrell (1844–1914), Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, appended AEH’s letter to his own paper. See Naiditch (1988), 216–20.

TO W. A LDI S W RI G H T Byron Cottage, North Road, | Highgate N. 28 December ’87. Dear Sir, The authority of the best and oldest MSS both Greek and Latin is all in favour of the orthography Clytaemestra, Hypermestra &c., and most of the best Latin texts for some years past have spelt the names so.1 In Greek the progress of reform is slower as usual, but Wecklein in his Aeschylus of 1885 always has Κλυταιμήστρα with the Medicean MS, and I believe there is a paper of his in the Philologische Wochenschrift for 1885 or 1886 stating the evidence on the point. The detail however is a minute one, and if you think the spelling looks pedantic I shall have no vehement objection to the change. I am Yours very truly A. E. Housman. W. Aldis Wright Esq. CUL Add. MS 4251/689. Maas, 397. 1 Wright had questioned the spelling AEH used in his article ‘The Agamemnon of Aeschylus’, JP 16 (1888), 244–90 (Classical Papers, 55–90).

1889 TO A. W. POLLARD Byron Cottage, North Road, | Highgate N. 28 Oct. ’89. My dear Pollard, When I got your letter I was just off to Cambridge for the day,1 and since then I do not seem to have had a minute to myself: last night I had just sat down to write when a man came in and walked me off to supper. I shall be very pleased to help your project2 in any way, short of collaboration, that I can; but I do not think I should collabour nicely. I will begin with the selection of passages. In Jebb’s article on Aristophanes in the Encyclopedia Britannica3 he mentions what seem to be the prettiest bits, if I remember right, so I will leave that alone. In Euripides these are some of the best or most famous: Hipp. 525–564; Alc. 568–605; Hel. 1451–1511; Herc. fur. 637–700; Bacch. 370–431; Hec. 905–952: but none of his are at all equal to the best of the other two, and I suppose you will allot them more space than him. There are three of Sophocles’ which seem to me very far his best: Oed. Col. 1211–1248;4 Ant. 332–375, and 582–625; then Oed. Col. 668–719 has of course an immense reputation and could not be omitted; and then I suppose Oed. Tyr. 863–910, Ant. 781–800, Trach. 497–530 are some of the most generally admired. Out of Aeschylus it is hard to choose, they are all so good; but say Sept. 720–791; Agam. 104–257, 367–474, 681–781; Cho. 585–651; then in a different way Pers. 65–139 is very impressive. I don’t know if you mean to include κομμοί &c., like Sept. 832–960, Agam. 1072–1177, Prom. 1040–fin.: these contain some of the very best poetry, but suffer more by detachment than the στάσιμα. The choruses I have been mentioning are mostly those that do not owe their merit mainly to their context, and so are suited for 1 AEH was nominated by J. P. Postgate for membership of the Cambridge Philological Society on 24 Oct. 1889, and on that day ‘read emendations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses’: Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, 24 (1889), 8–9; Naiditch (1995), 73. 2 An anthology of translations: Odes from the Greek Dramatists. Translated into lyric metres by English poets and scholars, ed. Alfred W. Pollard (1890). 3 Richard Claverhouse Jebb (1841–1905) contributed the article to the 9th edn. (1875–9). 4 AEH’s translation of this chorus is in Odes from the Greek Dramatists, 84–7.

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excerpting. But after all the original is not so much what matters as the translation: a good rendering of a second-rate chorus ought I should think to be preferred before an inadequate version of the best. I am afraid I don’t know very many translations, but there is one which might escape your notice and which so far as I remember is good: Eur. Hec. 905–952 in a footnote in Coleridge’s Table-Talk, done by his nephew Justice Coleridge (the lawyer,5 not the present addle-head of the English Bench6 ). Have you seen Sir George Young’s recent translation of Sophocles?7 I only know it from reviews, and don’t want to know any more as far as the dialogue is concerned: Sophocles doesn’t run well into the style of Sheridan Knowles:8 but there was a rather pretty version of εὐίππου ξένε.9 I will look over Euripides, and if I see a chorus that looks translatable I will try to do it.10 Jackson was at his old place, 26 Bloomfield St.,11 but I believe he has now gone into the country for two or three weeks’ stay.12 Allow me to wreathe with felicitations the cradle of your daughter.13 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS. 5 Specimens of the Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. H. N. Coleridge, (1835), 2. 208–10, under the initials J. T. C., for John Taylor Coleridge (1790–1876), Justice of the King’s Bench, 1835–58. The translation was reprinted in Odes, 134–7. 6 His son Sir John Duke Coleridge (1820–94), first Baron Coleridge, 1874, Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, 1880–94. 7 The Dramas of Sophocles; Rendered in English Verse, Dramatic and Lyric, by Sir George Young (1888), referred to in the Bibliography of Translations in Odes, 200. 8 James Sheridan Knowles (1784–1862), verse dramatist. 9 Oedipus Coloneus, 668–719. Joseph Anstice’s translation is used in Odes, 78–83. 10 AEH contributed a translation of Alcestis, 962–1005, to Odes, 108–11. 11 More correctly, Blomfield Street, E.C. 2, in the City, and convenient for the Patent Office where Jackson worked. Moses’ brother Adalbert had moved out in Dec. 1884. 12 AEH’s diary for 1889 records that three days previously, on the Friday evening, he ‘Went to see him’, but Jackson ‘had just gone out to Camberwell’. On Saturday, 9 Nov., ‘he started from Newport on a walking tour to Bletchley’ and returned to London on 14 Nov.: LH, A. E. Housman’s ‘‘De Amicitia’’, annotated by John Carter, Encounter, 29. 4 (Oct. 1967), 38. Jackson had returned to England to marry the widow Rosa Chambers on 9 Dec. 1889, but seems not to have told AEH of this. AEH was not invited to the wedding. Jackson visited the Patent Office and had lunch with AEH and other colleagues on 22 Oct., and he visited AEH there a second time on 18 Nov. However, AEH records on 20 Nov. ‘He meant to go home today’. And though the entry for 9 Dec. reads ‘He was married’, it is not until 7 Jan. 1890 that AEH records ‘I heard he was married’. 13 Joyce Kempthorne Pollard, the second of Pollard’s three children, was born on 4 Oct. 1889.

1890 TO E L I Z A B E T H W I S E Byron Cottage, North Rd, | Highgate N 30 July 1890. My dear Mrs Wise, Here I am (or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would say, me voilà arrivé). I had a very good journey (bon voyage), as the weather improved and I found a through carriage to London (Londres) so that there was no need to change at Swindon (Swindres), after which the train stopped nowhere, not even at Reading (Lisant). My stay at Woodchester was ‘‘brief but delightful’’ like the lady in Byron who died young.1 Please make my apologies to Sarah and Martha2 for going away without saying goodbye: but I was told that Martha was upstairs, which from what I know of her character probably meant on the roof, whither I did not venture to follow her; while Sarah was said to be amongst her fowls,3 where I sought her in vain. I enclose a cloak room ticket for Miss Becker and also a poem which I have written in her own beautiful language: please tell her this, because otherwise perhaps she may not know it: I assure her that it is the fact. Give my love to all, or at least to all to whom it may with propriety be given, and believe me Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. [D. Randall,] A. E. Housman, An Exhibition, Lilly Library (1961), 26; Maas, 27.

Don Juan, 4. 71. 5–6: ‘Her days and pleasures were | Brief, but delightful’. Servants in the Wise household at Woodchester House. They are mentioned in an entry by Emily and Charles Ford in the first of the Wise family’s Visitors’ Books dated 11–19 Sept. 1889, and Martha is identified there as ‘my own lady’s maid’. AEH mentions them in his poem The Rat, and refers to Mrs Wise as ‘Sarah’s mistress’: Poems (1997), 242–4. 3 The Wise family kept poultry. See At peep of day we rise from bed and Farewell, ye eighteen chicken: Poems (1997), 270–1, 276. 1 2

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9 October 1890.

TO T H E R E G I S T R A R O F T R A D E M A R K S Trade Marks Branch 9th October 1890. Sir, The Administrative Principal, Mr Webb,1 has to-day taken up the comparison of Trade Mark applications. We beg most strongly to protest against his assumption of work in this Branch of the Office. We believe it is quite unusual that an officer should, without the most formal authorisation, take up a position in a Department other than that to which he belongs. In the present case such a course seems to us particularly objectionable because the position as Principal held by Mr Webb would give him a status not justified either by length of service or by acquaintance with the details of the work of this Branch. The present moment, moreover, seems peculiarly inopportune, since of late the amount of comparison work has not been sufficient to occupy the ordinary staff, one of whom has in consequence been filling up his time with other work. You are also aware that the question is now before the Comptroller whether one of the three present First Division men in the Trade Marks Department can be spared for transfer to another Office, and it therefore does not appear probable that the Department would be considered entitled to the services of a fourth. We have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servants F. W. H. Davies. Francis Wm Hodges. A. E. Housman. H. C. A. Tarrant To the Registrar. CUL Add. MS 2594/15. In AEH’s hand apart from the signatures of his colleagues.

1

See List of Recipients.

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TO A. W. POLLARD Byron Cottage, North Rd. | Highgate N. 25 Oct. ’90. My dear Pollard, I ought to have written earlier thanking you for the beautiful copy of the Odes,1 and I hope I should have done so but for a beastly cold and Postgate demanding a paper for the Camb. Phil. Soc.2 I believe you despise the get-up of David Stott’s books in comparison with Kegan Paul’s and others, but to my rash untutored taste it is very lovely. I think the prettiest thing in the book is Webb’s translation from the Alcestis:3 it does not quite give the feeling of the Greek, but it is a thing of beauty in itself: the metrical effect of the line ‘‘Still as the lute would play’’ is something quite uncommon. I should have thought this person ought to have been heard of on his own account in literature. When an insatiate public calls for a second edition, apply to me for corrigenda: this refers chiefly to the arrangement of verses in the English versions: e.g. when a woman does take the trouble to make strophe and antistrophe tally, like Miss Robinson in her ἔρως ἔρως, it is hard that the fact should be obscured by the printing.4 I myself complain that in the second line of my Alcestis translation the printer has put ‘‘far-seeking’’ with a hyphen, which is quite contrary to my intention.5 I had never before compared Swinburne’s translation with the original: it is really wonderfully clever: indeed with the exception of the foolish ‘‘hell broad-burning’’ there is hardly a fault to be found.6 The first of Browning’s translations, which I had not seen before, is very impressive, though how 1 No. 3 of 50 presentation copies of Odes from the Greek Dramatists, ed. Pollard (London: David Stott, 1890), printed on large paper and signed by the editor. AEH’s copy is now at BMC. 2 AEH joined the Cambridge Philological Society in 1889 and occasionally read papers to it. John Percival Postgate (1853–1926): see List of Recipients. He had a strong association with the Cambridge Philological Society, as Secretary, 1879–93, Vice-president, 1899 and 1905, President, 1894–5, and a member of the Council, 1896, 1901–4, 1908. On 30 Oct. 1890, AEH ‘read … emendations of Euripides fragments’: Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, 25 (1890), 10. 3 Odes, 107–9, Alcestis, 567–605, by Thomas Ebenezer Webb (1821–1903), Professor of Moral Philosophy and subsequently Professor of Laws at Trinity College, Dublin. It first appeared in the college magazine Kottabos in 1873. 4 Odes, 103–5, the translation of Euripides, Hippolytus, 525–64, by A. Mary F. Robinson (Mme Darmesteter, Mme Duclaux), 1857–1944. Indentation of lines in the two sets of strophes and antistrophes is irregular. Her translation of Hippolytus was originally published in London in 1881. 5 See the letters to Bynner, 4 Jan. 1928, and Agard, 22 Mar. 1933. For further information, see Poems (1997), 482. 6 Odes, 155–9, Swinburne’s translation of Aristophanes, Aves, 685–722. The phrase ‘wings of darkness, in hell broad-burning’ is in l. 14 (Aves, 698).

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about the grammar of ‘‘whence … were wont to prance from’’?7 Miss Swanwick, I observe with horror, makes ‘‘stem’’ rhyme with ‘‘men’’.8 Frere’s translation from the Alcestis is very charming although a good deal of it is out of his own head.9 Campbell apparently does me the honour to admire everything I write, and I will so far reciprocate as to say that the Aeschylus translations you give seem to me much better than what I have seen of his Sophocles, though I wish that both he and Morshead would not add so many beauties of their own to those of their author.10 The second of Milman’s pieces from the Bacchae is very good; I don’t think I had read it before: isn’t ‘‘rarest’’ at the end of the repetition of the refrain a misprint for ‘‘dearest’’?11 Oscar Wilde’s piece is not at all bad.12 I don’t think I admire your fluent friend Anstice as much as you do.13 I wonder whether our translations will seem as bad to the 20th century as those of the 18th century seem to us. ἀλλ’ εὐφημεῖν χρή.14 I don’t know why you should want to burn your Sallust. I remember thinking, if you will not disdain the suggestion, that perhaps ‘‘covetous of his neighbour’s substance, spendthrift of his own’’ would better represent ‘‘alieni appetens’’ &c than your very condensed version.15 7 Odes, 117–21, Robert Browning’s translation of Euripides, Hercules Furens, 388–441. The awkward construction (117) is in fact ‘Whence, having filled their hands with pine-tree plunder, | Horse-like was wont to prance from, and subdue | The land of Thessaly’ (Hercules Furens, 372–4). The translation was first published in 1875 and reprinted in the Poetical Works (1888). Browning never changed the construction. 8 Odes, 17: Anna Swanwick’s translation of Aeschylus, Persae, 81–2. 9 Odes, 105–7: Alcestis, 435–54, translated by John Hookham Frere. 10 Odes, 9–13; 21; 43–51; 69–71; 95–7. Lewis Campbell (1830–1908) was Professor of Greek at St Andrews, 1863–1902. Campbell to Pollard, 14 Oct. 1890: ‘Mr Housman’s rendering of [Oedipus Coloneus, 1211–48] strikes me as good, although the rhythms are obviously Atlantaesque, as I may say’ (Private MS). Morshead is Edmund Doidge Anderson Morshead (1849–1912), schoolmaster, and translator of Aeschylus (1877, 1881, 1883) and Sophocles (1885). His translations appear in Odes, 35–43, 77–9, 91–3. 11 Odes, 129–31. Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868), historian, and, from 1849, Dean of St Paul’s, published his translation of Euripides in 1865. AEH is right about the misprint ‘rarest’ for ‘dearest’ on p. 131: the Greek is ὅ τι καλὸν φί λον ἀεί. 12 Odes, 149–51: Wilde’s translation of Aristophanes, Nubes, 275–90, 298–313. It had first appeared in the Dublin University Magazine, 86 (1875), 622, and was Wilde’s first published verse, probably written during his first term at Oxford in 1874: see The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, vol. 1, Poems and Poems in Prose, ed. Bobby Fong and Karl Beckson (2000), 3–4, 220, 330. 13 Joseph Anstice’s translations of Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus, 668–719, and Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulide, 1036–97, appear in Odes, 79–83, 139–41. Anstice (1808–36) was Professor of Classical Literature at King’s College, London, and author of Selections from the Choric Poetry of the Greek Dramatic Writers, Translated into English Verse (1832). Pollard included three of his translations. 14 ‘But one must keep a (religious) silence.’ This was typically called for at the beginning of a prayer or ritual. See Aristophanes, Peace, 96; Knights, 1316; Peace, 1316; Clouds, 263. 15 Pollard’s translation of The Catiline and Jugurtha of Sallust, 2nd edn., revised (1891), Catiline, 5. 4: ‘Covetous of his neighbour’s substance, a spendthrift of his own, his desires knew no

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My experience in textual criticism suggests to me that the apparition of ‘‘Prestes the thief’’ in Swinburne’s translation16 is due to the resemblance of O and P in your attractive handwriting. Please remember me kindly to Mrs Pollard and believe me Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS. bounds.’ No acknowledgement was made to AEH for the revised translation, which as originally published in 1882 had been ‘As covetous as prodigal, his desires knew no bounds’. 16 Odes, 157.

1891 TO T H E E DI TO R O F THE ACADEMY [17 North Road | Highgate N.] 7 March 1891 The fragment of the Antiope published by Prof. Mahaffy1 in the last number of Hermathena2 is emended in this month’s Classical Review by two distinguished Grecians.3 Their emendations are numerous and intrepid. Dr. Rutherford4 ‘‘would restore’’ to Euripides the senarius σὺ μὲν χερῶν τὸ πνεῦμ’ ἐκ πολεμίων λαβών which Euripides, I think, would restore to Dr. Rutherford. Prof. Campbell5 proposes to enrich the tragic vocabulary by the importation of ἄχρι, in accordance with his opinion that it is not yet ‘‘time to cease from guessing and to begin the sober work of criticism.’’6 When that time arrives it will occur to someone that l. 18 of fragment C, ὁλκοῖς γε ταυρείοισιν διαφερουμένη, is neither verse nor Greek, and should be amended ταυρείοισι διαφορουμένη: there is, of course, no such verb as διαφερῶ. It surprised me that the first editor did not correct this obvious blunder, and I looked to see it removed by the first critic who took the fragment in hand; but our scholars seem just now to be absorbed in

1 John Pentland Mahaffy (1839–1919), first Professor of Ancient History at Trinity College, Dublin, 1869; Provost, 1914–19; knighted, 1918. 2 17 (Feb. 1891), 38–51. Mahaffy and A. H. Sayce had examined the Flinders Petrie papyri, and Mahaffy had recognized a fragment of a lost play by Euripides, the Antiope. For further information, see Naiditch (1988), 237. 3 W. G. Rutherford and Lewis Campbell, ‘Some Notes on the new Antiope Fragments’, CR 5. 3 (Mar. 1891), 123–6. 4 William Gunion Rutherford (1853–1907). Fellow and Tutor of University College, Oxford, 1883; Headmaster of Westminster School, 1883–1901. Publications include: First Greek Grammar (1878), The New Phrynichus (1881), an edn. of Babrius (1883), and edns. of Thucydides, Book IV (1889), the Mimiambi of Herondas (1892), and scholia to Aristophanes (3 vols., 1896–1905). 5 See AEH to Pollard, 25 Oct. 1890, n. 10. Campbell’s publications include: edns. of Plato’s Theætetus (1861), and of Sophocles (2 vols., 1875–81); translations into English verse of Sophocles (1883) and Aeschylus (1890); completion of Jowett’s edn. of Plato’s Republic (3 vols., 1894). Campbell wrote strongly in favour of AEH’s candidature for the Chair of Latin at UCL in 1892: Naiditch (1988), 17–18. 6 Campbell in CR 5. 3 (Mar. 1891), 125: ‘Professor Mahaffy’s publication of this papyrus … yields ‘‘delightful employment’’ … to those who like the game of irresponsible guess-work. And when the guesses have been heaped together, and it is known where they jump, it will be time to cease from guessing and to begin the sober work of criticism.’

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more exhilarating sport, so I will perform this menial office, at the risk of incurring Prof. Campbell’s censure for premature sobriety. A. E. Housman. The Academy, 984 (14 March 1891), 259. Maas, 398.

TO T H E E DI TO R O F THE ACADEMY [17 North Road | Highgate N.] 22 March 1891 If Prof. Campbell will turn to v. 1100 of the Aiax of Sophocles, he will see what comes of assuming that any correction, however trivial, can be ‘‘too much a matter of course to be worth mentioning.’’1 He will find that he and his brother-editors—Dindorf, Wunder, Schneidewin, Nauck, Jebb, Blaydes, Wecklein, Paley,2 and, in short, the whole goodly fellowship—have printed in that verse the non-existent word λεῶν. They mean it for the gen. plur. of λεώς; but the gen. plur. of λεώς is λεών. And it looks as if another false accentuation were about to gain a foothold in our fragment of Euripides. The text is given in Hermathena without accents or breathings, but Frag. B has been twice invested with these perhaps superfluous ornaments—in the Athenaeum of January 31, and again by Prof. Campbell in the Classical Review for March; and in both places v. 4 begins with ἵκται. Now, ἵκται is the nom. plur. of ἵκτης, and makes no sense whatever: the word meant is ἷκται.3 The reason why I do not descend so far as to correct the spelling of vv. 40 and 57 in Frag. C is that Nauck or Wecklein, whichever gets hold of the fragment first, can be trusted not to miss the chance of observing ‘‘ἄστεως scripsi’’ and ‘‘εὐνατήριον scripsi,’’ and they derive more pleasure from these achievements than I do. 1

Campbell’s response to AEH’s letter of 7 Mar.: The Academy, 39 (21 Mar. 1891), 283. W. Dindorf, various edns. (1825–67); E. Wunder, 2 vols. (1841); F. W. Schneidewin (1849–54); A. Nauck, revisions of Schneidewin (1867, 1886); R. C. Jebb, Ajax (1869), and works, 7 vols. (1884–96); F. H. M. Blaydes, many edns. (1859–1907); F. A. Paley, vol. 2 of one of Blaydes’s edns. (1881), and his own edn. (1882); also a 2-vol. edn. by Blaydes and Paley in Bibl. Classica (1859–80); N. Wecklein, revision of Wunder’s 1881 edn. (1875–90), and his own edn. (1884–1914). The German Nikolaus Wecklein (1843–1926) supported AEH’s canditature for the Chair of Latin at UCL in 1892: Naiditch (1988), 25–6, 246–7. At this time he was Rector of the Maximilians-Gymnasium, Munich. 3 Campbell concluded what he called ‘this friendly correspondence’ by stating that he was ‘far from undervaluing’ the minutiae to which AEH referred, but that he adhered to the principle that the emendation of classical texts was not an exact science: The Academy, 39 (4 Apr. 1891), 325. Naiditch (1988), 238, 239, points out that AEH had made no mention of the possible transformation of emendation into an exact science, but that he shared Campbell’s view. 2

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The further fragments of Prof. Campbell’s Antiope (a drama which I much admire and hope to see completed), published in last week’s Academy, have been slightly corrupted by the scribes, and I would venture to restore the poet’s hand by the following emendations: for ποὔσθ’ read ποῦ ’σθ’, for στεγή read στέγη, for ἔνοντας read ἐνόντας and for ἰθαγένους read ἰθαγενοῦς. A. E. Housman. The Academy, 986 (28 Mar. 1891), 305. Maas, 398–9.

TO RO B I N S O N E L L I S Byron Cottage, North Road, | Highgate N. 30 October 1891. Dear Mr Ellis, I am glad to be able to make any sort of return for the information you have given me,1 so I write to tell you that on examining the defloratio Brit. Mus. 18459 I find that your report of it is in error in one particular. It contains the verses 39 and 40 (quam mihi … rupta tuis), and it does not contain the verses 35 and 36 (et noua … ira pyra). This explains the absence of any statement in your app. crit. as to its reading quem or quam in 36. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. It has tibi sit for sit tibi in 109, but this perhaps is not worth mentioning. Bodleian MS Lat. misc. d. 43, fo. 86. Maas, 399. 1 About MSS of the Ibis of Ovid. Naiditch (1988), 42–4, prints Ellis’s letters. Ellis’s edn. appeared in 1881, and AEH in his copy ( TCC Adv. c. 20. 46) wrote many corrections and some scathing notes. AEH’s edn. was published in Postgate’s Corpus Poetarum Latinorum (1894).

1892 TO T H E C O U N C I L O F U N I V E R S I T Y C O L L E G E , LO NDON. H. M. PATENT OFFICE, LONDON, 19 April, 1892. MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN, I have the honour to present myself as a candidate for the vacant Professorship of Latin in University College. If however the Latin Chair should be conferred on another I would ask to be considered as an applicant in that event for the Professorship of Greek.1 I am thirty-three years of age. I entered the University of Oxford as a scholar of St John’s College in 1877; in 1879 I was placed in the first class in the Honour School of Classical Moderations; in 1881 I failed to obtain honours in the Final School of Litterae Humaniores. I have since passed the examinations required for the degree of B.A., and am of standing to take the degree of M.A. in the event of my appointment to a Professorship. In 1881 and 1882 I was for some time engaged in teaching the sixth form at Bromsgrove School, and in the latter year I obtained by open competition a Higher Division Clerkship in Her Majesty’s Patent Office, which I now hold. During the last ten years the study of the Classics has been the chief occupation of my leisure, and I have contributed to the learned journals many papers on ancient literature and critical science, of which the following are the more important. Latin. In the Journal of Philology: Horatiana, vols. X., XVII., and XVIII.; Emendationes Propertianae, vol. XVI.; On a Vatican Glossary, vol. XX. In the Classical Review: Notes on Latin Poets, vols. III. and IV.; Adversaria 1 The Chairs had been held jointly by Alfred Goodwin (1849–92), and the Council separated them at his death. AEH’s application was supported by 17 testimonials, among them those from eminent classical scholars of the day such as Henry Nettleship, the Revd J. E. B. Mayor, R. Y. Tyrrell, Arthur Palmer, the Revd Lewis Campbell, T. H. Warren, Robinson Ellis, and the Revd J. B. Mayor, and, from overseas, B. L. Gildersleeve, and Dr Nikolaus Wecklein. AEH was informed in June of his appointment to the Chair of Latin: Naiditch (1988), 109. The Chair of Greek went to William Wyse (1860–1929), who resigned in 1894 to return to TCC. The election is treated comprehensively in Naiditch (1988).

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Orthographica, vol. V. In the Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society: Emendations in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, vol. III. Greek. In the Journal of Philology: The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, vol. XVI.; Sophoclea, vol. XX. In the American Journal of Philology: On certain corruptions in the Persae of Aeschylus, vol. IX. In the Classical Review: Σωφρόνη vol. II.; Emendations in the Medea of Euripides, vol. IV. I have also published translations from the Attic tragedians into English verse in Mr A. W. Pollard’s Odes from the Greek Dramatists (Stott, 1890).2 If I am honoured by your choice I shall give my best endeavours to the fulfilment of my duties and to the maintenance of accurate learning in University College. I have the honour to be, My Lords and Gentlemen, Your obedient servant, A. E. HOUSMAN. Text as printed with Testimonials in Favour of Alfred Edward Housman (Cambridge, 1892); Memoir, 70 (brief excerpt); Maas, 29–30.

TO J. M . H O RS BU RG H H. M. Patent Office | London W.C. 22 April 1892 Dear Sir, I am sending to you this day by Parcel Post twenty printed copies of an application, with testimonials, for the vacant Professorship of Latin in University College, together with three sets of my principal writings, and a volume containing some translations of mine. I am Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. UCL MS: UCL Applications Classics 1892.

2 The translations were of Aeschylus, Septem Contra Thebas, 848–60, Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus, 1211–48, and Euripides, Alcestis, 962–1005, and were made specially for the volume.

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TO T H E E DI TO RS O F THE PRIVATEER1 [c.27 Oct. 1892] The more closely the various elements of any institution are knit together, the better for the institution; and the scheme of a Union, which you have been good enough to bring to my notice, seems very well fitted to compass this end in University College. I should therefore be pleased to see it realised if it were found practicable. The only difficulty which occurs to me is this:—a man who now belongs only to one of the clubs or societies which it is proposed to unite, and who perhaps takes little or no interest in any other, may well object to pay the necessarily larger subscription to the Union for advantages which he does not want to enjoy and which therefore are not advantages to him. I hope, however, that the difficulty may not be found insuperable. The Privateer: a Journal for the Students of University College and Hospital, 1. 5 (9 Nov. 1892), 2. Repr. in Naiditch (1995), 159.

TO J O H N F E N W I C K University College | London W. C. 27 Oct. 1892.

Dear Sir, You would confer a favour on me if you could inform me of the whereabouts at the present time of two manuscripts of Ovid belonging to the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps1 and numbered 1796 and 23620 respectively, which were employed by Mr Robinson Ellis in his edition of the Ibis. I have been told that they have now been sold.2 Having chosen to edit the Ibis for a Corpus Poetarum Latinorum now in preparation at Cambridge, I am anxious to ascertain where these manuscripts at present are, and I hope you will accept this as my excuse for troubling you. I am Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS Phillipps-Robinson e. 497, fos. 56–7. 1

Written ‘in response to a circular on the creation of a Union at UCL’: Naiditch (1995), 159. Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872), baronet, was an eminent collector of books and manuscripts. His collection, which John Fenwick had inherited, was kept at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham. In 1885 the Fenwick family obtained judicial approval to disperse the collection, and many sales ensued, the last being in 1977. 2 Robinson Ellis told AEH in a letter of 21 Mar. 1892 that he believed the best of the Phillipps MSS of the Ibis had been sold to Berlin, that many of the MSS had been sold, and that more would be: Naiditch (1988), 44, prints his letter, and provides further information. Whole groups of MSS in the Phillipps collection were sold, some to foreign governments. The Meerman collection, for instance, was bought by the German government. 1

1893 TO T H E U N I V E R S I T Y C O L L E G E , LO N D O N, F E L LOW S H I P C O M M I T T E E [c.Nov./Dec. 1893] I believe that if he1 had been caught young and kept away from chemicals and electric batteries and such things, he might have been made into a classical scholar. Even now, in spite of his education, his knowledge of Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon has often filled me with admiring envy. He also, when his blood is up, employs the English language with a vigour and elegance which is much beyond the generality either of classical scholars or of men of science.2 UCL College Correspondence AM/D/15, fo. 8. No autograph MS found. Naiditch (1995), 141–2. 1 2

Moses Jackson: see List of Recipients. Jackson was duly elected to a fellowship at UCL: Naiditch (1995), 142 n.

1894 TO T H E E DI TO R O F THE STANDARD [17 North Road | Highgate N. 12 Mar. 1894] Sir,—In August, 1886, Highgate Wood became the property of the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London. It was then in a very sad state. So thickly was it overgrown with brushwood, that if you stood in the centre you could not see the linen of the inhabitants of Archway-road hanging to dry in their back gardens. Nor could you see the advertisement of Juggins’s stout and porter which surmounts the front of the public house at the south corner of the Wood. Therefore, the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens cut down the intervening brushwood, and now when we stand in the centre we can divide our attention between Juggins’s porter and our neighbours’ washing. Scarlet flannel petticoats are much worn in Archway-road, and if anyone desires to feast his eyes on these very bright and picturesque objects, so seldom seen in the streets, let him repair to the centre of Highgate Wood. Still we were not happy. The Wood is bounded on the north by the railway to Muswell-hill; and it was a common subject of complaint in Highgate that we could not see the railway from the Wood without going quite to the edge. At length, however, the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens have begun to fell the trees on the north, so that people in the centre of the Wood will soon be able to look at the railway when they are tired of the porter and the petticoats. But there are a number of new red-brick houses on the east side of the Wood, and I regret to say that I observe no clearing of timber in that direction. Surely, Sir, a man who stands in the centre of the Wood, and knows that there are new red-brick houses to the east of him, will not be happy unless he sees them. Sir, it is Spring: birds are pairing, and the County Council has begun to carve the mud-pie which it made last year at the bottom of Waterlow Park. I do not know how to address the Mayor and Commonalty; but the Citizens of the City of London all read The Standard, and surely they will respond to my appeal and will not continue to screen from my yearning

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gaze any one of those objects of interest which one naturally desires to see when one goes to the centre of a wood. I am, Sir, your obedient servant. A. E. H. Highgate, March 12. Text based on that in The Standard, 14 Mar. 1894. I have changed ‘wood’ in ‘The wood is bounded’ to ‘Wood’, in accordance with the other references to Highgate Wood. Memoir, 73–4; Maas, 30–1.

TO W I L L I A M S I D D O N S YO U N G University College, London | Gower Street, W. C. 19 April, 1894. Dear Sir, Allow me to thank you sincerely for your kindness in sending me your very graceful and entertaining Halieutica.1 I wish I could flatter myself with the hope that I shall be as fortunate as Prof. Key2 in having pupils capable of producing such verses, either forty-six years afterwards, or at any period of their lives. I am, dear Sir, Yours faithfully, A. E. Housman. Text from p. [iii] of a privately printed leaflet inserted in W. S. Young’s Aridae Frondes (Malvern, 1898): copy in Sparrow Collection, SJCO.

1 Latin verses in imitation of Halieuticon (on sea-fishing), or of Halieutica by Oppian of Cilicia. Paul Naiditch suggests to me that Siddons’s verses may be an earlier version of his Piscatus. Narratio vera (in Latin verse), privately printed in 1900. Later, AEH cast doubt on Ovid’s authorship of the Halieuticon on grounds that it contained false quantities: CQ 1 (1907), 275–8 (Classical Papers, 698–701). 2 Thomas Hewitt Key (1799–1875), from 1832 joint headmaster of University College School, London, and sole headmaster and Professor of Comparative Grammar at UCL, 1842–75. He published A Latin Grammar on the System of Crude Forms (1845, etc.), but Latin and Greek verse composition were not taught at University College School.

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TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N I am sending the poems by parcel post. Byron Cottage, North Road, Highgate 14 Dec. 1894. My dear Laurence, I have got your poems1 into what seems to me a rough order of merit. Love-bound Time I think is the most original, and it is very well written and quite as lucid as one can expect; though I rather doubt if the English language will allow the stanza beginning ‘Beauty may to beauty err’ to mean anything in particular: however, it sounds nice. Prisoner of Carisbrooke ought certainly to be included, as it has more root in earth than most of its author’s lays, and occupies the proud position of distinctly meaning something from beginning to end: also I think it good in itself, though ‘well-watér’ is rather neiges d’antan.2 The Three Kings is very good verse, except the end of the 12th stanza and the 2nd line of the 13th ; in the 14th too I don’t like ‘this tells’, though I am afraid that cannot be altered without sacrificing ‘Earth, Earth, Earth’, on which you have probably set your young affections. Poems on pictures seem to me an illegitimate genre, but Autumn Leaves is a favourable specimen. Then I should include The Fire-worshippers, which has a deal of good diction, with a few alterations which I will come to presently, and The Stolen Mermaid, which has merit of the same sort and opens capitally, also with some alterations. Loss and Gain would be almost as good as any if it were at the same level throughout; but at the end of the third stanza I am stranded, and again in the fifth; might not the poem end where the stars are, after the fourth stanza? The Tidal River is pinned on to it and might keep it company, though Rossetti is very much to the fore in it: two other short pieces, The Desire of Life and The Marred Face are better I think. A Dragon-fly has some brilliancy of phrase and might well go in, but I should strike out the fourth stanza, where description lapses into catalogue; the third and fifth will be better together than apart. Under the Rose I admire to some extent, and others will admire it more, so put it in: the same may be said of The Great Ride. Challengers is perhaps better than either. The Dead Face I am not much smitten with, apart from the twang of Browning; but many might like it, and it would serve at any rate to vary the book. ‘At the undarkening of days’ might be made into something, but it would take a lot of making: at present it is 1

The MS of LH’s first volume of poems, Green Arras. Outmoded. Literally, ‘snows of yesteryear’, from the refrain of the ballade by Franc¸ois Villon (c.1461): ‘Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?’ (‘But where are the snows of yesteryear?’) 2

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not only so obscure as to suggest that the poet does not quite know what he would be at, but fearfully untidy into the bargain: for instance, one cannot put an accent on the first syllable of ‘interrogation’; and if ‘hopen’ means ‘holpen’ it does not rhyme with ‘open’. I doubt if The Sleep of the Gods signifies much. Blind Fortune and The King’s Gifts I should decidedly leave out, and, for my own part, the remaining pieces: these shew3 a certain proficiency in a certain style, which shall wax old as doth a garment:4 still, I daresay some will admire them: your Scotch friend very likely, who draws large cats.5 I would die many deaths rather than use such words as ‘a-croon’ and ‘a-saw’; but that holy man St Jerome very truly observes ‘nemo tam imperitus scriptor est qui lectorem non inveniat similem sui’ (the worst hand at writing in the world is sure to find some reader of his own kidney).6 What makes many of your poems more obscure than they need be is that you do not put yourself in the reader’s place and consider how, and at what stage, that man of sorrows7 is to find out what it is all about. You are behind the scenes and know all the data; but he knows only what you tell him. It appears from the alternative titles Heart’s Bane and Little Death that in writing that precious croon you had in your head some meaning of which you did not suffer a single drop to escape into what you wrote: you treat us as Nebuchadnezzar did the Chaldaeans, and expect us to find out the dream as well as the interpretation.8 That is the worst instance; but there are others where throughout the first half of a poem the hapless reader is clawing the air for a clue and has not enough breath in his body to admire anything you shew him. Take The Stolen Mermaid: I was some time in discovering who was talking, whether it was the stolen mermaid or the robbed merman. There matters might be made clearer by altering the crabbed lines ‘O, heart to captive be’ etc. into something like ‘This land-bound heart of me Hears sound its mother-sea’, only better expressed I hope. In The Great Ride, to begin with, you had better add place as well as date to the title, or the allusion may easily be missed. You start off ‘‘Where 3 AEH used, or approved of, ‘shew’ and ‘show’ in the 1890s, but by 1904 he had abandoned ‘shew’ for show’: Naiditch (1995), 91; Naiditch (2005), 110. 4 Ps. 102: 26 (Coverdale’s Book of Common Prayer version): ‘they all shall wax old as doth a garment’. 5 Louis Wain (1860–1939). He was born in London of N. Staffordshire stock, and he won fame through his affectionate and fanciful portraits of cats. Madness confined him to a mental hospital from around 1920. His paintings can be seen in the Guttman Maclay Collection in the Maudsley Hospital. 6 The opening words of book 12 of Jerome’s Commentarium in Isaiam Prophetam Libri Duodeviginti. AEH’s ‘nemo’ should be ‘nullus’. 7 8 Isa. 53: 3. Daniel 2: 5–9.

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the merciful waters rolled’’: the reader sees the past tense, and instead of thinking of the heavenly Jordan, as you want him to, he is off to Abana and Pharphar, rivers of Damascus,9 and expects to hear you tell him about some historical crossing of a river where a lot of people were killed: all of which you would avoid by saying ‘roll’. Further: how soon do you imagine your victim will find out that you are talking about horses? Not till the thirteenth of these long lines, unless he is such a prodigy of intelligence and good will as I am: there you mention ‘hoofs’, and he has to read the thirteen lines over again. ‘Flank’ in line six is not enough: Swinburne’s women have flanks.10 And as line six is at present a foot too short I advise you to introduce hoofs into it; or tails? Now I will go through some details. You will find here and there some marginal suggestions in pencil which may help to shew in what direction I think improvements might be made. Love-bound Time. In the second line, should there be some stop after ‘This’? a semi-colon or colon? ‘Love’s perfect clime’: I first read this chime, which I think is better, because otherwise the dreams appear to ‘rhyme’ merely for rhyme’s sake. Prisoner of Carisbrooke. I don’t much like the first line of the last stanza; especially ‘track’. The Fireworshippers is surely a very bad title and rather helps to confuse. ‘Man, Truth, and Beauty’ would be, not good I daresay, but better. ‘Bowels’: if terrific sublimity is what you are after, say ‘guts’;11 which has the further advantage of being one syllable, and not two, like ‘bowels’, though I am aware that Aytoun rhymes the latter with ‘howls’.12 But nobody rent Prometheus’ bowels that I know of, so I should say ‘side’, like an ordinary creature. ‘Speak the word which spells’ will suggest d-o-g, c-a-t etc. The first two lines of the fourth stanza I can’t very well advise about, not knowing what they mean. The Stolen Mermaid. ‘To the bay’s caves’ is where the upward, not the downward tide would go. ‘If, ah, but if’ displays with almost cynical candour its mission to rhyme with ‘cliff’. It might be ‘hill’ and ‘if still, if still’. 9

2 Kgs. 5: 12. See, e.g., Fragoletta, 32: ‘Thy strait soft flanks’; Love and Sleep, 12: ‘The quivering flanks’. 11 Cf. AEH, Additional Poems XVII 8: ‘With flint in the bosom and guts in the head’. 12 William Edmonstoune Aytoun (1818–65) rhymes ‘howls’ with ‘powels’ in The Massacre of the Macpherson, 46, 48. The poem was published in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1844, and in Bon Gaultier Ballads, 1849. 10

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A Tidal River. The last line seems to me weak, as being merely an epithetical addition to the noun ‘star’. Perhaps ‘And draws it home to his embrace’? Under the Rose I call a bad title; because I suppose you don’t mean it to signify Clandestinely, yet how can the reader think anything else? It strikes me too that, as you tell the tale, the hero gets his roses cheap, for we don’t hear that he did give much mirth to earth: apparently he merely lay under the rose and chuckled, and earth said ‘how that boy is enjoying himself!’ The Great Ride. ‘‘in tragic accord’’. I suspect Miss A. Mary F. Robinson began with tragic: then in the fulness of time she got to insensate:13 be warned and pause. What are ‘gods of Mammon’? I thought Mammon was a god, since Spenser14 and Milton:15 in the other sense the newspapers have got it. Challengers. ‘Fire for its use’ sounds poor. The Sleep of the Gods.16 Does one put one’s head either to one’s own heart or to another person’s (for it is not clear which this god did) in order to hear the beat of feet? The last stanza of this poem is one of your triumphs of obscurity. I have come to the conclusion, which may be wrong, that the two last lines are uttered by Deep to Deep,17 and not sung by the gods, because the pronoun ‘their’ appears to require this interpretation; but if so, what black inhumanity on your part not to say ‘whispered’ or the like instead of ‘trembled’. Heart’s Bane alias Little Death alias White Rabbits: if you print this, better not employ this last title, but keep your rabbits for an agreeable surprise in the last verse. I daresay I have left out some things I meant to say, but here is the paper at an end. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 156–60; Maas, 31–4 (both incomplete). 13 A. Mary F. Robinson (1857–1944), ‘The Conquest of Fairyland’, 81: ‘Cursed the insensate longing for life in the heart of a sick old man’ (from The New Arcadia, 1884). 14 15 The Faerie Queene, 2. 7. 3, 8, etc. Paradise Lost, 1. 678–9, etc. 16 LH did not include the poem in The Green Arras (1896). 17 Ps. 42: 7: ‘Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.’ LH did not include the poem in The Green Arras (1896).

1895 TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Byron Cottage, North Road, Highgate 31 March 1895. My dear Laurence, I think Le Gallienne1 has picked out the four or five best. The Blue Eyes of Margret would be as good as any, if the words ‘‘while heart’s memories met’’ conveyed any meaning, which to me they don’t; and I think the poem would gain if they vanished. One does rather want to know when the b.e. of M. spake ‘‘Look’’ etc., whether in life or in fancy after death; and a clause beginning ‘‘while’’ seems as if it were going to tell us, but doesn’t. If the first answer is the correct one, it might be given by ‘‘Once (or ‘‘Of old’’), while gazes met’’, and in the last verse, ‘‘Then, when gazes met.’’ Lord Paramount is superior in execution to anything I have seen of yours; though I think I said before that men were not created to write poems about pictures.2 The Keepsake, with its beautiful moral lesson, is clever and striking; though your Muse is apt perhaps to preoccupy herself unduly with the phenomena of gestation. The Queen’s Bees is about as good in another way; but on the last page the two lines about fashion and passion are evidently not meant literally: then how in the world are they meant? and their phraseology is precious cheap. I don’t know if it wouldn’t improve the poem to run on straight from ‘‘a poor man’s way’’ to ‘‘Then would I give’’. Another point: do you really know what the Queen did to the poor man? If she bent him flat, as you said at first, that explains his resentment, though it sounds rather comic; but in the second version she gives him nothing to cry about. The Cornkeeper may go along with these. The Christ Bride and To a Child Michael are both successes I think, and so is Failure and Holy Matrimony. The Stops of Love is very melodious in parts. Here we begin to get towards the second class: O Dearest Heart; The Dead Mistress; 1 Richard [Thomas] Le Gallienne (1866–1947). Poet and man of letters; original member of the Rhymers Club of young poets, founded by W. B. Yeats and Ernest Rhys, which flourished from early 1890 to 1894; reviewer for the Star and reader for Elkin Mathews and for LH’s publisher, John Lane, in which capacities he encouraged many young writers. 2 See the letter to LH of 14 Dec. 1894.

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The Dead Comrade (not bad but rather affected in phrase); Antaeus (good in parts); Spring Song (pretty); The House-builders (rather overstrained perhaps); The Gazing Faun (a bit slipshod); Love and Life (begins well but tails off.) /A Song of the Road (ditto)./ I don’t care for any of the others I now see for the first time. I return the list you sent of Le Gallienne’s rejections etc.: I have put a cipher to what I think should be left out and underlined what I think should be printed: where I have put no mark I have no definite opinion. As to The Great Ride, Le Gallienne truly says that it is in another key than the rest, but I don’t know if that is altogether an objection: it may find its way to hearts from which White Rabbits run off like water from a duck’s back. Its faults seem to me rather its length, and its theme, which I don’t think really very well suited to poetry. A few details. The Keepsake. ‘‘she waits by the windowsill And whistles.’’ Do you think so, Jim? The accomplishment is rare among women. Holy Matrimony. ‘‘unfangled’’ could not mean what you want it to mean. Spring Song. ‘‘A sense of want’’ is a trifle prosy: ‘‘a fluttering want’’ might do better. I would not alter the next line. Fors Clavigera. ‘‘fortune’’ and ‘‘importune’’ is too cheap a rhyme to use even once, let alone three times. The Bleeding Arras. This fails to impress, all the more because of the evident intention to impress. By the way, arras embarrass and harass are brazen effrontery. Ursula. I don’t like this myself, but I expect some would. The House of Birth. This is less indecent than Rossetti and less comical than W. E. Henley, but that is all I can say for it. The Two Debtors. I do not understand this, and perhaps that is why I think it perfectly odious. King B’s Daughter. Nor this; but that may be the fault of my ignorance in not knowing who this monarch was. The Dedication is pretty, especially the end of the second verse. In some places it lumbers by reason of having heavy syllables where light ones ought to be: ‘‘Is each bird that here sings’’, ‘‘Where dim lights and dark shadows belong Hangs the arras of song’’. The beginning of the last verse I think is doggerel, especially the third line; and the third stanza is weak except at the end. But the chief objection is not merely the Swinburnian style of the whole3 but the fact that Swinburne has twice used almost this 3 AEH adopted the Swinburnian manner for his three translations of Greek tragic choruses in 1890, but changed his view. See Poems (1997), 165–8, 483.

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same metre for a dedication. I should think you might break each stanza into two and add a fifth line rhyming with the fourth. The first half of what is now the last stanza might then disappear. By the way, the last line of the second stanza is a foot longer than the last lines of the rest. I am going to Stockport for Easter. I see from the last number of the Bromsgrove Messenger that C. S. Boswell has published a translation of the Vita Nuova;4 and they give a bit of verse-translation which is not bad, and much after Rossetti’s fashion. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 160–2; Maas, 34–5 (both incomplete). 4 Charles Stuart Boswell (b. 1861), son of Redditch solicitor Dr C. S. Boswell, was the author of The Vita Nuova and its Author: being the Vita Nuova of Dante Alighieri, literally translated, with notes and an introduction (1895). In 1908 he published An Irish Precursor of Dante: A Study on the Vision of Heaven. He joined the Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove, in 1873 (OBR, 76), the same year as AEH’s younger brother Robert Holden Housman (1860–1905).

1896 TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Byron Cottage, North Road | Highgate N. 20 March ’96. My dear Laurence, Thanks for your letter. I told the publishers to send you a copy of the book,1 and I should rather like to know if the one they sent you contained a ‘‘from the author’’: I ask because I also ordered one to be sent to Millington, who I hear had also ordered a copy himself, so that, if there is no indication, he won’t know that I sent him the book. Yes, the cover and title page are my own.2 Blackett3 was very amusing. He was particularly captivated with the military element; so much so that he wanted me at first to make the whole affair, with Herbert’s4 assistance, into a romance of enlistment:5 I had to tell him that this would probably take me another thirty-six years. Then the next thing was, he thought it would be well to have a design on the cover representing a yokel in a smock frock with a bunch of recruiting-sergeant’s ribbons in his hat:6 this too I would not. Everything has its drawbacks, and the binding seems to me so extraordinarily beautiful that I cannot bear to lose sight of it by opening the book:

1 ASL, probably published in late Feb. The print run was at least 500, of which at least 150 bound copies were exported for publication in New York by John Lane. 2 It had pale blue paper boards with a white false-parchment back, and a cream paper label lettered vertically in red. The title-page was printed in red and black. The book was published at AEH’s expense. 3 Identified by Maas, 36 n., as Spencer Blackett, Manager of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co Ltd, AEH’s publishers. 4 George Herbert Housman (1868–1901), AEH’s youngest brother. He enlisted in the King’s Royal Rifles in 1889 and ambitiously pursued a military career, reaching only the rank of sergeant, however. He was killed in the Boer War on 30 Oct. 1901. LP XVII and MP XL relate to his death. 5 Naiditch (1995), 93, points out that, at an earlier stage in the Trinity MS, ASL began with The Recruit (ASL III) rather than with 1887. 6 Cf. ASL XXXIV 11, where the sergeant ‘gives me beer and breakfast and a ribbon for my cap’.

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when I take it down with the intention of reading it, the cover detains me in a stupor of admiration till it is time to go to bed. Love to Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 83, and Maas, 36–7 (both incomplete. Wrongly dated April 1896 by Maas.)

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Byron Cottage, North Road | Highgate N. 27 April ’96. My dear Laurence, Why am I being reviewed in semi-religious papers like the New Age1 and the British Weekly?2 and how does that sort of literature find its way to Marloes Road?3 and where do you suppose did the British Weekly learn my antecedents?4 There is rather a good notice in last week’s Sketch.5 I thought the New Age review very nice, except the first paragraph disparaging the other chaps.6 Kate writes to say that she likes the verse better than the sentiments. The sentiments, she then goes on to say, appear to be taken from the book of Ecclesiastes. To prefer my versification to the sentiments of the Holy Ghost is decidedly flattering, but strikes me as a trifle impious. Love to Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 163; Maas, 37 (both nearly complete).

1 The issue of 16 Apr. contained an unsigned review by Hubert Bland (1855–1914), journalist, co-founder of the Fabian Society, and friend of George Bernard Shaw. Repr. in Critical Heritage, 58–61. See AEH to Martin, 22 Mar. 1936. 2 The issue of 23 Apr. contained a review by ‘Claudius Clear’ (William Robertson Nicoll, 1851–1923), originally a minister in the Free Church of Scotland, but from 1885 a London journalist and man of letters. Repr. in Critical Heritage, 62–4. 3 LH and Clemence Housman lived at 61 Marloes Road, Kensington. 4 ‘ … Mr Housman was at one time engaged in the Civil Service, and is now a Professor in University College, London’. 5 The issue of 22 Apr. contained a review by ‘O. O.’, repr. in Critical Heritage, 61–2. Naiditch (2005), 95, notes the practice at the time of reviewers using different pseudonyms, and identifies him as William Robertson Nicoll. 6 Without naming names, the reviewer berated other contemporary poets for being derivative and undistinguished.

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T E S T I M O N I A L F O R R . W. C H A M B E R S  , , |  . .. 16 June 1896 Mr R. W. Chambers was a member of my Senior Latin Class in this College from 1892 to 1894, and was placed first in the examinations at the end of each Session. I have no hesitation in saying that he possesses a knowledge of Latin which is not only adequate to the post of Assistant Librarian in the Gray’s Inn Library, but probably much in excess of any requirements which will be made of him in that capacity. He is in fact a student of unusual accuracy. His methodical industry always struck me greatly, and appears to me a very valuable qualification for such an office as that which he seeks; and I sincerely wish that he may be successful in his application.1 A. E. Housman, Professor of Latin. UCL MS, Chambers Papers 1. Maas, 37–8.

TO P. G. L . W E B B  , , |  . .. 17 June 1896 My dear Webb, Many thanks for your letter. I think that the Patent Office, having produced W. Dickson Morgan1 and me, has shown itself quite worthy of being part of the Board of Trade, where most of our English poets are to be found.2 Yes, I am a great admirer of Heine: his is about the only German I can read with comfort.3

1 Chambers worked in various libraries, the Guildhall Library among them, between graduation from UCL in 1894 and his return there as Quain Student in 1899. 1 More correctly, J. Dickson Morgan, author of The Jubilee Spectres (1887) and On a Visit to Ireland (1887). 2 P. G. L. Webb was one such poet: see List of Recipients. 3 AEH’s copies of Neue Gedichte von Heinrich Heine (1876), Heinrich Heine’s Sämtliche Werke (1885), and Buch der Lieder von Heinrich Heine (1889) are at SJCO. He acknowledged Heine’s influence on his poetry—see letter to Pollet, 5 Feb. 1933—and twelve specific instances of influence are noted in the commentary in Poems (1997), 338, 339, 340, 355, 363, 369, 390, 402, 405, 440, 442, 445. (P. G. Naiditch’s Index to the commentary, published in 1998, is useful here.) AEH began seriously to study German c.1890: Naiditch (1995), 67–9.

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The reviews are good, or at any rate well-meaning; only I wish they would not call me a singer.4 One fellow actually says minstrel!5 Don’t look forward to my next book of poems; because most likely I shall never write one. Like Ennius, I only compose poetry when I am out of sorts.6 This year I have not made a line yet.7 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. None of my friends have been hanged yet: such is the supineness of the police. Princeton MS (Robert H. Taylor Collection).

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Byron Cottage, North Road | Highgate N. 26 Sept. ’96 My dear Laurence, I have Green Arras and thank you very much for it. Of the poems I think I have seen all but one or two before. Of the illustrations I like The Queen’s Bees the best, with its distant view and its kidney bean sticks: the scarecrow is full of life and is perhaps the best of your wind-blown pillow-cases to date; and the figure in the foreground wins upon one when one realises that what one at first took for his nose is really and truly his chin. The Corn-keeper looks much better than it did in Atalanta. The central or principal figure in The House-builders strikes me as very good indeed, if his right arm were a trifle shorter; but if I were the employer of those bricklayers I should take care to pay them by the piece and not by the day. I am much disappointed to find no illustration to White Rabbits. I have attempted to supply this deficiency, and I enclose the result. You will see that I have had some difficulty with the young lady’s arm; and the gentleman is not quite as tall as I could have wished. The moon (together 4 Hubert Bland in New Age, 4. 81 (16 Apr. 1896), 37: ‘the dominant note of all Mr. Housman’s work as it was of Heine’s alone among modern singers’; ‘O. O.’ in Sketch, 12 (22 Apr. 1896), 574: ‘the singer’s admirable talent of brevity’. For these reviews, see Critical Heritage, 59–62. 5 No review has been found that contains the term. 6 Ennius, Satires, 64 : numquam poetor nisi si podager (‘I never write poetry unless I have the gout’), noted by Christoph Schäublin, HSJ 14 (1988), 42–5. Cf. ‘I have seldom written poetry unless I was rather out of health’: NNP, 49; Ricks (1988), 370. See also letters: to Gosse, 19 Jan. 1911; to de Rue, 12 May 1928; to Brussel. 15 Oct. 1931; to Pollet, 5 Feb. 1933. For further information and discussion, see Naiditch (1995), 86–9, Naiditch (2005), 189. 7 Inconsistently, in 1922 AEH appears to have told Cockerell that LP IX (The chestnut casts his flambeaux) was ‘Begun c.1900 (really Feb., 1896)’. The Nbk has fragments, Oct.–Dec. 1895, and a first draft, Dec. 1895–24 Feb. 1900.

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with the weather-vanes and everything else which I could not draw) is behind the spectator, which accounts for the vivid illumination of the principal figures. You may remark that the rabbits are not running: true; but they have been running, and they are just going to begin again. The other enclosure is not one of my finished works: I should hardly call it more than a sketch. It depicts the meeting at the end of The Keepsake. I think I would have put either The Keepsake or else The Queen’s Bees nearer the beginning of the volume, as these are the two pieces I should expect to attract most attention; and The Comforters does not strike me as a very ingratiating poem to put so early. Otherwise I think the arrangement is good. There are some misprints besides those given in the Errata:— p. 4, l. 15 from of. p. 42, l. 1 and 3 doors, shore. p. 65, l. 4: remove ’’ at end. p. 87, last line: add ’’ at end. I suppose too that on p. 3, line 6, would ought to be wouldst. I think you will probably be able to congratulate yourself on having brought out this autumn at the Bodley Head a much better book than Davidson,1 if the whole of his New Ballads are at all like those he has been publishing in the magazines. Not that this is a very lofty compliment. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 163–4; Maas, 38 (both incomplete).

TO P RO F E S S O R E . S. B E E S LY Byron Cottage, North Road | Highgate N. 3 Oct. 1896 Dear Professor Beesly, I am in your debt for so many numbers of the Positivist Review and other writings that the least I can do is to ask you to accept a copy, which I have told the publishers to send you, of some verses of mine.1 I don’t know whether you, like Frederic Harrison2 take any interest in our modern improvements on Shakespeare and Milton; but as one of the reviewers has 1 John Davidson (1857–1909), Scottish poet, novelist, and playwright. Author of Fleet Street Eclogues (1st series, 1893), Ballads and Songs (1894), Fleet Street Eclogues (2nd series, 1896), New Ballads (1897). 1 ASL. 2 1831–1923. Positivist, and author of many works on literary and historical subjects. Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, 1854–6, where he was influenced by his colleague Richard

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discovered from my poems that I have a deep tenderness for my fellow men, I hope they may appeal to you as a Comtist.3 I remain Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Robert H. Taylor Collection).

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Byron Cottage, North Road | Highgate N. 5 Oct. 1896. My dear Laurence, I have forwarded the letter to Bob1 for Basil,2 and am sending £7. 9. 0 to Lee & Russell. As to the contribution to mamma’s rent, my own feeling is that it would be best to send it through them: the expenses can only be a trifle. But I postpone sending it till some agreement is come to. I was in Bridgnorth3 for several hours. In the churchyard there I remembered having heard our mother describe it and the steps up to it, which I had absolutely forgotten for more than 25 years. I ascertained by looking down from Wenlock Edge that Hughley Church could not have much of a steeple. But as I had already composed the poem4 and could not invent another name that sounded so nice, I could only deplore that the church at Hughley should follow the bad example of the Church at Brou, which persists in standing on a plain after Matthew Arnold has said that it stands among mountains.5 I thought of putting a note to say that Hughley was only a name, but then I thought that would merely disturb the reader. I did not apprehend that the faithful would be making pilgrimages to these holy places.

Congreve (1818–99), who in 1855 founded the positivist community in London; called to the bar, 1858. See Naiditch (1988), 73–4, for additional information. 3 Disciple of the positivist and humanist founder of sociology, Auguste Comte (1798–1857). 1 Their brother Robert Holden Housman (1860–1905). 2 3 Their brother Basil: see List of Recipients. Shropshire town. 4 ASL LXI, beginning ‘The vane on Hughley steeple | Veers bright, a far-known sign’, written Aug.–Dec. 1894. The church of St John Baptist at Hughley has no steeple as such, but a timberframed belfry with brick infilling and pyramid roof. See AEH to an unnamed correspondent, 11 Feb. 1929. LH states that AEH’s explanation of the change was that ‘the place he really meant had an ugly name, so he substituted ‘‘Hughley’’ ’: Recollections, 48. Robin Shaw, Housman’s Places (1995), 115, and Carol Efrati, HSJ 22 (1996), 41–4, suggest that AEH had the steeple of St John’s, Bromsgrove, in mind. 5 The Church of Brou (1853).

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4 December 1896

Morris dead!6 now Swinburne will have something to write about. He wrote 12 epicediums on P. B. Marston,7 so Morris ought to be good for at least 144. Reading your poems in print I was a good deal struck by Gammer Garu, which I don’t remember noticing much in manuscript. The last stanza is really quite beautiful. A new firm of publishers8 has written to me proposing to publish ‘‘the successor’’ of A. S. L. But as they don’t also offer to write it, I have had to put them off. I really quite forget what Housman lives at Lune Bank, so I don’t know to whose care to address this. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 82 (excerpt) and 165 (incomplete); Maas, 39 (incomplete).

R E F E R E N C E F O R K AT H A R I N E M . M O RTO N 1 24 November 1896.  , , |  . .. Miss K. Morton attended my Senior Latin Class in this College during two Sessions, and from my acquaintance with her work I am able to say that she is fully competent to give elementary instruction in Latin. This indeed is sufficiently shown by her position in the London B.A. examination. A. E. Housman Professor of Latin. BMC MS.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 17 North Road, Highgate N. 4 Dec. 1896. My dear Laurence, I have an engagement on the 12th , but not on any other evening after the present. I should be very pleased to come to your affair. 6

William Morris (b. 1834), poet, painter, designer, printer, and socialist, died on 3 Oct. 1896. Swinburne’s twelve poems in memory of the poet Philip Bourke Marston (1850–77) were published in Astrophel and Other Poems (1894). 8 Not GR, but as identified by Naiditch (2005), 14, John Lane’s Bodley Head. 1 Fuller version of name from Naiditch (1988), 126. 7

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There has been no notice in the Bookman yet.1 I feel sure you are wrong in thinking that A.M.2 stands for Mrs Meynell;3 partly because of the style, which is neither sufficiently correct nor sufficiently pretentious, and partly because the sub-editor’s name is A. Macdonnell. I have been reading your latest work,4 —probably by this time it is not your latest work, but I can’t read as fast as you write. What I chiefly admire in your stories, here as on previous occasions, is the ingenuity of the plan: this particularly applies to The King’s Evil, which I thought a good deal the best of this set. The pieces of poetry interspersed seem to me better in point of diction than any in Green Arras. The sentiments are a bit lurid. Long through the night, Amid this grave-strewn, and You the dear trouble struck me as the best; but there are a number of good verses in the others. Love to C.5 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 166; Maas, 40 (both incomplete).

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N [17 North Road | Highgate N.] 24 Dec. 1896 [My dear Laurence,] I am extremely anxious that you should spend a happy Christmas; and as I have it in my power,—here goes. Last night at dinner I was sitting next to Rendall, Principal of University College Liverpool and Professor of Greek there,1 a very nice fellow and a great student of Marcus Aurelius and modern poetry. He was interested to hear that you were my brother: he said that he had got Green Arras, and then he proceeded, ‘I think it is the best volume by him that I have seen: the Shropshire Lad had a pretty cover.’ I remain 1 Of Green Arras. The Bookman, 10. 57 ( June 1896), 83, published a favourable review of ASL (repr. in Critical Heritage, 65–6) and a biographical sketch of AEH in the August issue. 2 The initials at the end of the review, very likely those of sub-editor Annie Macdonnell. 3 Alice Meynell (1847–1922), poet, essayist and reviewer. 4 All-Fellows (1896), a book of imaginary legends. 5 Their sister Clemence, who lived with Laurence. 1 The Revd Gerald Henry Rendall (1851–1945), Professor of Greek at Liverpool, 1880–97, and Headmaster of Charterhouse, 1897–1911. Author of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself (1926).

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Your affectionate brother (what a thing is fraternal affection, that it will stand these tests!) A. E. Housman. P.S. After all, it was I who designed that pretty cover; and he did not say that the cover of Green Arras was pretty. (Nor is it.) P.P.S. I was just licking the envelope, when I thought of the following venomed dart: I had far, far rather that people should attribute my verses to you than yours to me. Memoir, 76–7, which has ‘Rendal’ for ‘Rendall’; Maas, 40–1.

1897 TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N A clever story is Mr Housman’s Gods and their Makers (Lane);1 it also has considerable humour. The Responsible Reader, to whom the book is dedicated, was, the author tells us, ‘‘cajoled into laughter’’ by it.2 So was the Irresponsible one; but his mirth was tempered by the uneasy consciousness that there was an allegory lurking in the background of this jeu d’esprit, the hang of which he did not altogether catch. P. M. G.3 17. 4. 1897, which Romeike sends to me and wants to know if this be I. A. E. H. 1 May ’97. Pray, on p. 61, did you write ‘Katchywallah’s inner god’, and Lane alter it to ‘man’? BMC MS.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N [17 North Road | Highgate N.] 12 May 1897 My dear Laurence, There is a notice of Gods and their Makers in last week’s Athenaeum:1 I don’t know if it is depreciatory enough to suit your taste. George Darley2 was the writer of the excellent sham 17th century song It is not beauty I demand which Palgrave printed as genuine in the 2nd part of the Golden Treasury.3 Because it was so good I read another thing of his, 1

LH’s mythological novel, published in 1897. The preface is addressed to Agnes A. F. Pariss as LH’s ‘Responsible First Reader’, to whom he says: ‘its power of still cajoling you to laughter is chiefly responsible for its leap into publicity’. 3 The Pall Mall Gazette commented: ‘In a so-called preface Mr. Housman speaks of the ‘‘power’’ which the story possesses of ‘‘cajoling to laughter’’. We do not see any reason why the story, though carefully and often cleverly written, should cause laughter, for it possesses a very elementary sense of wit or humour. This fact, however, need not prevent the reader from recognizing the literary merits of the volume.’ 1 2 The Athenaeum, 3628 (8 May 1897), 614. Irish poet and critic (1796–1846). 3 Where it was attributed to ‘Anon.’ 2

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a sort of fairy drama whose name I forget,4 and was disappointed with it and read no more. But the piece you quote about the sea5 is capital. He was also the chief praiser of Beddoes’ first play,6 and a great detester of Byron’s versification when it was all the vogue. The sea is a subject by no means exhausted. I have somewhere a poem which directs attention to one of its most striking characteristics, which hardly any of the poets seem to have observed. They call it salt and blue and deep and dark and so on; but they never make such profoundly true reflexions as the following: O billows bounding far, How wet, how wet ye are! When first my gaze ye met I said ‘Those waves are wet’. I said it, and am quite Convinced that I was right. Who said those waves are dry? I give that man the lie. Thy wetness, O thou sea, Is wonderful to me. It agitates my heart, To think how wet thou art. No object I have met Is more profoundly wet. Methinks ’twere vain to try, O sea, to wipe thee dry. 4

Sylvia, or the May Queen: A Lyric Drama (1927). Almost certainly from Nepenthe: A Poem in Two Cantos (1835; repr., 1897), canto 1 (p. 12): ‘Hurry me, Nymphs, O, hurry me | Far above the grovelling sea, | Which, with blind weakness and bass roar | Casting his white age on the shore, | Wallows along that slimy floor; | With his wide-spread webbèd hands | Seeking to climb the level sands, | But rejected still to rave | Alive in his uncovered grave.’ AEH quoted the passage with approval in his paper on Swinburne, dated 1909 or 1910 in Naiditch (1988), 149: see Ricks (1988), 291. 6 The Bride’s Tragedy (1822), by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–49). 5

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I therefore will refrain. Farewell, thou humid main.7 Farewell, thou irreligious writer. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Memoir, 166–8; Maas, 41–2.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N 25 June 1897.  , . |  . .. My dear Mamma, I suppose that whether you went to Marloes Road or not you will now be at Chichester.1 I came back to town yesterday. The time I had at Bromsgrove was not bad, as either the morning or afternoon of every day was sunny. The Valley is decent enough, though the cooking is not up to much. I saw both the Millingtons and the Kidds.2 On the evening of the 22nd3 I started at eight in the evening for Clent, and got to the top of Walton hill about 9. 20. The sky was fairly clear, and so was the air to the north, but hazy southwards; Malvern had been invisible all day. (On Saturday when the rain was about I saw as good a view from Walton Hill as I ever saw, the Sugar Loaf and Black Mountain and Radnor Forest quite plain). One or two private bonfires started before the time, but most of them waited for 10 o’clock. Five minutes or so after the hour I easily counted 67. Some of these were small affairs in the near neighbourhood, which soon died down; but at half-past there were fifty-two burning merely on the south and west, from the Lickey on the left to the Wrekin on the right. Northward I did not attempt to count, as it was hard to tell the beacons from the ordinary illuminations of the Black Country. Of the distant fires Malvern was much the largest: the pile was sixty feet high and could be seen with the naked eye by daylight: through a 7

Poems (1997), 255–6. Her brother, the Revd Henry Housman, was a lecturer at Chichester College. 2 Hugh Cameron Kidd, MB London, FRCS Eng, was a Bromsgrove surgeon, medical officer of health to the urban district councils, and medical officer to the workhouse. He had two sons: Gerald Patrick (b. 1890) and Leonard Cameron (b. 1893), who later attended the Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove: OBR, 136, 150. 3 The day of the official celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. 1

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22 September 1897

telescope it looked like the Eiffel tower, as it was much higher than its width and held together with iron. But it had been so saturated with paraffin that it burnt out in an hour. The Clent fire was on the further hill, and not on the top but on the south-western face. By midnight the number of fires had very much decreased, and only four, besides the Clent one, were visible at two o’clock: two distant ones somewhere by the Brown Clee, and two nearer,—one Droitwich way, and one on Kinver Edge which burnt till daylight brilliantly. It was a fine night, and at midnight the sky in the north had enough light for me to see the time by my watch. At two I heard a cuckoo, and immediately afterward the larks began to go up and make a deafening noise, and some person at Kingswinford, possibly wishing to stop the row, sent up a sky-rocket. (There had been a number of rockets at Birmingham before 10). About this time the first tinge that you could call blue came in the sky, which had turned buff and green soon after one: at 3 the clouds were red. I stayed to see the sun get above the mists and clouds, which was just 4 o’clock, and then I went back to bed at 5. 15. There was a fair crowd round the Clent fire, but a policeman, who told me at 3 that he had been on duty ever since 6 a.m. the day before, said that it was not near so large as in 1887.4 Bromsgrove was still as gay as I came through yesterday to the station, and had kept its Jubilee flags and festoons to enhance the splendour of the fair-day. The chief thing was a triumphal arch at the Strand. Love to Cousin Henry and the family. I remain Your loving son A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | c / The Rev. H. Housman | Chichester’ and redirected to 61 Marloes Road, Kensington. Memoir, 131–3 (incomplete); Maas, 42–3. AEH writes both ‘Walton hill’ and ‘Walton Hill’.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N 17 North Road | Highgate N. 22 Sept. 1897. My dear Mamma, I came home yesterday after having been just a month away, at Paris, Rome and Naples. I stayed in Paris a week, then went to Rome (two nights in the train) and stayed there three or four days, then to Naples, in order that my ticket might not expire. At Naples I stayed about ten days, and 4

The year of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, commemorated in ASL I.

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then came back by the same route, stopping four or five days at Rome and one at Paris. I think I saw most things that are to be seen at Paris in the week, and I also went to Versailles. I should have liked also to see St Germains1 and Fontainebleau, but that week was rainy and not very propitious for distant excursions. What most strikes one in Paris is the countless number of handsome streets, any five of which would constitute a fine town in England: imagine a place as well built as Edinburgh or Bath and practically about as large as London. Notre Dame is hardly equal to Westminster Abbey, and none of the modern churches are anything like St Paul’s, but the number of such buildings, interesting or beautiful, is much greater than in London; and London has nothing at all equivalent to the Louvre. The Bois de Boulogne is wilder and more picturesque than any of our parks, and the garden of the Tuileries is more sumptuously laid out. They make a deal more of their river than we do of ours: it is all edged with handsome quays and crossed with handsome bridges. When I got into Italy the weather was very hot, and remained so all the while I was there. The Neapolitans themselves were amazed at it; for though the first week of September is one of their hottest times, the heat generally ends on the 8th . The Scirocco was blowing part of the time: this is a very damp and enervating wind, which makes fish go bad six hours after they are caught. I went to Pompeii, which is more extensive than I thought, and to Vesuvius. You drive most of the way up; then you ride about a mile where the lava has buried the road; then you go up a cable-railway on the side of the cone, and then it is about ten minutes2 walk to the top. The lower part of the hill is covered with vineyards and the like, with many houses among them: then you come to coppices of chestnut; then to the lava, which is various shades of grey and brown and has just the shape which is taken by melted lead when you drop it into cold water. When you get to the cone the lava is mostly buried under ashes: at the top the ground is streaked with sulphur, and steam issues from cracks and mingles with the smoke from the crater and the clouds which hang on the hill (it is about the height of Ben Nevis), so that it wants a guide to tell you which is which. Here you begin to hear an angry sound such as water will sometimes make in pipes, as if the mountain were gargling, or were trying to talk but had stones in its mouth; which indeed it has. This is the lava boiling inside. The volcano was unusually quiet, so that I was able to go quite to the edge of the crater, which is often impossible. 1

For ‘St Germain’.

2

For ‘minutes’’.

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22 September 1897

This is a great pit, sending out so much smoke that you hardly catch a glimpse of the other brim; the sides are ashes, with smears of sulphur and of an orange-coloured stuff which I believe is arsenic; in the centre there starts up at intervals a tall narrow fountain of red-hot stones, which then fall rattling back again into the funnel with a noise like a wave going down the beach. It is much the highest hill in the neighbourhood, so you see all the country, vineyards and olive yards and woods of young trees, dotted with white or pink houses; into this green carpet the lava runs out on every side in long grey tongues, as if you had spilt an inkpot. There had been an overflow about a month before I was there: part was still red-hot, and visible from Naples as smoke by day and a spot of fire by night. I went to the place: the surface had mostly turned grey, but the red hot part could be seen through cracks, and the heat in some parts was like a furnace. The guides fasten coins to the ends of long sticks, plunge them into these cracks, and withdraw them with the hot lava adhering to them; I have brought one of these home for you, as I believe such things amuse women and children. The best view near Naples is from the monastery of Camaldoli, on a hill behind the town: here you get not only the view of the bay to the south, which you see from Naples itself, but also the view to the north west, the bay of Baia, which I think more beautiful. I went to most of the places along the coast, and to the two islands of Capri and Ischia. Autumn is not the time for flowers in Italy any more than in England, but in one wood I found cyclamen blooming almost as thick as wood anemones in April. The chief ornament of gardens at this season is the oleander, which grows about the size of a lilac and is covered with trusses of rose-coloured flowers like carnations. The plumbago also grows and blooms very well, and so does the purple convolvulus. The town of Naples has a fine museum and a good palace, but not much else. Here I have said nothing about Rome, which I liked much best of the three; but I have to go into town this morning, so I will stop here for the present. Many thanks for your letter. Love to Cousin Mary.3 Your loving son A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | 287 London Road South | Lowestoft’. Memoir, 134–5 (incomplete); Maas, 43–5.

3

Mary Theophania Housman (d. 1905).

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TO LU CY H O U S M A N [17 North Road | Highgate N. Oct.–15 Nov. 1897] [ … ] I shall be interested to see the Devotional Poems.1 Perhaps I myself may write a Hymn book for use in the Salvation Army:— 2 There is Hallelujah Hannah Walking backwards down the lane, And I hear the loud Hosanna Of regenerated Jane; And Lieutenant Isabella In the centre of them comes, Dealing blows with her umbrella On the trumpets and the drums. Or again:— ‘‘Hallelujah!’’ was the only observation That escaped Lieutenant-Colonel Mary-Jane, When she tumbled off the platform in the station And was cut in little pieces by the train; Mary-Jane, the train is through ye, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! We will gather up the fragments that remain.3 It seems to come quite easy. I hope that Providence and Mr Sanders4 will get your house for you on the 15th. . I am all right, though it has not been a very nice October.

1

LH’s Spikenard, published in Feb. 1898. So named in 1878, organized on semi-military lines, and well known for its open-air meetings and brass bands. 3 John 6: 12 (the feeding of the five thousand): ‘Gather up the fragments that remain’.The two poems are included in Poems (1997), 256. 4 The Sanderses seem to have been family friends: KES tells Lucy Housman in a letter of 25 June 1884 that they always send kind messages when she writes (Pugh, Appendix B, xxxviii). ‘Sanders’ is mentioned as attending the Speech Day at the Grammar School of King Edward VI in 1860 (Pugh, 148), and Mrs Sanders had a wholesale ironmongery business in Bromsgrove’s High Street (Pugh, 7). 2

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12 December 1897

I remain Your loving son A. E. Housman. California State University at East Bay, Hayward, MS (Henry H. Hart Collection). Photocopy at Bromsgrove School. The text in Memoir, 133, though also incomplete, supplies the opening words before ‘myself ’, which are not represented in the MS. Maas, 45. On the date, see Poems (1997), 542.

TO T H E E DI TO R O F THE ATHENAEUM University College, London [c.12 Dec. 1897]1 I shall be grateful if you can find room for these remarks on the text of Bacchylides.2 My colleague Prof. Platt3 allows me to quote several of his corrections, some of which coincide with my own. i. 15 (p. 197). Εὐρωπίδα. 32. νόσων 34. ἶσον 42. λάχε τόνδε χρόνον. ii. 4. θρασύχειρ ἄρ’. iii. 22. παρ’ ἄριστον. 48. τόθ’ ἁβροβάταν ἑπέταν. 62. ἀνέπεμψε. 63. ὅσοι θέμιν. 64. μέγ’ εὐαίνηθ’. 90. μινύνθει or μινυνθεῖ. v. 48. ἵετ’ ἀφνεόκροτον. 122. πλεῦνας. 151. μίνυνθεν or μινύνθει. 160. τοῖ’ ἔφα. 184. ἦλθεν Φερένικος ἐς εὐπύργους. 189. ἀποσαμένους. 191. τᾷδε or τάνδε. 193. ἃν ἂν ἀθάνατοι τιμῶσι, τούτῳ καὶ βροτῶν φήμαν ἕπεσθαι. vi. 3. προχοαῖς ἀέθλων. ix. 10. φοινικάσπιδες. 13. ἄσαν γεύοντα. 35. βοάν τ’ ὤρινε λαῶν οἷ 39. σωπόν. 41 should end with a colon, 44 with a comma. 45. πολυζήλωτε (so also Prof. Platt). 46. ἐγγόνου or ἐκγόνου. 55. τίς δ’ οὐ χαριτώνυμον. 56. ἅ ∆ιὸς πλαθεῖσα λέχει. x. 51. γλῶσσαν ἰθείας. xi. 8. μετ’ εὐπλοκάμου κούρας. 24. δέ κ’ ἐπί. 77. καμόντ’ (Platt). 102 and 103 are spoken by Proteus. 110. ταί (so also Platt). 114. ἄνδρεσσι πρὸς ἱπποτρόφον ποίαν. 119. πρὸ γουνοῖ’ (Platt) ἕσσαν ἔμεν. xiii. 29. παύροις βροτῶν αἰει (Platt). 70. βοάσω. 117. παραί (so also Platt). 166. ἀμερσιεπής. xiv. 1. δαίμονος (Platt). 3. ἐσθλόν κ’ ἀμαλδύνειν. 5. θαητὸν ἰδ’ ὑψιφανῆ τεύχοι. 9. μία δ’ ἐξ ἀλλᾶν, 10. πᾶν χρεῖος κυβερνᾷ σύν. xv. 13. ἠϊθέοις. 1

Date as indicated in The Athenaeum, 3660 (18 Dec. 1897), 856. The conjectures were elaborated upon in ‘Notes on Bacchylides’, CR 12 (1898), 68–74: Classical Papers, 442–54. 3 See List of Recipients. 2

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xvii. 7. πελεμαίγιδος. 17. μέλεον. 31. πλαθεῖσα. 35. μιγεῖσα. 38. κάλλυσμα. 43. ἐσιδεῖν. 49. θοῦρον. 62. Retain θράσει σῶμα. 68. Μίνῳ. 87. κῆρ.4 88. κατουρον. 90 σόεν νιν. 91. ἄητα. 100. μέγαρόν τε θεῶν ἔμολε.5 102. Retain ἔδεισε. 109. σεμνάν τε (so also Platt). 110. ἴδε βοῶπιν (ditto). 112. αἰόλαν πορφύραν. 118. Retain θέλωσιν. xviii. 27. See Ovid, ‘Ibis,’ 407, ‘‘ut Sinis et Sciron et cum Polypemone natus.’’ 35. μοῦνον συνοπαόνων. 51. κρατός θ’ ὕπο. 53. στέρνοις ἀμφί xix. 5. τέ ἑ καί (Platt). 19. τότ’ ργον. A. E. HOUSMAN. The Athenaeum, 3661 (25 Dec. 1897), 887.

TO H . J. M O RTO N 17 North Road | Highgate N. 29 Dec. 1897. My dear Morton, I hope the enclosed will do: I am sorry to have kept you waiting, but I have been travelling from place to place, and in the arduous festivities of the season it is hard to find leisure. Of course I shall be very pleased to serve as a reference. I shall hardly recognise the College without you: we entered it together, and may be said to have rocked one another’s cradles. Believe me, with all good wishes, Yours very truly A. E. Housman. I was glad to see your place in the B.A. [Enclosure] University College, London 29 December 1897. Mr H. J. Morton has attended my Latin classes in this College for the last five years, and I am therefore able to speak with knowledge of his attainments. I can say that both the width and the accuracy of his acquaintance with Latin are such as to enable him to teach the language to others, and that to these qualifications he adds a degree of literary taste and feeling which I do not often find in students.1 I am sure too that

4

See the letter of c.10 Jan. 1898. See the letter of c.10 Jan. 1898. 1 At UCL Morton won first prize in the Junior Class of Latin in 1894: the prize volume, Thomas Crutwell’s A History of Roman Literature, is now at BMC. In 1928 AEH agreed to sign a copy of one of his own books for Morton’s sister: Naiditch (1988), 125. 5

29 December 1897

103

the great amiability of his character will be appreciated by his pupils and colleagues. A. E. Housman, Professor of Latin. BMC MS.

1898 TO T H E E DI TO R O F THE ATHENAEUM University College, London. [c.10 Jan. 1898] I should like to add the following corrections to my former list:— 1 i. 4. ὅν οὐδέ. 5. θῦνος (or θυνὸς ) ἁδροῖο. 6. ζαχρεῖον ἂν θολοῖ. 7. ἐλαφρός. 8. ἀπόκλαρος καλῶν, τόσα. iii. 27. Περσᾶν ἐπορθεῦντο. 87. εὐφρόσυνος. 96. λακών. v. 12. should end with a full stop. 13. κεῖνος θεράπων ἐθέλει γᾶρυν 110. εἰσάνταν (Platt). 142. ἑλκύσασα. vii. 9. ἐν or παρ’ or πεδ’. ix. 3. τό. 4. Retain εὔτυκος. xi. 68. ἤρεικον. 79. Join κάλλιστον with τεῖχος. xiii. 25. τᾳ δή. 27. ἀνδεθεῖσιν. 61. τεὸν γάμον (or γόνον). 62. παγξείνου χθονός. 153. εὐνομία σαοσίφρων (or τελεόφρων). 189. φοινικοκραδέμνοιο Mούσας ὕμνων τινὰ τάνδ’ ἕκαθεν νᾶσον μολών. xix. 12. σέ. 15. γέρας, εἴ τιν’. In my former letter delete κῆρ at xi. 87, and correct ἔμολε to μόλεν at xi.101. A. E. H. The Athenaeum, 3664 (15 Jan. 1898), 87 1

See the letter of c.12 Dec. 1897 to the editor of The Athenaeum.

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21 Febuary 1898

TO E L I Z A B E T H W I S E 17 North Road | Highgate N. 11 Jan. 1898. My dear Mrs Wise, This ought to have been a letter for New Year’s Day, but that ancient person the poet Bacchylides has been taking up so much of my time1 that many of my duties have been neglected and many tradesmen are wishing I would pay their bills. Today the College term has begun, so I am comparatively at leisure, and have written out the ballad of Lucinda which I promised to send you:2 if it will deter Edie and Minnie3 from climbing ladders or using the moon for culinary purposes, it will not have been written in vain;4 and I suppose that is what you want it for. At Bath the weather was not bad, and I went a number of nice walks in various directions: the country is really very like Gloucestershire. Since I came back here nothing has happened, so I remain, with love to all, Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road, Highgate N. 21 Feb. 1898. My dear Sir, My brother Laurence has sent me a proposal from you to take over the remaining copies of A Shropshire Lad and publish a second edition at your own risk. I suppose no author is averse to see his works in a second edition, or slow to take advantage of an infatuated publisher; and it is impossible not to be touched by the engaging form which your infatuation takes. But there are two points to consider at the outset.

1 See his letter to the Athenaeum, c.12 Dec. 1897 and the previous letter. AEH’s copies of edns. of Bacchylides from 1897 and 1898 survive in SJCO. Naiditch (2002), 59, describes them as, respectively, ‘annotated’ and ‘heavily annotated’. 2 AEH had visited the Wise family from 20 to 23 Dec. 1897. For Lucinda, see Poems (1997), 259–61, 544–5. 3 See the entry on Elizabeth Wise in List of Recipients. 4 In the poem, Lucinda climbs a ladder to the moon in order to make water boil; but the ladder falls, leaving her adhering to the moon.

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I should not like the second edition to differ from the first in form,1 nor to be sold at a higher price.2 But, so far as I can judge from the finances of the first edition, unless it were produced cheaper or sold dearer, the sale of an entire edition of 500 copies3 would not pay for the printing and binding and advertising; and so, apart from the royalty, which I do not care about, you would be out of pocket. Also I should have to ask Kegan Paul4 if their feelings would be lacerated by the transfer. I do not think very much of them as men of business, but their manager5 has been nice to me and takes a sentimental interest in the book, like you. At the present moment I can think of nothing else to damp your ardour. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Grant Richards Esq. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Maas, 46.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N 17 North Road | Highgate N. 21 March ’98 My dear Mamma, The end of the term is now in sight, and I am quite ready for it; twelve weeks on end is not nice. I hope to see a good many of the hedges green by the time the holidays begin, as the spring is early in these parts. As I can’t be sure of your address from your last letter, I send this to Marloes Road. I am glad to gather from your silence that you have got rid of the traces of influenza. I have not looked out Cousin Henry’s1 new place on the map, but I have a sort of notion that I have walked through Bradley Green some time or other. I am glad it seems likely to suit. The only poem that I can find is this. I knew a Cappadocian Who fell into the Ocean: 1 AEH paid for the first edn. and corrected the proofs. Its text is correct: see Poems (1997), Introduction, xxiv–xxv, xxxi, and AEH to GR, 24 July 1898. 2 Than 2s. 6d. 3 The print run of the first edn., which took roughly a year and three quarters to sell out: Richards, 16 n. See AEH to Mrs Fairchild, 11 Apr. 1901, and notes. 4 Kegan Paul, Trench, Tr¨ubner, & Co. Ltd., were the publishers of the first edn. 5 See AEH to LH, 20 Mar. 1896, n. 3. 1 The Revd Henry Housman (1832–1912) had become Rector of Bradley, Worcs.

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26 April 1898

His mother came and took him out With tokens of emotion. She also had a daughter Who fell into the Water: At any rate she would have fallen If someone hadn’t caught her. The second son went frantic And fell in the Atlantic: His parent reached the spot too late To check her offspring’s antic. Her grief was then terrific: She fell in the Pacific, Exclaiming with her latest breath ‘‘I have been too prolific.’’2 I remain Your loving son A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 135–6; Maas, 46–7 (both incomplete).

TO LU CY H O U S M A N 17 North Road | Highgate N. 26 April 1898. My dear Mamma, This is the first day of term; so, as the holidays are over, I sit down to write a letter. I have to thank you for two, one on my birthday and one later. You will see that yours was not the only one I received on my birthday: I believe you collect the epistles of this amiable madman, so I enclose this one for you. He must have discovered the date from a publication called Who’s Who. I did go into Hampshire for five days at Easter; but it was not the south but the north, near Whitchurch. Since I came back I have been having good walks about the country to see things coming out in the sunshine, and I feel very well. I suppose Cousin Henry is settled in his rectory by this 2

Poems (1997), 262.

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time. I see from looking through your letters that Eva1 is to be married to-morrow; so give her my benediction. Marriage, and the necessity of filling this sheet of paper, remind me of one of my occasional poems, which I may or may not have told you of before: When Adam day by day Woke up in Paradise He always used to say ‘Oh, this is very nice.’ But Eve from scenes of bliss Transported him for life. The more I think of this The more I beat my wife.2 I remain Your loving son A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Memoir, 136–7 (incomplete); Maas, 47–8.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Grosvenor Arms Hotel | Shaftesbury 20 July 1898 Dear Sir, I am much obliged to you for your letter; but I have thought it proper to write to Kegan Paul & Co. before taking any immediate step. When I hear from them I will write to you again. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Grant Richards, Esq. Illinois MS. Richards, 21 (summary and excerpt); Maas, 48.

1

‘Lucy Housman’s niece’: Maas, 47 n.

2

Poems (1997), 257.

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24 July 1898

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Grosvenor Arms Hotel | Shaftesbury 22 July 1898. Dear Sir, As Kegan Paul & Co say that their feelings would not be lacerated, and as I suppose Mr Archer’s article1 may create some sort of demand, I shall be very willing that you should bring out a second edition of my poems. I only stipulate for simplicity of get-up and moderateness of price. Your former proposals I have not by me at the moment, but I think you offered to pay me a royalty, or, in case I did not care for it, to hand the amount to a charity. I should prefer that it should go to reduce the price at which the book is to be sold. I shall not be in town till August 3rd . I expect to be here till Wednesday, and then at the King’s Arms, Dorchester. I am Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 21; Maas, 48.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Grosvenor Arms | Shaftesbury 24 July 1898. Dear Sir, I think it best not to make any alterations, even the slightest, after one has once printed a thing. It was Shelley’s plan, and is much wiser than Wordsworth’s perpetual tinkering, as it makes the public fancy one is inspired. But after the book is set up I should like to have the sheets to correct, as I don’t trust printers or proof-readers in matters of punctuation. 3/6 is perhaps the largest sum which can be called moderate, but I suppose it does deserve the name. I am Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 22–3 (almost complete); Maas, 49.

1 A favourable notice of ASL by the influential critic William Archer (1856–1924) which would appear in the Fortnightly Review, 64 (1 Aug. 1898), 263–8: Critical Heritage, 75–80.

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TO J O H N LA NE 17 North Road | Highgate N. 6 August ’98 My dear Sir, I am sorry that you should feel any disappointment; but you misapprehend the state of affairs when you speak of my ‘offering’ the book to any one. I have not lifted a finger in the matter: I have only yielded, after a long siege, to the repeated proposals of Mr Richards, whom I regard as an infatuated young man. It never occurred to me that any one else in the wide world would want to produce a second edition of a book whose first edition, I believe, is not yet sold out: but apparently I overestimate the prudence of publishers. Certainly I myself am quite willing that you should continue to sell the book in America. As to another volume, I have no reason to suppose that I shall ever write one. I am grateful for your good offices with Mr Archer. I am Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Alfred University MS.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT (Copy)

27 Oct. 1898.  , . |  . ..

Dear Sir, You will remember that at our interview on Tuesday your attention was drawn to the fact that it was the wish of the Council that the school curriculum should in future give greater prominence than hitherto to the subjects now generally known as modern. Bearing in mind that the majority of the boys go into commercial life, the Council desire, so far as is possible without lowering the standard of education aimed at, to make the work of these boys preparatory to the object they have in view. I regret that my notes of your answers to the questions bearing on this point are not sufficient for the purpose of preparing a report such as the Council probably expect, and I should therefore be glad if you would inform me whether you consider it possible or advisable to differentiate the work of the boys in the school so as to make curricula suitable (a) for those preparing to enter upon commercial life;

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(b) for those preparing to enter a technical profession, such as that of an engineer or consulting chemist. If so, could you, without entering into much detail, give me some idea of the way in which you would go to work; and would you also inform me whether you would be in sympathy with the objects at which the Council are aiming? The next meeting of our Committee is on Tuesday next, Nov. 1st , and I should be glad to have your answer by the morning of that day. I am Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. UCL MS: College Correspondence AM/D/92.

TO R . E L L I S RO B E RT S University College, | London 31 Oct. 1898. Dear Sir, I am afraid I must make to you the reply which I always make to editors, that I have nothing written, that I cannot sit down and write things, and that I do not like writing in papers. Papers have been known to prosper without contributions from me, so I daresay you will not be too resentful to accept my wishes for the success of your scheme. I am yours truly A. E. Housman. MS inspected at Bonhams, 6 Dec. 1999. Envelope addressed ‘R. Ellis Roberts Esq. | St John’s College | Oxford’.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO C . F L E E T University College | London 7 Nov. 1898. Dear Sir, I am much indebted to you for your two interesting and informing volumes. Certainly if I am ever at Brighton it will give me much pleasure to come and see you. I am Yours very truly A. E. Housman. C. Fleet Esq. BMC MS.

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R 17 North Road | Highgate N. 17 Nov. 1898. Dear Mr Ashburner, I am returning the edition of Martial you were good enough to lend me last midsummer. Markland’s notes are many of them only the readings of manuscripts which he approves; and others are only the hasty jottings usual with him, based on a misunderstanding of the text: some of these he has himself cancelled.1 There remain the following, which seem to me either true or at least worth considering, and which are new so far as I know: II. 66. 4 genis (I had hit on this myself), 71. 5 punctuation, III. 58. 41 acto, IV. 30. 8 sua, V. 38. 7 sedebis, VIII. 38. 9 annuis, 46. 4 toto … Phryge, IX. 51. 1 hinc, 60. 2 uersat, X. 21. 6 set, XI. 16. 3 iam, XIV. 42. 2 quando, 216. 2 et capit.

1 AEH published a selection of annotations made by Jeremiah Markland in his copy of Schrevel’s Martial in ‘Corrections and Explanations of Martial’, JP 30 (1907), 229–65. Among these, he praised sedebis at 5. 38. 7 as ‘an emendation of the highest excellence’, and noted that sectis … genis at 2. 66. 4 was ‘a conjecture which I had made myself ’. See Classical Papers, 738–9. In 1920 AEH expressed his high esteem of Markland: ‘It is probable that Englishmen are right in counting Porson the second of English scholars, but many judges on the Continent would give that rank to Markland. He is the only one except Bentley who has been highly and equally eminent in Greek and Latin; and I believe that Bentley did him the honour, extravagant I admit, to be jealous of him’ (Classical Papers, 1005).

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21 November 1898

I have thought of a motto to express the difference between Markland’s and Vollmer’s2 editions of Statius’ siluae: ‘uix lumine fesso | explores quam longus in hunc despectus ab illo’ (I. 1. 87).3 I am Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 168–9. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 9.

TO P RO F E S S O R W I L L I A M G A R D N E R H A L E University College, | London 21 Nov. 1898. My dear Professor Hale, Two or three years ago, when I saw it announced that you had discovered a new MS of Catullus and were going to publish an account of it,1 I wrote to my bookseller and told him to send it to me when it appeared. I have not yet received it (he is a bad bookseller and I have practically given him up), and as I have not been thinking much about Catullus for some time past, I only learn from your letter that it has been published. I suppose it cannot have been published very long,2 or Ellis would have reviewed it already in at least two places. I have now written for it; but in the mean time I can do no more than acknowledge your letter and thank you for writing. Nor have I seen Schulze’s paper:3 in Chicago4 no doubt you see all the periodicals as they appear: in London there is no place of the sort: this College takes in eight or nine, but Hermes5 is not among them: the British Museum tries hard and with some success to withold6 from readers

2 AEH in 1908 cited Vollmer’s edn. of Statius (1898) as one of two books in which ‘the criticism of Latin poetry touched its nadir’: Classical Papers, 771. AEH thought better of Vollmer’s later work. On Vollmer, see List of Recipients. 3 ‘Scarce could your straining sight discover how far the downward view from this monarch to that’. 1 In CR 10. 6 ( July 1896), 314, Hale announced that he had found in the Vatican Library a Catullus MS, long misplaced and thus in effect lost, and announced the future publication of his collation and a facsimile. The MS, designated ‘R’, he ranked alongside O (Oxford) and G (Paris) as a source for the reconstruction of the Verona archetype, from which our text of Catullus derives. The MS is Ottobonianus latinus 1829. 2 Hale discussed the MS and Schulze’s paper in ‘The Codex Romanus of Catullus’ in CR 12. 9 (Dec. 1898), 447–9. 3 4 In Hermes, 33. 3. Where Hale was Professor of Latin. 5 Schulze’s article ‘Der Codex Romanus des Catullus’ appeared in Hermes, 34 (1899), 133–44. 6 For ‘withhold’.

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everything less than a year old: I am not a millionaire, and even if I were, Hermes would not be the first extravagance in which I should indulge. I am Yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCLA MS (William Andrews Clark Memorial Library).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 11 Dec. 1898. Dear Mr Richards, I rather like the notion of a pocket edition. Large paper and illustrations are things I have not much affection for. In any case I should like to correct the proofs and to have them printed as I correct them. Last time some one played games with the punctuation.1 It does you infinite credit that the sale should be so good: I wonder how you manage it. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 26 and 32 (excerpts, wrongly dated 17 Dec.); Maas, 49. 1 The second edn. (1898) contained 40 alterations of the text of the first edn. in punctuation alone. See Poems (1997), Introduction, xxv–xxvi.

1899 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 8 Feb. 1899. Dear Mr Richards, I do not want any profits.1 They had better go towards paying that long bill which Mr G. B. Shaw sent in to you the other day.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 36; Maas, 49.

TO T H E E DI TO R O F THE ATHENAEUM [17 North Road | Highgate N. c.6 May 1899] Juvenal, Sat. VI.—In the new fragment of Juvenal’s Sixth Satire published in this month’s Classical Review1 the following emendations should be made. Lines 1–3 should read:— In quacumque domo vivit luditque professus Obscenum, tremula promittit et omnia dextra, Invenies omnis turpes similesque cinædis. Quacumque is relative, as usual. Lines 12, 13:— Pars ultima ludi Accipit has animas aliusque in carcere nervos. 1

AEH first agreed to accept royalties on ASL on 28 Dec. 1922: see his letter to GR. In presenting Shaw with a statement in respect of Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898), GR had included an item for £10. 6s. for ‘author’s alterations and extra proofs’. Shaw’s response, which was printed in The Academy, 1390 (24 Dec. 1898), 503, was a bill to GR for £281. 8. 9, for proof correction, design, and consultation, plus interest at 6 per cent for six months, less the £10. 6s. charged by GR. It is reproduced in Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1976), 63. 1 J. P. Postgate, ‘On the New Fragments of Juvenal’, CR 13. 4 (May 1899), 206–8. 2

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Nerv˘os is nominative singular. Line 27:— Quem rides? aliis hunc mimum! A. E. Housman. The Athenaeum, 3733 (13 May 1899), 604. Maas, 399–400.

TO P. G. L . W E B B 17 North Road | Highgate N. 7 Dec. 1899. My dear Webb, I remember E. J. Webb’s article on Postgate’s Manilius:1 I was particularly pleased to see that he knew astronomy, which modern scholars are often very ignorant of. It did not dawn upon me that he was your brother: there is another Webb going about, whose initials are C. C. J.,2 and I had got it into my head that that was the one. I suppose Providence has not showered two classical brothers upon you? When I shall get to the end of Manilius I do not know. I have just been reading through the Latin translators of Aratus in order to throw light upon him; and I find that they also are in a shocking state and will want editing. For example, Germanicus prognostica II (III) 16 is believed to have written ‘‘binos Gradivus perficit orbes’’, i.e. Mars goes round the earth twice in one year. The editors don’t know that Mars goes round sun  earth the about once in two years, and therefore don’t see that it ought sun to be bimos, i.e. biennes. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Maas, 400.

1 Edmund James Webb (1852–1945), classical scholar and astronomer, reviewed Postgate’s Silva Maniliana in CR 11. 6 ( July 1897), 303–13. 2 Clement Charles Julian Webb (1865–1954). Theologian, philosopher, and historian; Fellow of Magdalen College, 1889–1922; Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, 1920; Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, 1922–30; occasional contributor to CR.

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TO PAU L LE M PE RLY University College | London 11 Dec. 1899. Dear Sir, The second edition of A Shropshire Lad contains nothing new except a few misprints. I have not published any other book. I am much obliged by your letter and bookplate. I think yours is the only letter containing no nonsense that I have ever received from a stranger, and certainly it is the only letter containing an English stamp that I have ever received from an American. Your countrymen generally enclose the stamps of your great and free republic. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Paul Lemperly Esq. | 16 Vestry Street | Cleveland | Ohio | U. S. A.’ A. Edward Newton, This Book-Collecting Game (1928), 254; Maas, 50.

1900 TO MILDRED PLAT T 17 North Road | Highgate N. 12 March 1900. Dear Mrs Platt, I shall be very pleased to come to dinner on the 22nd . The reason why you seldom see me is that when the weather is bad on Sundays I am afraid to come so far, and when the weather is good, the country, being both nearer and larger, drags me north. Platt, who knows everything, even Greek, will explain to you that every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force directly as their masses and inversely as the square of the distance which separates them. Moreover, at the last at-home I came to, you treated me very ill. I had hidden under the piano, or in it, I forget which; and you came and pulled me out. I am Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 50.

T E S T I M O N I A L F O R M I S S A . M . B. M E A K I N University College, London 26 March 1900. Miss A. M. B. Meakin has during the last /three/ years attended many of my Senior and Junior Latin classes in this College. She has displayed not only much intelligence but also an interest in and even an enthusiasm for her work such as I have seldom known. Her progress in general grasp of the subject has been steady and in some respects rapid. I have been particularly struck by the zeal with which she applied herself to Latin composition, not only in prose but in verse. It was at her own wish that she began the study of the latter art, which is not usually practised by students here; and she soon attained a fair degree of proficiency in more than one of the metres. If Miss Meakin should herself engage in the

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teaching of Latin, I have no doubt that she will be found both a careful and an effective teacher. A. E. Housman, Professor of Latin Bodleian MS Eng. misc. d. 509, fo. 36. Maas, 51.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 26 March 1900. Dear Mr Richards, I am much obliged by copies of the 3rd edition1 you have sent me, The new get-up is very pretty. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 44 (excerpt); Maas, 50.

TO TH O M A S H A RDY 17 North Road | Highgate N. 29 March 1900. Dear Mr Hardy, I should be very happy to come at the end of July or thereabouts. That is the time of year at which I have been at Dorchester1 before, and very pleasant it was. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Dorset County Museum MS.

1 1

Of ASL. In Dorset. Hardy and his wife had lived nearby at Max Gate since 1885.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Rd, Highgate N. I have just found your note of the 17th which I had overlooked. I am afraid there is no chance of another book from me yet awhile. Yrs A. E. Housman 30 March 1900. Illinois MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 9 Henrietta St. | Covent Garden | W. C.’ Richards, 46 (excerpt); Maas, 51.

TO G I L B E RT M U R R AY 17 North Road, Highgate N. 23 April 1900. Dear Murray, I have put off thanking you for the Andromache1 till I could send the Euripidea.2 It is very interesting, very unlike anything one could have anticipated, and the end of it really moving. The piece of verse on p. 70 is so good that I wish you would write more. Ancient Greece, as you depict it, is rather more medieval than I thought it was, but I don’t know how far this may be due to the notions I attach to words: the word ‘lord’ always carries me into the middle ages, and even ‘castle’, though I suppose it ought not. I rather doubt if man really has much to gain by substituting peace for strife, as you and Jesus Christ recommend. Sic notus Ulixes?3 do you think you can outwit the resourceful malevolence of Nature? God is not mocked, as St Paul long ago warned the Galatians.4 When man gets rid of a great trouble he is easier for a little while, but not for long: Nature instantly sets to work to weaken his power of sustaining trouble, and very soon seven pounds is as heavy as fourteen pounds used to be. Last Easter Monday a young woman threw herself into the Lea5 because her dress looked so shabby amongst the holiday crowd: in other times and countries women have been ravished by half-a-dozen dragoons and taken it less to heart. It looks to me as if the state of 1

Murray’s three-act play, published in 1900. AEH’s unpublished conjectures, which Murray used in his three-volume Oxford edn. of Euripides, 1902–9. 3 Virgil, Aeneid, 2. 44 (‘Is it thus that you know Ulysses?’). 4 Gal. 6: 7: ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ 5 River that runs from Luton in Bedfordshire to the R. Thames in E. London. 2

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mankind always had been and always would be a state of just tolerable discomfort. The Bacchae, Iph. Taur., and Medea are the only three plays I have really studied. I don’t know if you are editing the fragments, so I don’t send my conjectures on them. I enclose my own essay at an Andromache, only it is an Alcmaeon.6 When are we going to the music-hall? Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 7. 68–9. Maas, 51–2.

TO H O RATI O F. B ROW N University College, London 3 June 1900. Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your poem. I may be in Venice this autumn, and I hope I may do myself the pleasure of calling on you. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. William White, HSJ 12 (1986), 145. The original ALS was attached to the front flyleaf of a copy of ASL (1898).

TO L I LY T H I C K N E S S E [17 North Road | Highgate N.] 11 June 1900 Dear Mrs Thicknesse, I am sorry to hear Ray has been so ill, and I hope he continues to improve. I trust it was not the emotion of my farewell interview which gave a bad turn to his illness. I ordered the Londoner some days ago,1 but W. H. Smith and Sons2 have not yet sent it: I don’t know whether this is pure negligence on their part, 6 Fragment of a Greek Tragedy, published in The Bromsgrovian,  2. 5 (8 June 1883), 107–9, and in The University College Gazette, 1. 13 (25 Nov. 1897), 100–1. 1 The issue for 2 June 1900 contained her poem Invocation: Maas, 52 n. 5. 2 Booksellers, whose policy was to sell no literature of questionable morality. Cf. ‘ ‘‘Look, look!’’ they cried; ‘‘this man has penned | Pictures of passion that appals;’’ | And Messrs Smith declined to vend | His writings at the railway stalls’: A Ballad of A Widower, 29–32; Poems (1997), 252.

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or whether they have detected in it anything which they think would be likely to demoralise me. On Saturday Karl Pearson3 and I are going for a walk in Buckinghamshire, to find a farmer who lays a particular kind of eggs, which tend to prove that there is no God. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Memoir, 203–4; Maas, 52–3.

TO TH O M A S H A RDY 17 North Road | Highgate N. 11 July 1900. Dear Mr Hardy, I shall be very pleased to come, and the date you suggest will suit me excellently. The first Saturday in August is the 4th ,1 so if I am alive I hope you will see me then; but at present my tenure of existence is more than usually precarious, as I am learning the bicycle.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Dorset County Museum MS.

TO TH O M A S H A RDY 17 North Road | Highgate N. 30 July 1900. Dear Mr Hardy, Many thanks for your note: I will take the train you suggest, 12. 30 at Waterloo. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Dorset County Museum MS. 3 1857–1936. Professor of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at UCL, 1884–1911; Galton Professor of Eugenics, 1911–33. See Naiditch (1988), esp. 92–3, for further information. 1 The other guests were Hardy’s friends Edward Clodd and Sir Frederick Pollock: Florence Emily Hardy, The Life of Thomas Hardy 1940–1928, rev. edn. (1972), 306. Clodd (1840–1930) was a banker, author, and free-thinker; Pollock (1845–1937) was Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford. 2 ‘The Hardys were in the forefront of the dominant craze of the 1890s, bicycling’: Robert Gittings, The Older Hardy, rev. edn. (1980), 120. Hardy and his wife Emma had each had nasty accidents: Martin Seymour-Smith, Hardy (1994), ch. 29.

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27 September 1900

TO LU CY H O U S M A N 17 North Road | Highgate N. 27 Sept. 1900. My dear Mamma, I got home on the evening of the 25th , and have just received your letter this morning. The crossing to Calais was the windiest and rainiest I have ever had, and the rain or drizzle kept on right across France till nightfall. Artois, Picardy and Champagne are all very flat; large arable fields without hedges, only occasional groves and avenues of black poplar; and rain does not make them look cheerful. Just after sunset we came to Laon, which is built against a solitary ridge of hill, on the middle of which stood the cathedral, looking very fine with its five towers in the twilight; though not finer than the view of Canterbury from the Chatham line. Before we got to Rheims it was quite dark, so I saw nothing of the cathedral there. When the day broke we were in Switzerland approaching Basle, a country of very green meadows and bold but not very lofty hills with woods of the spruce fir. At Basle there is an hour’s wait and a change of train: afterwards the same sort of country till you pass beside a small lake and then come to Lucerne, a biggish town with some picturesque bits of fortifications. The lake of Lucerne is in shape something like a clover leaf, only more so: it, and the neighbouring lake of Zug, keep the railway company for more than an hour, during which you are always coming across fresh bays of it and new views. The water is a strong opaque blue: the scenery, though it is not what I consider the best sort of scenery, must be quite the best of its sort: any number of cliffs falling straight to the water, pine trees and cottages adhering to them in impossible places, and narrow white waterfalls streaming all down them with a noise to be heard above the clatter of the train. After you quit the lake and draw near to the St Gothard the country is still interesting and in some respects beautiful: the valleys are often surprisingly soft and pretty, full of smooth meadows and orchard trees and foaming streams of yellowish water; but many of the mountains would be the better for having their tops taken off them. Some of their tops actually were taken off, so far as I was concerned, by the clouds and mist, and I saw no snow at all. The tunnel lasted seventeen minutes, and we came out into a sort of hazy sunshine. It is still Switzerland for two hours more, and the form of the landscape is much the same; but trees, especially firs, grow fewer and smaller, and the fig makes its appearance, and even once or twice the olive; and the towns and churches look Italian. The streams flow in the other

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direction, and have clearer water, and the waterfalls on the hills are more in number and less in volume; when I came back a month later they were most of them dry. The lake of Lugano, part Swiss and part Italian, is much like Lucerne in its broken outline; but its hills are less bold and less wooded, and its water a sort of burnished green. We pass the town of Como, but cannot see the lake; then the hills die into the plain of Lombardy, and you come to Monza, where the king was killed,1 and then to Milan. I suppose Milan is the least Italian town in Italy; it considers itself the intellectual capital of the country, and probably hopes to go to France when it dies. Much of it is new, with the ordinary fine wide streets, and its older parts are not very picturesque as wholes, though many of the single buildings are. There seem to be arches, some very old, at all the numerous gates. The castle, now a barracks overlooking a new park, is very huge and solid and medieval: two of the churches, St. Ambrogio and St. Eustorgio, are of the old Romanesque architecture from which our Norman is copied, and the former is a very fine example, with a square colonnaded court in front of it. In one street stand sixteen pillars of a Roman bath, with a tramway on each side. Next to the cathedral, the tramway seems to be the thing on which the Milanese chiefly pride themselves. The Cathedral, though one cannot call it good architecture if compared with French or English or even German or the best Italian Gothic, is certainly impressive from its mere size and magnificence and completeness, except the west front, which has a mean effect and actually looks small, thanks to the stupid Italian notion that the proper outline for a west front is the same as that for a dog-kennel, . From other points of view the building looks full its size, and indeed looks larger than St Peter’s at Rome, though in fact it is much less. The ornament, the pinnacles and statues and finials at the top, and the niches at the side, looks rich at first, but it soon begins to look poor: the recesses are shallow, the usual Italian fault, the succession of upright lines is monotonous, and the buttresses and pinnacles, though marble, look almost like the ironwork of a drawing-room fender, owing to the thinness and stiffness of their ornament. The guide calls your attention to the fact that no two statues and no two flowers of the carving are alike; but they might just as well be alike; they could not produce a greater effect of sameness. The inside is very dark, a fault on the right side, and so the defects in details do not trouble one much, and the general effect is fine. The central aisle is half as high again as our highest, York and 1 Umberto I of Italy (b. 1844), who ascended the throne on 8 Jan. 1878, was assassinated at Monza on 29 July 1900 by an anarchist, Gaetano Bresci.

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2 October 1900

Westminster, and is quite English in its breadth,—not the narrow French proportion: there are double aisles on each side, the lowest of which I calculate are as high as the nave of Winchester. The clerestory is small, and there is no triforium, so fully three quarters of the height of the nave is merely pillars and arches: the pillars are crowned, not by capitals, but by /octagonal/ stilts consisting of niches with statues in them, on the top of which the arches are perched: I suppose all this adds to the effect of height, but it is disproportioned and fatigues the eyes: if you look straight before you there is only column after column: you cannot help looking up, and then there is nothing to see except the arches and the roof at a distance where you lose their outlines. There is much stained glass, some of it old and fine: the three great east windows have good tracery and are very rich and gorgeous. Here I must stop at present. I am sorry the festival has knocked you up. The enclosed is what the Venetians call the flower of the sea: it grows all over the salt marshes of the lagoon. Love to Cousin Agnes.2 Your loving son A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | Kildare | Cantelupe Street | Hereford’. Memoir, 119 (excerpt) and 137–8 (incomplete); Maas, 53–5.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N 17 North Road, Highgate N. 2 October 1900. My dear Mamma, I was in Milan on the day of Bresci’s trial:1 at first I could not make out why the ends of all the streets round the Court of Justice were occupied by cavalry who let no wheeled traffic pass, but this accounted for it. I went to the top of the cathedral to see the view: the distance was not very clear, so that only the nearest Alps and Appennines were visible, not Mount Rosa. All round extends the plain of Lombardy as flat as a carpet, and very green with pollard trees and shrubs, red and white towns and towers here and there: the great Carthusian monastery and church of Pavia looks like a ship on the sea. Going from Milan to Venice at first you have merely this plain, cut up into small and narrow fields of Indian corn in all stages of growth (they make it into ‘polenta’ and a cheap sort of bread: they call it Turkish 2 1

Lucy Housman’s sister, Helen Agnes, who in 1892 married Sir William Smith (1823–93). 29 Sept. 1900. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

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corn, and to put matters straight they call a turkey an Indian fowl, poor benighted Papists); these fields are separated not by hedges but by rows of small trees, black poplar, willow, and especially mulberry: they also plant the mulberry among the corn and in orchards by itself: they grow it for silk, not fruit. You cross many rivers, and at this time of the year you can tell by their condition where they come from: those which flow from the lakes have plenty of water, but those which have to rely on their own springs are merely brooks amidst broad white beds of sand and stones. When you are getting towards Brescia the Alps come down from the north to keep the railroad company: this part is very picturesque, the hills have towns and churches and forts and convents perched here and there; but there is a great lack of large trees: I believe there are not half a dozen large trees in Italy except in gardens and parks. The Lombardy poplar does not seem to be common in Lombardy: it grows badly, and they often lop it like a Worcestershire elm. The railway runs close to the lake of Garda, the largest and much the broadest of the lakes, and this is the most beautiful part of the journey: the water is bright blue, and retreats into the mountains on the north; on the south, where the shores are flatter, the landscape begins to be ornamented with the cypress, the most telling of all trees. Now we pass into the Venetian provinces, and between Verona and Vicenza the Alps recede into the north again: the country is much like Lombardy, but the fields are larger and farms and towns seem fewer; but every town and village, even more than in Lombardy, seems to have built itself a lofty brick bell-tower, which in Venetia generally has a short sort of spire on the top (you know the great campanile of St Mark’s at Venice): also the poplar becomes more frequent: people who live in very flat countries (Lincolnshire for instance) must have tall towers and such things to cheer them up. As the sun went down we came to what is called the dead lagoon, where the sea and land begin to mix, but there is more land than sea: the live lagoon, where there is more sea than land, is what Venice stands in. The scene was very dreary at that hour: pools and canals, and marshes all overgrown with that purple flower I sent you; and the last touch of mystery and desolation was provided by three large staring red tramcars about a quarter of a mile away which were being rapidly drawn, by one very small horse apiece, into the Adriatic sea. (I found afterwards that they go to a spot on the coast whence there is a steamer to Venice.) Then the railway runs out on to the water to Venice over a bridge two miles and a half long: Venice itself is not very well seen, and looks something like an English manufacturing town with the chimneys transformed into towers. Entering Venice itself, especially at nightfall, when most of the canals are

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empty, the first impression is its stillness: you get a gondola at the landing place by the station, and are taken to the other end of the Grand Canal, where the hotels are, chiefly by short cuts through the lesser canals: the like an S. I hope your health is going on all right. Grand Canal is Your loving son A. E. Housman STATION

RIALTO

DOGE’S PALACE

UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | Kildare | Cantelupe St. | Hereford’. Memoir, 138–40 (incomplete); Maas, 55–6.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N 17 North Road, Highgate N. 15 Oct. 1900. My dear Mamma, I suppose I had better take the contents of Venice in the order of date. The first is the best: the Byzantine architecture as represented by the cathedral of St. Mark, which I should think is the most beautiful, not the grandest, building in the world. It might be possible to erect in the Gothic style a more beautiful building, but I doubt if such a one exists. It is not lofty, and not large, except that it is broad for its length; but every square yard of it is worth looking at for an hour together. I used to go there nearly every day; but it would take years to exhaust it. It is all covered with coloured marble and alabaster, except where it has gold mosaics, or richly carved stone capitals to the pillars; and yet it does not look a bit like a piece of patch-work: everything helps towards the general effect. The preciousness of the material and the delicacy of the workmanship make it look almost more like jewellery than architecture, and one feels as if it ought not to be left out of doors at night. The inside is equally costly in material but not so good in general effect: the five domes with their gold mosaics are well enough, but the walls are of a brown alabaster which gives a rather dingy effect at a distance, though it is very beautiful to examine closely; and the building looks more like a cave hewn out of the solid than a building such as we are accustomed to, resting its weight on walls and pillars. The few remaining palaces of the same architecture I did not think much of, though Ruskin cries them up a great deal.1 Of Gothic they had two sorts in Venice: one for the churches, very thin and poor, with naked red brick on the outside; another for their palaces, exceedingly rich and elegant, but rather timid and monotonous. Of this the Doge’s palace is the 1

In Stones of Venice (1851–3).

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great example: you know its stupid general design, like a clothes-horse with a blanket on it: I am bound to say the reality is better than the pictures, because one can see that the flat and tame upper half of it is composed of red and white marble, although the pattern is no better than you see on the cottages in the Stourbridge Road at Bromsgrove. The lower part, the two colonnades, are as beautiful and as full of fine carving as you could wish. There is a much smaller palace on the Grand Canal, called the Casa d’Oro, which is almost richer in effect. But the majority of the Gothic palaces are not satisfactory: they are all on the same pattern, part of the surface consisting of very rich arcades and windows, the rest of painfully flat wall, made worse by being painted. The earliest Renaissance work in Venice is very peculiar and very charming in detail, with much inlaying of coloured marbles, a device which they borrowed from the old Byzantine architecture: there was a family of architects called the Lombardi, who built the little church of St. Maria dei Miracoli and one or two palaces in this style, with beautiful foliated carving: in point of general design however they are not good or effective. Then comes the regular Renaissance, which we all know: the most imposing building of that date is the church of the Salute, with a large and a small dome, which always figures in pictures of the Grand Canal and is really very fine outside: inside, all the Renaissance churches are merely St Paul’s on a smaller scale and with more ornament on the walls. The church of the Redentore, by Palladio, has a charmingly pretty and simple exterior to its east (or rather its south) end, which nobody except me seems to notice or admire. The painter best represented in Venice is that lurid and theatrical Tintoret, whom I avoid, and Paul Veronese, whom one soon sees enough of. There are surprisingly few Titians, though two of them are very fine and famous. The best paintings to my thinking are those of Giovanni Bellini, who belongs to the previous generation, and his pupil Cima da Conegliano, mostly Madonnas and groups of saints; also two painters both called Bonifacio Veronese. The picture gallery really pleased me more than any I have seen, because of the beautiful glow of colour on all the walls, except of course where Tintoret was scowling Paul Veronese out of countenance in the large room which they have had given them to sprawl about in. Many of the best paintings are in the churches: there is a very interesting series by Carpaccio (scenes in the lives of St George and St Jerome) in St Giorgio dei Schiavoni, covering all the walls of the little building. Often at sunset I used to go up the great bell-tower in St. Mark’s Place. Venice looks like one large island (the canals cannot be seen): the

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lagoon lies all round, dotted with the stakes which mark out the navigable channels, and the water declares its depth or shallowness by its colour: as the sun goes down it turns partly a golden green and partly a pale vermilion.2 My gondolier3 expressed a wish that he were your son. He wanted me to come to Venice next Christmas, and I explained that at Christmas I went to see you; and then he made this remark. The reason is, that if he were your son he would be well off and would have no family to provide for: so at least he says. At present he has to earn a living for one wife, two sisters, one mother, one mother-in-law, and half an uncle (who was once a champion oarsman and is now paralysed); which is pretty good for a young man of twenty-three who has had one eye kicked out by a horse. On the other side of the island of Lido, which is the chief bulwark against the Adriatic, there is a great bathing place on the open sea with splendid sands, where I went several times. On this same island I also discovered a bit of real country; grass and a grove of trees round about the fort of St Nicolo,4 where the Venetians have their great picnic in May. In addition to the usual English autumn wildflowers there was purple salvia and the evening primrose. There were also very attractive grasshoppers two inches long, which they call by the name ‘salto-martino’. I went also to Mestre on the mainland, and saw for the first time in my life a swallow-tail butterfly on the wing: in England I believe it survives only in a few spots of the eastern counties. Your loving son A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs E. Housman | Kildare | Cantelupe St. | Hereford.’ Memoir, 141–2 (incomplete); Maas, 56–8. 2

The ‘green and sanguine shoals’ commemorated in MP XLIV, written 10–30 Apr. 1922. Andrea, whom he employed on his visits to Venice. He is mentioned by name in MP XLIV 21 and in a letter to Brown, 6 Sept. 1901, but usually as ‘my gondolier’ or (when Andrea was very ill and just after his death) ‘my poor gondolier’: see Naiditch (1995), 58–9, where it is correctly noted that AEH never calls him a friend. Even marginalia in his copy (now at BMC) of Baedeker’s Italy: Handbook for Travellers, First Part: Northern Italy (1899), 275, record ‘my gondolier disagrees’ and ‘Pisani-Moretto says gondolier’. AEH’s mode of reference may be compared to that of the narrator in Henry James’s The Aspern Papers (1888), who refers to ‘my gondolier’ six times and ‘my gardener’ twice. Pace Graves, 150–3, there is no evidence that AEH had a ‘love-affair’ with the man: see Page, 122. 4 For Nicolò. 3

1901 TO J O H N P U RV E S 2 January 1901 Hereford. Dear Sir, I am obliged by your letter, but I am sorry that I must make my usual reply,—that I have really nothing written, and also that I never think verses look well in a magazine, unless they deal with current events. If, for example, I had anything to say about the new century, you should be very welcome to it; but I have not. I am Yours very faithfully A. E. Housman. NLS MS Acc. 7175/1.

TO M RS FA I RCH I LD University College, London 11 April 1901. Dear Mrs Fairchild, (If I am so to address you). I am much obliged by your kindness in writing to me and in sending me your friend’s poems. Some of them have a mixture of grace and simplicity which I admire very much: the four pieces XLII–XLV are good examples of it. You need not alarm yourself by imagining that I am famous in England. The book1 was very well reviewed, but the sale is only moderate,2 and the third edition3 is not yet exhausted. 1 2 ASL. See Critical Heritage (1992), 58–93, and Benjamin F. Fisher, ‘The Critical Reception of A Shropshire Lad’, in A. E. Housman: A Reassessment, ed. Alan W. Holden and J. Roy Birch (2000), 20–36. 3 The 1st edn. (published c. end of Feb. 1896) and 2nd edn. (Sept. 1898) were each of at least 500 copies. At the end of 1896, 445 copies of the first edn. were sold, with a further 16 and 36 in the two halves of 1897 (Richards, 16 n.). Of the 2nd edn., 397 copies were sold by the end of 1898, with a further 50 in 1899 (Richards, 26, 32). 4 Of 1,000 copies, published at the end of Feb. 1900. 641 copies were sold in 1900, 263 in 1901 (Richards, 32).

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I have relations in Canada and the States, but I do not much expect to cross the Atlantic. Italy is so much nearer, and so inexhaustible. So I am afraid we are not likely to meet; but let me renew my thanks for your letter, and add that I value it all the more because you describe yourself as an old woman. Old women and young men are the salt of the earth. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO P RO F E S S O R D E N I S O N RO S S [University College, London] 11 May 1901. Dear Ross, I return the suit with many thanks. It was a pride to me and a joy to all beholders, and I hope it is not damaged by the cold sweat which broke out upon me when I found I was expected to sum up the debate.1 The tie-clips are in the waist-coat pocket. —Yours faithfully and obliged A. E. H. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, MS: PPMS 8 Ross Collection, Box 1 File 2. Published in Both Ends of the Candle: The Autobiography of Sir E. Denison Ross (1943), 53, and by Maas in HSJ, 2 (1975), 33.

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R 17 North Road | Highgate N. 31 May 1901 Dear Ashburner, It will give me much pleasure to dine with you on Wednesday next. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fo. 192. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 10. 1 ‘On May 10, 1901, at a few hours’ notice, Housman took the chair at the Annual Public Debate [of the UCL Debating Society] when Lord Avebury was unavoidably absent’: Naiditch (1988), 142, citing UCL MS Add. 78/6 as his source. Naiditch also quotes Chambers, 379: ‘When [AEH] took the chair at a debate on Democratic Government he summed up in favour of democracy, on the ground that it was difficult to betray a Government you had yourself chosen. He instanced cases where defeatists had welcomed the disasters of their own autocratic government, because such disasters must lead to revolution. ‘‘Democracy does save you from horrors like that’’, he said, and at the word ‘‘horrors’’ a shudder seemed to pass over him.’ Naiditch (1988), 142: ‘Arnold White had moved that Representative Government was a failure; Archdeacon Sinclair had opposed. The motion was lost by a sizeable majority.’

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TO H O RATI O F. B ROW N [  | ] 6 Sept. 1901 Dear Mr Brown, I shall be very pleased to lunch with you and Mrs Brown on Sunday. Apparently I nearly encountered you both yesterday afternoon, for Andrea tells me you were on one side of the Lido while I was on the other. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. White (1950), 403; Maas, 59.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N [Castelfranco] 13 Sept. 1901 My dear Mamma, This is written in pouring rain at the town of Castelfranco, which most likely you never heard of, and no more did I till four or five days ago. The pen and ink are too awful, so I must go on in pencil, which is all the better as there is no blotting paper. This is about twenty miles inland from Venice: it is celebrated as the birthplace of Giorgione, and as containing the only picture which is known with certainty to be his. It is a smallish place which once was smaller, for it stands partly within and partly without the fine old walls and moat: the walls are partly in ruins, and the space between them and the moat is now a sort of garden-bank, something like the castle at Hereford. I have been at Paris, Pisa, and Florence, and now lastly at Venice. Pisa is a rather handsome and very sleepy town, with all its chief buildings, the Cathedral, Baptistery, and leaning tower, packed in one corner on an open space of grass, surrounded on two sides by the ancient walls of the city, which still run right round it. The weather was very hot and bright, and by daytime one could hardly open one’s eyes to look at things; for although the Cathedral etc. are about as old as any Norman architecture that we have got in England, they are chiefly built of Carrara marble, which in process of time does indeed become smeary and untidy, but never becomes mellow and venerable; and under an Italian sun it blazes like a dusty highroad. The cathedral is quite a failure, highshouldered and almost mean-looking outside, handsome and roomy inside, but not a bit religious: bands of black marble on white, looking painfully spic and span, in spite of its antiquity. The Baptistery, a large

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dome, is a beautiful building outside, much improved by the addition of some Gothic gables and pinnacles to the Romanesque original; the inside is quite uninteresting. By daylight the Baptistery is much the finest of the group of buildings, but in twilight and moonlight I think the leaning tower is superior, with its six rows of pillars picked out in light and shade. The country immediately around Pisa is flat, much of it having been deposited by the sea within human memory: the nearest hills are about five miles off, but the Appennine and other mountains are well in sight. I went out for a drive to the west to the park of the royal villa, which is a great game-preserve, planted with woods and avenues of the stone pine. The Arno at Pisa, being penned within embankments, is a respectable stream by moonlight, when you cannot see that it is liquid mud: however, after all it is not so bad as the Exe at Exeter: the Arno is like pea-soup, but the Exe is like tomato-soup. Between Pisa and Florence the Arno at present is merely a shallow brook meandering about a wide bed of pebbles: at Florence they try to make it look decent by a series of dams, but in this dry summer it does not succeed. I have only one candle, which is bothering to my eyes, and Florence would take up more space than I can fill before I go to bed, so here I will stop, and try to address the envelope legibly with the abandoned pen and ink. Your loving son A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 126. Pencil from the ‘g’ in ‘ago’ in the first sentence onwards. Envelope addressed (in ink) ‘Mrs E. Housman | Kildare | Cantilupe St. | Hereford | Inghilterra’. Maas, 59–60.

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R 17 North Road | Highgate N. 13 September 1901. Dear Ashburner, Will you give me the pleasure of your company at dinner at Kettner’s (Church St., Soho) on Friday Nov. 29th at 7 o’ clock? In order that you may not be lured into any horrors for which you are unprepared, I should explain that, as I do not belong to any club, after dinner we adjourn to a box in the adjacent Palace (the most proper of all the music-halls, not meet to be called a music-hall), and that when the Palace closes there is no refuge but Bow St. police station; which is the reason why I put the hour so early.

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I met Horatio Brown in Venice in September,1 just after he had left you in the Engadine.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 194–5. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 11.

TO P RO F E S S O R W. M . L I N D S AY [17 North Road | Highgate N. 12 Dec. 1901] Neither παριστορία nor any other noun in the nominative will make sense of the passage: facta est with a nominative can only mean ‘became’ or ‘was rendered’: if it means ‘took place’ or ‘was done’ it will admit no complement but an adverb or adverbial phrase. Is it proposed to take it as if it were fuit? Further, παριστορία means a story conflicting with fact, not a fact conflicting with story. I had half a mind to add to my note the words ‘Now someone will conjecture παριστορία’; but I reflected that this would sound unamiable and could not be proved to be true, though I knew that it was.1 12 Dec. 1901 A.E.H. St Andrews MS 36326, 202. ii: p.c. addressed ‘Professor Lindsay | 3 Howard Place | St Andrews | N. B.’ Peter Godman, ‘Two Unpublished Letters of Housman’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, 204 (1978), 41. 1

2 See AEH to Brown, 6 Sept. 1901. Swiss portion of the upper Inn River valley. AEH is discussing the emendation of Martial, De Spectaculis Liber, 21. 8, from ‘haec tamen res est facta ita pictoria’ to ‘haec tantum res est facta παρ’ ἱστορίαν’ (‘this thing alone was done untold by history’), which he proposed in CR 15. 3 (Apr. 1901), 154–5 (Classical Papers, 536–7). Samuel Allen, CR 15. 4 ( June 1901), 153–4, preferred παρ’ ἱστορία. Lindsay’s edn. of Martial appeared in 1902 (2nd edn., 1929). For further information, see Naiditch (1995), 169. Naiditch (2005), 148–52, provides examples of AEH withholding textual information on principle and anticipating false conjectures. See letters of 23 Mar. 1934 and 12 Apr. 1935. 3

1902 TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R 17 North Road | Highgate N. 8 July 1902. Dear Ashburner, I am very sorry I have an engagement on Thursday evening. Perhaps it is all the better for Brown,1 who is dining with me on Friday (to meet a literary gent in whom he takes an interest),2 and who might find me monotonous as an ingredient in the bill of fare two evenings in succession. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 197–8. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 12.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road, Highgate N. 12 Oct. 1902. Dear Richards, If I may drop the Mr. I am sending simultaneously by parcel post the text and notes of the edition of Manilius I, and also a specimen of the Teubner classics1 to show what sort of book I have in my mind’s eye.2 The notes should be printed at the foot of the text, and should run right across the page, not stand in two columns: the type of the notes should be smaller in proportion to that of the text than is the case in the German book: the 1

Horatio F. Brown. Brown and he dined at the Café Royal, and were joined by GR, who was delayed by motoring mishaps. Richards, 38, is wrong about the date (‘One day … it may have been in the month of July, 1904’) of what was the beginning of a long friendship with AEH. (AEH addresses him formally as ‘My dear Sir’, ‘Dear Sir’, and ‘Dear Mr Richards’; then changes to ‘Dear Richards’ and ‘My dear Richards’, 12 Oct. and 8 Nov. 1902. The change indicates that the friendship had begun previously.) 1 Inexpensive series of classical editions, containing only text and apparatus criticus, published at Leipzig since 1824. 2 Hamlet, 1. 2. 184. 2

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paper should be thicker, I think. As to my manuscript, the curved line under words /and figures/ and letters is meant to indicate Clarendon type3 (I am not sure if it is the correct sign); and the spaces which I have left between sentences are meant to be preserved in printing. In the text, I want the numbers in the left-hand margin, as I have put them: and the letters ‘j’ and ‘v’, wherever they occur in the type-written copy, are to be altered into ‘i’ and ‘u’ respectively:4 I suppose this is a change which may be left to the printer. Before anything is done, I should be glad if you could let me have an estimate of what the printing &c is likely to cost, as my resources are not inexhaustible. In addition to what I am now sending, there will be a preface of about 25 pages (as far as I can judge), and about an equal amount /(25 pages)/ of additional matter at the end. When the next edition of the Shropshire Lad is being prepared, it would save trouble to the compositor as well as to me if he were told that the 3rd edition is almost exactly correct,5 and that he had better not put in commas and notes of exclamation for me to strike out of the proof, as was the case last time. I think this is all I have to say. I remain Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 47–8; Maas, 60–1 (incomplete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Rd., Highgate N. 8 Nov. 1902. My dear Richards, 4/6 is my notion of the proper price, for several reasons: firstly because I want the book to be read abroad, and continental scholars are poorer than English; secondly as a protest against the usual English prices—e.g. 12/6 for a single play of Sophocles by Jebb1 —which I have always supposed 3

A bold condensed fount. AEH consistently adopted this convention in prose. See letters of 28 Aug. 1911 to GR, 29 Apr. 1921 to Winstanley, and 20 Jan. 1928 to Gow. In poetry he followed a different convention. See Naiditch (1995), 90; Poems (1997), 375; and Naiditch in HSJ 31 (2005), 102. 5 The only likely errors in the 1900 edn. are ‘wellnigh’ (for ‘well nigh’) at XXXVII 10 and ‘halfway’ (for half way’) at LXII 31: see Poems (1997), Introduction, xxviii. 1 Richard Claverhouse Jebb (1841–1905). Fellow of TCC, 1864–76; Professor of Greek at Glasgow, 1875–89; Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge and Professorial Fellow of TCC, 4

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to be due to the cloth binding and gilt lettering; thirdly because I hardly like to ask more for a single book of a poem which contains five, when Lachmann’s celebrated commentary on the whole of Lucretius2 only costs 7/6. The Teubner book which I sent you as a specimen is priced at 4/-: true, it is a shocking bad book, but that makes no difference. Still, if 4/6 is one of those prices which publishers and booksellers for some mysterious reason dislike, and if your heart is set on 5/-, I have no strong objection; as I see that my notes in print are more voluminous than I imagined.3 The division of the notes in the proofs sent is satisfactory: the important thing is that the note on any verse should begin on the page which contains that verse. As to the Greek σ, I wish the letter to have this form at the end as well as in the body of words: fifty years hence all Greek books will be printed so. I am hoping to receive from Rome in about a week’s time some information about manuscripts in the Vatican which may involve additions or alterations in the notes on the first 80 lines. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 49–50; Maas, 61.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT  , . |  . .. 19 Nov. 1902 Dear Sir, The publisher is Mr Grant Richards, 48 Leicester Square. Yours very faithfully A. E. Housman BMC MS.

1889–1905; knighted, 1900; OM, 1905. His chief work was an edn. of Sophocles (7 vols., Cambridge, 1883–96). Naiditch (1988), 178, 189, notes that Jebb acted as though AEH’s chief articles on the text of Sophocles had never been published, and that the two ‘held each other in mutual disesteem’. 2 The commentary by leading German philologist and textual critic Karl [Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm] Lachmann (1793–1851) was published in 1850. In the preface to Manilius I (1903), AEH lamented that ‘the Lachmanns and Madvigs are gone’ (Selected Prose, 41), and in a review of Ellis’s Catullus (1905), he spoke of his ‘esteem for Lachmann’ (ibid. 99; Classical Papers, 625). See also Poems (1997), 254, 540–1. 3 Published at AEH’s expense and sold at 4/6.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 20 Nov. 1902. Dear Richards, I return the proofs,1 in which I have made corrections on pages 18, 19, 21, 35, 52 and 92. What I want on pages 18 and 19 is to have the seventh line of each stanza2 put level with the second and fourth: I don’t know if I have expressed this desire in the correct form. My attempt to get the readings of the Rome manuscripts through the British School there seems to have had no effect; but I am making another effort through another channel, the friend of a friend of mine, and I hope to succeed shortly. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. (misdated 20 March 1902); Richards, 50; Maas, 62.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 30 Nov. 1902. Dear Richards, I have got the collation of the Vatican MSS, so I return the proof corrected. As I have not yet had my manuscript returned from the printers (except page 4) it is possible that slight further corrections will be necessary, but nothing to affect the arrangement of the printed matter on the pages, I hope. The alterations to be made in the remaineder1 of the first 80 verses (the part affected by the Vatican MSS) are not so formidable as in these first 37. There is one general instruction which had better be given to the printers. When a colon or semicolon comes at the end of a quotation in italics, it ought to stand upright, not to slant (I have written ‘rom.’ in the margin, but I am not sure if that is the correct way to signify what I mean).

1 Of the 4th edn. of ASL (1903). The publisher’s file copy, bearing five corrections in AEH’s hand, is at BMC: one is of wording (‘seed’ for ‘seeds’ at LIII 9), four are of punctuation. 2 Of poem XI (On your midnight pallet lying). 1 For ‘remainder’.

30 November 1902

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With notes of interrogation, if they belong to the sense of the quotation, the case is different. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 50 (excerpts); Maas, 62.

1903 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 5 Jan. 1903. Dear Richards, I return corrected the proofs which I have received. As regards long notes, like those on 226 and 245, I see no objection to having a whole page, or two if necessary, filled with annotation, without any text at the top. Either the type or else the printing of these slips is rather bad, and trying to the eyes to correct by lamplight. I have made a good many changes in the title page, which ought to be as Latin as possible, I think; and I must confess that I don’t know the Latin for Leicester Square.1 I hope you will approve. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 51 (excerpt); Maas, 62–3.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 27 Jan. 1903. Dear Richards, I return the last portion of the text and notes corrected; and I enclose the manuscript of the matter which is to follow them at the end of the book. I have marked the two parts A and B to show their order. As I was unwell in the Christmas holidays, the preface is still only partly written, and I do not get on with it very fast now that the work of the term has begun again. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 51 (excerpt); Maas, 63. 1

GR’s office was at 48 Leicester Square. The information was omitted from the title-page.

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5 February 1903

TO P RO F E S S O R W. M . L I N D S AY 17 North Rd., Highgate N. 5 Feb. 1903. My dear Sir, I have waited to read your pamphlet on Martial1 before thanking you for it, in order that I might be able to do so more intelligently. The collations, and the collection of variants between the three sources, will be very valuable, whether or not one adopts the theory to which you incline, that some of these latter go back to Martial himself. I don’t myself take this view; for very similar phenomena occur in the texts of other much-read authors, such as Virgil and Lucan, and seem to be part of the penalty they pay. I think too that the purely palaeographical solution which you propose at II xx 2, III i 6–7, lxxii 3, is applicable to many other verses: IX lxi 9 ‘dominumque nemus’ = ‘-que mus’ then ‘que suum’; /X xiv 8 ‘argenti uenit’ = ‘argenti’, then ‘missa’ from above;/ I lviii 3 ‘de me mea’ = ‘de mea’, then ‘dolet hoc mea’; lxxvi 3 ‘cantus[que choros]que’, then ‘cantus citharamque’; (ciii 8 terque [quaterque] is an easy loss, but would hardly give rise to ‘bisque quaterque’); V xxii 7 ‘mulorum rumpere’ = ‘mulorum pere’; then ‘uincere’; VI xxxii 4 ‘pectora tota’ = ‘pectora’, then nuda; XII xvii 3 ‘pariter pariterque’ (B) = ‘pariterque’ (C), then ‘pariter tecumque’ (A). Some of them are confusions I have met in all sorts of places: pignus and munus; renouetur and reuocetur; lasso and fesso; umbras and undas; capiat and faciat; and others belong to common types of corruption: gemina and magni; mula and pluma; suillos and pusillos. But certainly no one can say that you put forward your opinion with any undue confidence; and the details you give are most interesting. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman St Andrews MS 36326, 202. i. The square brackets in the text are AEH’s. Peter Godman, ‘Two Unpublished Letters of Housman’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, 204 (1978), 41–2.

1 The Ancient Editions of Martial, with collations of the Berlin 38; Edinburgh MSS (120 pp.), University of St Andrews Publications (1903).

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TO H . E . BU T L E R University College, London 7 Feb. 1903. Dear Sir, I am very willing that you should include in your selection the poem you wish.1 I do not know if it is necessary that you should also obtain the consent of the publisher (Grant Richards, 48 Leicester Square), but no doubt he would readily give it. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305. Maas, 63.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 12 Feb. 1903. Dear Richards, With regard to your note of today, I don’t quite know the meaning of ‘‘the preliminary’’,1 but I enclose the dedication2 which is to follow the title-page. I suppose it had better be printed in italics. If it will not all go on one page, it should be broken at the point I have marked, and a catch-word should be added. After this, and before the text and notes, there will come a long introduction, which, as I said, is not yet finished; but there is nothing else of the nature of a preliminary. Many thanks for the copies of the Shropshire Lad which I received today. The colour attracts the eye, and the convolvulus-leaf 3 detains it in fascinated admiration. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 51; Maas, 64.

1

1887 (ASL I), for inclusion in War Songs of Britain (1903). ‘The half-title, the title-page, the dedication page, the table of contents, &c., that precede the text of the book’: Richards, 51 n. 2 To Manilius I ; a 28-line poem in Latin elegiacs inscribed to Moses Jackson. See Poems (1997), 289–91, 565–6. It had gone through two notebook drafts, one from Dec. 1895–24 Feb. 1900, the other from c.1900–7 June 1902. 3 The 4th edn. had scarlet covers. As in the 1st (1896) and 2nd (1898) edns., but not the 3rd (1900), a convolvulus-leaf decoration was printed after each poem. 1

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15 March 1903

TO T. G R E G O RY F O S T E R University College 16 Feb. 1903. Dear Foster, The accounts of last year’s Conversazione were duly audited last July by Professors Martin and Neill, but the audit sheet, together with all the other documents bearing on the Conversazioni which had been collected by the Secretary, is lost or mislaid. In these circumstances Starling, who was Chairman of the Committee, Travers, who was Secretary, and I, who was Treasurer, do not propose to prepare a fresh balances-sheet and call a meeting to present it, but we propose to spend the surplus, £2. 17. 3, for such public purposes as seem good to the three of us,—probably in augmenting the luxuries of the smoking-room: this intention we have signified verbally to many of the staff, and nobody has objected. But as the Council was good enough to subscribe towards the Conversazione, it is proper that it should be informed how the money was spent; and I therefore enclose /a/ document which I beg you to lay before the Committee of Management. /It/ is a list drawn up by /Travers/ of the subscriptions and items of expenditure, classified under heads. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCL Committee of Management 1/148.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 15 March 1903. Dear Richards, In your announcement of my Manilius there are two misprints: instruit should be instruxit and amendationes should be emendationes. They do not cause me any piercing anguish, and I only write about it because I thought you might like to know. The preface proceeds very slowly now that it is term-time. I hope I shall be able to send you an instalment of it in a fortnight or so. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 52; Maas, 64.

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TO G. F. H I LL University College, London 23 March 1903. My dear Sir, Your brother, my colleague,1 encourages me to hope that you will let me trouble you with the following enquiries. A. von Sallet, beiträge z. gesch. u. numism. d. könige des Cimmer. Bosp. (1866) pp. 69–70 mentions a coin of Pythodoris queen of Pontus, struck in 14 A.D., which has Tiberius’ head on the obverse and the constellation Libra on the reverse: apparently it is also mentioned in a work which I have not seen, Ch. Giel, kl. beiträge z. antiken Numismatik Süd-Russlands (1886) pp. 12–18. Since the constellation Capricornus, which often accompanies Augustus’ head, is known to have been his natal star, it is natural to infer from this coin that Libra was the natal star of Tiberius; and I think that certain passages in Manilius point the same way. The points on which I want light are these. 1. Is the coin genuine? W. von Voigt in Philologus vol. 58 p. 176 speaks as if this were not certain. 2. Is the head certainly that of Tiberius, and the figure on the reverse certainly Libra? 3. Does Libra elsewhere appear in company with either Tiberius or Augustus? (for some think that this constellation also was connected with Augustus). I beg that you will not trouble yourself seriously about a matter so unimportant: I only venture to apply to you because it is possible that a numismatist may be able to answer easily questions which a layman might fumble at for a long time without result. I am Yours very faithfully A. E. Housman. G. F. Hill Esq. BL Add. MS 44919, fos. 163–4. Maas, 401–2.

1 Micaiah John Muller Hill (1856–1929), Professor of Pure Mathematics at UCL, 1884–1907; Astor Professor of Mathematics, University of London, 1907–23; Vice-Chancellor, 1909–11. For further information, see Naiditch (1988), 67–70.

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25 March 1903

TO G. F. H I LL University College, London 25 March 1903. My dear Sir, I am very much obliged by your kind reply to my letter, which tells me just what I wanted to know.1 If I find I cannot get Reinach’s work2 in the Reading Room3 I shall be glad to avail myself of your offer to use the departmental library. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44919, fos. 165–6. Maas, 402.

TO W. G. H U TC H I S O N University College, London 25 March 1903. Dear Sir, I shall be very willing that you should print the poem you wish in your collection.1 I do not know if it is necessary that you should also get the consent of the publisher (Grant Richards, 48 Leicester Square), but no doubt he would readily give it. I am yours very faithfully A. E. Housman. W. G. Hutchison Esq. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection.

1

For the coin, see Manilius I, p. lxxi. L’Histoire par les Monnaies: Essais de Numismatique Ancienne, by Théodore Reinach (Paris, 1902). 3 Of the British Museum. 1 Songs of the Vine: with a Medley for Malt-worms, ed. Hutchison (1904), a selection of verse in praise of alcoholic drinks. It contained ASL LXII (Terence, this is stupid stuff ). 2

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Letters 1872–1926

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R University College, London 8 April 1903. My dear Sir, I am much obliged by your letter and the poem1 which you have been good enough to send me, and by the kindness which they express. I am yours very faithfully A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/1. Envelope addressed ‘Witter Bynner Esq. | McClure’s Magazine | 141–155 East Twenty-Fifth St. | New York | U. S. A.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 3.

TO H E N RY JACK S O N 17 North Road | Highgate N. 4 May 1903. My dear Jackson, I write to inform you of the safe arrival of Platt: my own you will probably infer by some logical process derived from the study of Aristotle, so I need not explicitly record it. I think, in spite of the weather, I have enjoyed this visit to Cambridge more than any other. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 32 49 , Maas, 64–5.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R University College, London 3 June 1903. My dear Sir, You seem to admire my poems even more than I admire them myself, which is very noble of you, but will most likely be difficult to keep up for any great length of time. However, it is not for me to find fault with you; and naturally there is a pleasure in receiving such ardent letters as yours. 1 With a Copy of ‘A Shropshire Lad’: He whistles of the lasting sleep | A melody to hear and keep, | Beguiling you the little while | You’ve need to sigh and chance to smile,  And whistles next of happy things | That each unhappy waking brings. | Until you’ve half forgotten why | You’ve need to smile and chance to sigh. Bynner published other poems about AEH: To A. E. Housman (see AEH to Bynner, 6 Aug. 1924, n. 1); Housman in Against The Cold (1940); and A. E. Housman in Take Away The Darkness (1947).

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5 June 1903

As to your enquiries: I wrote the book when I was 35,1 and I expect to write another when I am 70, by which time your enthusiasm will have had time to cool. My trade2 is that of professor of Latin in this college: I suppose that my classical training has been of some use to me in furnishing good models, and making me fastidious, and telling me what to leave out. My chief object in publishing my verses was to give pleasure to a few young men here and there, and I am glad if they have given pleasure to you. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/2. Envelope addressed ‘Witter Bynner Esq. | Mc Clure’s Magazine | 141 East Twenty-Fifth St. | New York. | U. S. A.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 4; Maas, 65.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 5 June 1903. My dear Richards, There is no American publication which regularly reviews classical books, but the American Journal of Philology (Johns’1 Hopkins University, Baltimore) reviews a certain number, and I have no objection to your sending them a copy.2 But I doubt if they would review it: American scholars are mere grammarians and collectors of statistics, and what we call critical scholarship hardly exists there. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. The Classical Review circulates in America and has American sub-editors. Illinois MS. Richards, 52; Maas, 65.

1 Not accurate, as is noted in Bynner/Haber, 4. At least 7 and at most 15 poems were done before AEH was 35, and 36 of the 63 poems in ASL were completed after his thirty-sixth birthday. See Poems (1997), Introduction, lvi–lvii. 2 ‘Formerly used very widely, including professions’: OED (sb. 5.a.). Dr Johnson remarks of Cibber’s work as a playwright, ‘that was his trade’: Boswell’s Life of Johnson, ed. George Birkbeck Hill (1891), 3. 83. (not cited in OED). AEH uses the word on grounds of deriving a livelihood: see AEH to Bynner, 14 Dec. 1903, n. 1. 1 For ‘Johns’. 2 AJP did not review Manilius I as such, but W. A. Merrill inserted a brief note on AEH’s polemical style at 27 (1906), 487.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R 17 North Road | Highgate N. 21 June 1903. My dear Ashburner, Will you come and dine at the Café Royal on Tuesday July 7th , at 7. 30? I hope everything went well at Wiesbaden. It is a place I am often incited to go and see, as a lady lives there who is one of my oldest friends;1 but Germany does not attract me so much as other places, and I hate the thought of having to learn up phrases of conversation and the names for common objects in a third continental language. The Committee of Management, on being deserted by us, has become the scene of various excitements: Stephen Coleridge2 having accused our vivisectors of torturing dogs so loud that the Slade School cannot paint (and perhaps that explains it), and Lord Kelvin3 having said in our Botanical Theatre (to the horror of Karl Pearson4 and doubtless of our eminent founders)5 that the vegetable kingdom requires a God, though the mineral could do without him. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 203–4. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 13.

1

Sophie Becker. Stephen [William Buchanan] Coleridge (1854–1936). Educated at TCC. Barrister, author, Director of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, and founder of the NSPCC. 3 William Thomson, Baron Kelvin (1824–1907), scientist and inventor. Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1846–52, 1872–1907; Professor of Natural Philosophy, Glasgow, 1846–99; FRS, 1851, and President, 1890–4; OM, 1902. He retained a strong religious faith throughout his life. 4 Professor of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at UCL. See the note on the letter to Lily Thicknesse, 11 June 1900. 5 UCL, which first admitted students in 1828, was committed to higher education free from religious tests, and became known as the ‘godless institution of Gower Street’. Chief founders, and influences on its secular, rational, and utilitarian principles, were Henry Peter Brougham, first Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). 2

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24 June 1903

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 22 June 1903. Dear Richards, I have no objection to Mr Ettrick1 setting the verses to music; but I have not exacted fees from other people who have set other pieces, so I don’t want to begin now. Vanity, not avarice, is my ruling passion; and so long as young men write to me from America saying that they would rather part with their hair than with their copy of my book, I do not feel the need of food and drink. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 54 (nearly complete); Maas, 66.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 24 June 1903. My dear Richards, As I started with the vague notion that the book would cost about £100, I regard anything short of that as clear gain. Also my classes have been unusually large this year, and the extra fees may possibly balance this extra expenditure; which tempts one to believe in the existence of Providence. I rather think that the difference between the printers’ estimate and the actual cost is caused not merely by my additions and alterations but also by an initial miscalculation on their part as to the amount of matter contained in the manuscript. Would you add to the list of people to whom copies are to be sent— J. W. Mackail Esq. 6 Pembroke Gardens Kensington W Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 55 (nearly complete); Maas, 66.

1 Henry Havelock Ettrick, who published some song settings, 1903–4, though a setting of a Housman poem is not among them.

150

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 18 July 1903. My dear Richards, 1. I enclose a cheque for £83. 9. 0. 2. Is there any press-cutting agency which can be trusted to collect notices from the learned journals of the Continent? 3. There is still one more person to whom I want a copy to be sent,— M. Louis Brandin1 62 Faubourg S. Antoine Paris Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 56 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 24 July 1903 My dear Richards, I can only give the full address of two of the enclosed; but I suppose the names of the towns where they are published will be enough. Mackail congratulates me on my publisher ‘who has produced quite an elegant book’; and he is quite an authority. I rather gather, from some letters which I have received, that the copies sent to my friends were not accompanied by an indication that they were sent by me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 56 (excerpts); Maas, 66–7.

1 Louis Maurice Brandin (1874–1940), who consulted MSS of Juvenal in Paris for AEH: edn. of Juvenal (1905), viii–ix; Naiditch (1988), 240 n. 78–2. AEH also sent him a signed copy of the edn. (now in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University). Brandin was later elected Fielden Professor of French and of Romance Philology in the University of London.

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31 July 1903

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 26 July 1903. My dear Richards, I should like the two morocco-bound copies to have the edges cut all round and gilt all round.1 No gilt should be put on the edges of the interleaved copy, which is merely for me to scribble in. I am obliged to you for Ellis’s letter, which I return. I should be glad if you would take such steps as may seem good to you for collecting press-cuttings from the learned journals of the Continent. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 56 (excerpts); Maas, 67.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L 17 North Road, Highgate N. 31 July 1903. Dear Mackail, Many thanks for your notes,1 which I will perpend (odious word). I put down here some remarks on some of them. 34 I meant the words ‘‘notitiae congruenter’’ to forestall your objection: the names were not revealed by Mercury directly, but they owe their existence to his revelation of the properties which they indicate. 30 and 31 were placed after 37 by Stoeber;2 but the three lines 35–37 cannot belong to the sentence ‘‘quis foret … conatus?’’; they evidently describe the purpose of the gods in unfolding astronomy to men.

1 One of these copies of the Manilius I went to its dedicatee, Moses Jackson: AEH to GR, 11 Aug. 1903. AEH inscribed it ‘M. J. Jackson | from A. E. Housman.’ The volume was sold at Sotheby’s on 6 Nov. 2001. Maas, 67 n., conjectures plausibly that the other copy was for Lucy Housman. 1 On AEH’s edn. of Manilius I. On 24 June AEH had arranged for a copy to be sent to Mackail. 2 Elias Stoeber in the commentary added to the 1767 reprint of the edn. of 1739 by Richard Bentley. AEH’s copy survives, and bears his annotations: Naiditch (2003), 126. AEH held Bentley in the highest esteem, but not Stoeber: ‘Stoeber’s mind, though that is no name to call it by, was one which turned as unswervingly to the false, the meaningless, the unmetrical, and the ungrammatical, as the needle to the pole’: Preface to Manilius I ; Ricks (1988), 375.

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Letters 1872–1926

88 I don’t think there is any Latin word in which inter is prefixed to another preposition. The first ship might naturally be supposed to be a linter, a hollowed trunk. 214 was ejected by Bentley; but first we want to know in what form the interpolator wrote it for at present it will not construe. You say that ‘‘259, 261 seem to go better after 260’’; but then 260 will refer to the zodiac and be foolish: and you go on ‘‘the signa of 255 includes both the fixed stars omnia quae caelo possis numerare:—but in your order of verses, as I say, these words refer to the zodiac only—‘‘and the planets’’—but Manilius never elsewhere calls the planets signa. 288 diuerso cardine means the two opposite poles, and answers to Arat. 24. καί μιν πειραίνουσι δύω πόλοι ἀμφοτέρωθεν. 340 But did Leda ride on Jupiter’s back? Europa did. 355 I think Germanicus 199 shows that relictam must be kept and referred to Andromeda. 407–9 ‘‘An ample guarantee that she possesses these powers is the colour and motion of the star that glitters at her mouth. It is hardly less than the sun himself, only it is placed far off and darts with its blue-green countenance a light that conveys no heat.’’ 417 Is there any objection to una? Coruus and Crater are closely connected by the fact that they are both perched on the poor long-suffering Anguis, and by the story told in Ovid fast. II 243–266. 571 ‘‘Why medio?’’ because only at midsummer does the sun touch the tropic of Cancer. 588 may not be a pretty line, but Manilius cannot have mentioned the distance between all the other circles and omitted the distance between these two; especially if he was going to add up the numbers and give the total as 30 in 594. I don’t think he would be likely to write per ter denas when he might have written per tricenas. Why do you say that the objection that the fines tempora signantes are 3, not 5, applies equally to 598? That verse means that the circles keep pace with one another in their diurnal revolution and that they rise in the east as fast as they set in the west. 680 ‘‘The zodiac is not the culmen’’; no, nor is the milky way at 714: the culmen is the sky overhead, which these circles decorate. caelare takes two sorts of accusatives: the material on which the caelatura is imposed (caelare argentum), and the figure which the caelatura imposes (caelare centauros). caelatum culmen answers to the first of these, and caelatus

153

9 August 1903

Delphinus to the second, but caelatum lumen to neither. The lumen is neither the material chiselled (that is tenebrae rather) nor the form created by chiselling: it is the touch of the chisel itself. 766 The society in the milky way was much too select to admit either castra or Troia. 788 Yes, prior palma. Marcellus was the third winner (Virgil ‘‘tertia palma Diores’’) of the spolia opima, Cossus was prior palma, and Romulus prima. 825 If you want a participle to agree with fine I think it will have to be masculine in Manilius. I am very much pleased and flattered that you should have read the commentary through. So little did I venture to hope that you would, that originally I did not think of sending you a copy of the book: it was your sending me your Odyssey3 shortly before that brought it down on your devoted head. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Maas, 402–4.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 17 North Road | Highgate N. 9 August 1903. My dear Laurence, To write a paper on Patmore would be an awful job, especially in the holidays, so I send you two poems, of which you can print whichever you think the least imperfect.1 I hope you won’t succeed in getting anything from Meredith,2 as I am a respectable character and do not care to be seen in the company of galvanised corpses. By this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead twenty years.3 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 168; Maas, 67. 3

Translated into English, 3 vols. (1903–10). LH had asked AEH to contribute an essay on Coventry Patmore to The Venture: An Annual of Art and Literature, which he edited with Somerset Maugham. AEH sent him Atys (AP I) and The Oracles (LP XXV), and LH printed the latter, its earliest publication: Memoir, 168, 212. 2 George Meredith (1828–1909), novelist, poet, and man of letters. He made no contribution to The Venture. 3 John 11: 39: ‘by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days’. Meredith’s reputation was high at this time. 1

154

Letters 1872–1926

TO T H E D U C H E S S O F S U T H E R L A N D 17 North Road | Highgate N. 11 Aug. 1903. Dear Duchess of Sutherland, I send with much pleasure a short piece of verse for inclusion in your book,1 if you think it worthy of the eminent company which you have gathered together. I am, dear Duchess of Sutherland, yours very faithfully A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Robert H. Taylor Collection).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 11 Aug. 1903. My dear Richards, I don’t want to appear impatient, but I shall leave for the continent in about a week’s time, and I particularly desire to have one of the moroccobound copies of the Manilius before then, in order to send it to India to the friend to whom the book is dedicated.1 I suppose it must be nearly ready now. The Duchess of Sutherland is under the impression that I not only gave her my consent to print some verses of mine in a novel of hers, but also wrote her a kind letter about it; neither of which things did I ever do. I have no doubt that you gave her my consent, as you have given it to other people; and I have no particular objection: but when it comes to writing kind letters to Duchesses I think it is time to protest. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 56; Maas, 68.

1 Astronomy (LP XVII), for Wayfarer’s Love: Contributions from Living Poets (1904), ed. the Duchess of Sutherland. It was the first printing of the poem. The anthology was published in aid of the Potteries and Newcastle Cripples’ Guild. 1 See AEH to GR, 26 July 1903, and note.

155

10 September 1903

TO G R A N T R I C H A R D S ’ S P U B L I S H I N G M A NAG E R 17 North Road | Highgate N. 14 Aug. 1903 Dear Sir, I have received the interleaved copy of the Manilius, for which I am obliged. I am leaving England on Friday the 21st inst., and I hope it may be possible to send me one of the morocco copies before then.1 If not, my address until the 26 th will be Hotel Normandy Rue de l’Echelle2 Paris. th After the 26 I shall have no permanent address. I will try to find out the exact address of the Revue Critique. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 57 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Venice 10 Sept. 1903] If I can find sufficient industry I hope to go on with the Manilius; but not immediately, because at this moment I am rather sick of writing and want to read; moreover book II is the most serious job of the whole lot. I am sure your father’s annotations1 would be valuable. Either you or I or the Duchess of Sutherland seems to have a treacherous memory: let us hope it is the Duchess. Yrs A. E. Housman. Illinois MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 48 Leicester Square W. C. | London | (Inghilterra)’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 57, where the date and place are supplied; Maas, 68.

1

2 See AEH to GR, 26 July 1903, and note. For ‘l’Échelle’. GR had offered AEH his father’s copy of Manilius bearing his manuscript annotations: Richards, 57 n. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G I L B E RT M U R R AY 17 North Road, Highgate N. 22 Sept. 1903. Dear Murray, I have just come back from Italy and found your letter here, and as regards the Music Hall I hasten to observe that it is your own fault if I have not taken you there already: the last time I saw you in London you had armed yourself with tickets for Duse’s Magda1 and were not amenable. If you will let me know a little beforehand when you think of being next in town, and what evening or evenings you will be free, I will get you to come and dine somewhere with me, and try to find some other educated person to keep us company. Next month? I am bound to say however that on the last three occasions of going to a Music Hall I found the entertainment of the most harrowing dulness: I don’t know whether it is that the Halls are deteriorating or that I am improving. Radicalism in textual criticism is just as bad as conservativism; but it is not now rampant, and conservati /vi/sm is. Radicalism was rampant 30 or 40 years ago, and it was then rebuked by Madvig2 and Haupt:3 now it is conservativism that wants rebuking. Similarly, in social morality, puritanism is a pest; but if I were writing an Epistle to the Parisians I should not dwell on this truth, because it is not a truth which the Parisians need to consider: the pest they suffer from is quite different. Some time ago I saw somewhere an extract from a prelude of yours to a tale of chivalry, in heroic couplets, which struck me as very rich and fine: I should be glad to hear any more news of it. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 9. 98–9. Maas, 68–9.

1 Eleonora Duse (1858–1924), the celebrated Italian actress, appeared in London, 1893–1923, to enthusiastic receptions. She was famous for playing leading roles in plays by Gabriele D’Annunzio and Henrik Ibsen. Magda was the English translation of the play Heimat (performed in 1893) by the leading German naturalist writer Hermann Sudermann (1857–1928). It was first produced in London in 1896. 2 Johan Nicolai Madvig (1804–86) was the Danish classical scholar who helped lay the foundations of modern textual scholarship of Latin and Greek. He was Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Copenhagen, 1829–80. For evidence of AEH’s esteem of Madvig, see the letter of 30 Nov. 1919 to Phillimore, and the Cambridge Inaugural Lecture (1911), Ricks (1988), 299: ‘Half a century later the English learnt Latin from the continent, … from … Lachmann and Madvig and Ritschl’. See also Poems (1997), 254–5, 540–1. 3 Moriz Haupt (1808–74). German classical scholar, and pupil of Karl Lachmann.

157

13 October 1903

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R 17 North Road | Highgate N. 13 Oct. 1903. Dear Mr Bynner, With reference to your kind letter of Sept. 10, there is no ‘next book of verses’ in existence, nor do I know that there ever will be; but if there ever is, I will bear in mind what you say.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/3. Bynner/Haber (1957), 5.

TO G I L B E RT M U R R AY 17 North Road | Highgate N. 13 Oct. 1903. Dear Murray, Many thanks for the Introduction. I have also been reading your translations from Euripides.1 With your command of language and metre you are really a noble example of ἐγκράτεια,2 in that you don’t produce volumes of original poetry. I don’t think I have anything on the plays you mention. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 9. 107–8. Maas, 69.

1 ‘Bynner had asked him to let McClure, Phillips & Company publish his next book’: Bynner/Haber (1957), 5 n. 1 2 Hippolytus and The Bacchae, in Euripides (1902). Self-control.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R University College, London 14 Dec. 1903. Dear Mr Bynner, I have never taken money for any of my verses,1 and accordingly I return you, with many thanks, the draft which you have kindly sent me.2 I have no copy of the piece called The Olive,3 which is not particularly good: it was published on the conclusion of peace4 in June 1902, in the Outlook.5 I enclose however a poem6 which I have contributed to a collection which the Duchess of Sutherland is bringing out for charitable purposes;7 only, as the book is not yet published, you must not go printing it in America. I am much obliged for the copies of the magazine, an[d] remain Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/4, torn at ‘and’. Envelope addressed ‘Witter Bynner Esq. | c/ McClure’s Magazine | Fourth Avenue & 23rd Street | New York | U. S. A’. Bynner/Haber (1957), 6; Maas, 70. 1 Richards, 24, reports AEH saying in one of their earliest conversations: ‘I am not a poet by trade; I am a professor of Latin. I do not wish to make profit out of my poetry. It is not my business.’ After the publication of LP in 1922, AEH agreed to accept a royalty of fifteen per cent on the book (Richards, 200). See AEH to GR, 28 Dec. 1922. 2 Richards, 24, reports AEH also telling him about returning the cheque sent to him every time a poem of his appeared in McClure’s magazine. 3 Two drafts appear pp. 230 and 231 respectively of Nbk B, and the second contains corrections to the version printed in The Outlook. 4 The peace of Vereeniging ended the second Boer War on 31 May 1902. 5 9. 227 (7 June 1902), signed ‘A. E. Housman’, at the end of the second of the Boer Wars (1899–1902). 6 Astronomy, later LP XVII. 7 See AEH to The Duchess of Sutherland, 11 Aug. 1903, and note. The poem appeared, signed, on p. 65 of the volume.

1904 TO D R P. H A B B E RTO N LU L H A M 17 North Road | Highgate N. 28 June 1904. Dear Sir, I have received your kind gift1 and have been reading it with much pleasure. The pieces Red Dawn, Now, Forbid, A Sorrow in Spring, Birds, and Stricken, particularly took my fancy, as well as many passages in the other poems, such as the opening of Between the Tides. If I may make one criticism, it is that although I knew that morn and dawn rhymed in London, I cherished the hope that it was not so in Kent, at least in Thanet. With sincere thanks I remain Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Hove Central Library MS Autograph Collection, 34. Maas, 70.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 27 July 1904. My dear Richards Thanks to your treatment last night I am quite restored to health this morning. I enclose a copy of our joint work.1 The results of your collaboration are noted on pages 4, 22, 45, 55, 71, 77, 78, 92, 116 (this last occurred also in the previous edition, where I overlooked it). I don’t mark details of punctuation. I am bound to say however that the leather binding2 makes a very pretty book. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 58; Maas, 70–1. 1

Lulham’s vol. of verse Devices and Desires (1904). The 5th edn. of ASL, in GR’s ‘Smaller Classics’ series. The text contained numerous errors: see Poems (1997), Introduction, xxv, xxvi–xxvii. 2 Sold at 1s. (the cloth-bound version being 6d.). 1

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 10 August 1904 My dear Richards, You can do what you like about the enclosed. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 18 Aug. 1904 My dear Richards, The text and notes of the Juvenal1 which you are burning to publish are now finished, and I think the printers had better have them to play with while I am writing the introduction; so as I expect to go abroad on the 27th I propose to send you the manuscript some time next week. My notion is that the book should be identical in form and print with the Manilius, which is so much admired by people who are connoisseurs in these matters. The text is about four times as long as the Manilius, but the notes are on a very much smaller scale, and the introduction will be much shorter too; so that the whole volume would probably be rather slimmer. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Grant Richards Esq. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 58 (excerpts); Maas, 71.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 26 August 1904 My dear Richards, As I am just going abroad for a month, I send you by Parcel Post, registered, the type-written text and manuscript notes of the Juvenal. Will you acknowledge receipt to me at ‘Hotel Normandy, Rue de l’Échelle, Paris’, where I expect to be till Wednesday. 1 D. Iunii Iuuenalis saturae editorum in usum, published by Richards in 1905. The text was based on that prepared by AEH for the Corpus Poetarum Latinorum, ed. J. P. Postgate, vol. II, part V (1905).

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9 September 1904

To what I said in my former letter I add that perhaps it would be best for text and notes to be printed at first separately in slip, as this (I suppose) increases the ease and decreases the expense of corrections. On the opposite page are some directions for the printers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Grant Richards Esq. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS -  le me  1904 My dear Richards, I have not received an acknowledgement of the priceless manuscript I sent you when I left England ten days ago. Anxiety is preying on my health, and if the Sultan next Friday observes my haggard countenance in the crowd, he will certainly suppose me to be a conspirator and order me to be thrown into the Bosphorus: then you will have to intervene, as John Lane did in the case of William Watson;1 and that will cost you much more than a postage stamp. If my money holds out I shall be here long enough to hear from you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 59; Maas, 71.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS - , le 9 Sept 1904 My dear Richards, Your letter addressed to Highgate has just reached me here. I advised you not to produce the book at your own expense, and now you recognise my superior wisdom. I will pay for it. Will you get from the printers an 1 In Max Beerbohm’s The Poet’s Corner (1904), the caricature of Watson carries the caption: ‘Mr William Watson, secretly ceded by the British Government to Abdul Hamid, but, in the nick of time, saved from the trap-door to the Bosphorus by the passionate intercession of Mr John Lane.’ In The Purple East: a Series of Sonnets on England’s Desertion of Armenia (1896), Watson attacked the Turkish despot Abdul Hamid for his purging of the Armenians, and the British Government for turning a blind eye on the situation. Most of the sonnets had been published in the Westminster Gazette in 1895–6.

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estimate of the cost? In addition to what I have sent there will be an introduction of some 30 pages or more. It will not be anything like £84, as that amount was reached in the case of the Manilius largely because of unforseen1 alterations. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I shall be home in about 10 days. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Maas, 72.

TO LU CY H O U S M A N [17 North Road | Highgate N. Sept. 1904] The ruins are not nearly so lofty as some of our English castles, but what strikes one is their immense extent and the loneliness around. Inside, the skirts of the city are thinly peopled, more market gardens than houses; outside, the country is rolling downs and graveyards, with cultivation only here and there. A Turkish graveyard is a forest of cypresses with an undergrowth of tombstones, which dies much sooner than the trees; for a Turkish tombstone is no thicker and no broader than a plank, and is ill fixed in the ground, so that they soon begin to lean in all directions, and finally lie down flat upon the earth. The Jews bury their dead on the bare hillside under slabs: the great cemetery is west of Pera, above the Golden Horn, and makes the downs look as if they were sprinkled with large hailstones or coarse-grained salt. Constantinople is famous for its sunsets, and I used to watch them from the western edge of the hill that Pera stands on, looking over the cypresses of what was once a graveyard but now contains only dust and dogs and is beginning to be built over. From here you look across the Golden Horn and see the western half of Stambul, and the downs still further west, where the sun goes under. The sky would be orange and the hillside of the city would be dark with a few lights coming out, and the Golden Horn would reflect the blue or grey of the upper sky; and as there was a new moon, the crescent used to come and hang itself appropriately over the mosque of Muhammad the Conqueror. It was a great comfort to me not to have you with me in Constantinople: it would have been ‘poor doggie!’ every step of the way, and we should never have got a hundred yards from the hotel. They lie all about the 1

For ‘unforeseen’.

September 1904

163

streets and the pavement, mostly asleep, and almost all have got something the matter with them. They are extremely meek and inoffensive: Turkey is a country where dogs and women are kept in their proper place, and consequently are quite unlike the pampered and obstreperous animals we know under those names in England. The Turkish dog spends his life much like the English cat: he sleeps by day, and at night he grows melodious. He does not bark over his quarrels so much as English dogs do, and when he does bark it is sometimes rather like the quacking of a soprano duck; but he wails: whether he is winning or losing seems to make no difference, so dejected are his spirits. I soon got used to the noise however, and it did not spoil my sleep. The people are very good in not treading on them, and so are the beasts of burden; but wheeled vehicles, which have got much commoner of late years, are /less/ good to them, and the trams are not good to them at all. One night in the dark I trod on a dog lying exactly in the middle of the road: he squealed in a bitterly reproachful tone for a certain time; when he had finished, the next dog barked in an expostulatory manner for the same period, and then the incident was closed. Carts drawn by white oxen or by black buffaloes are pretty frequent in the streets; and once my carriage was stopped by a train of camels, but these are not common. The sheep, many of which are horned, have the whitest and prettiest wool I have ever seen. The Turks keep fighting rams as pets, and make matches between them: these lively creatures may sometimes be met in the streets, invading the green-grocers’ shops, and butting at the boys, who catch them by the horns. The population is very mixed, and largely descended from kidnapped Christians. Pure Turks are rather rare, Greeks and Armenians common: a man is an Armenian when his nose is like this . I have come across the handsomest faces I ever saw: their figures are not so good. Some of the Greeks make you rub your eyes; the features and complexions are more like pictures than realities: though the women unfortunately bleach themselves by keeping out of the sun. The Turks, when they are good looking, I like even better; there is an aquiline type like the English aristocracy very much improved: if I could send you the photograph of a young man who rowed me to the Sweet Waters of Asia, and asked you to guess his name, you would instantly reply ‘Aubrey de Vere Plantagenet’. But unless they take to outdoor work they get fat at an early age. What colour there is in the clothes of the people at Constantinople is chiefly centred in the red fez; but at Brusa in Asia, the old Turkish capital, where I spent two nights, the streets are very picturesque with the various hues [ … ] last centuries of the Byzantine empire, and helped the Turks to take Stamboul. It is the

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great place to see the view from, as it commands the whole city, and shows you parts of the Bosphorus and Golden Horn and Sea of Marmora and the coast of Asia opposite. It is now used as a watch tower for fires, which are common and dangerous in a city mostly built of wood. The watchmen pace round and look out of the eight windows continually for smoke or fire: then they signal by hanging out a flag by day or a lamp by night from the window which looks towards the fire, and this sign is seen by all the fire-stations. The fire-engines then go to the spot indicated and gaze at the conflagration: if the owner of the property likes to hire them, they will put out the fire for him, but not otherwise. I went to see the Sultan go to [ … ] and stuffs of the shirts and sashes and knickerbockers. Well, I must stop somewhere. Your loving son A. E. Housman. On my journey to Brusa I was accosted by a fellow-traveller who turned out to be the Recorder of Hereford, an amiable gentleman, though rather egotistical. BMC MS (incomplete). Memoir, 142–5 and Maas, 72–4 (both with passages missing from the already incomplete MS). Maas, 72 n., follows LH in giving the address as Constantinople, despite deducing that the letter was written after AEH’s return to England. He also follows him in thinking that the passage beginning ‘It is the great place to see the view from’ is a fragment of a subsequent letter. I think it is probably part of the same long letter: its subject-matter and tone are the same; at the end AEH is conscious of the considerable length; and it would seem tedious for him to have written two long letters to the same person dealing with a trip to the same place abroad.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 23 Sept. 1904 My dear Richards, The printers’ estimate for the Juvenal seems absurd, and they don’t appear to understand the facts. They say that ‘the extent of both books is nearly the same’. That is true if they are talking about the amount of paper, but false if they are talking about the amount of print. The chief expense of the Manilius must have been the voluminous notes: the notes in the Juvenal, I should think, are not one quarter of what the Manilius notes were. The text of the Juvenal is about four times the text of the Manilius; but the text, though it fills a lot of paper, cannot be expensive to set up;—it is merely 4000 lines or so. The only thing that I can think of to explain their estimate is that the

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Juvenal notes will require a much larger proportion of clarendon type, which perhaps is expensive. Moreover the final cost of the Manilius was largely due, I had supposed, to the rather numerous alterations which I made in proof. Their original estimate for the Manilius was nothing like £84: it was something less than £50. (True, this was when I thought the introduction would be only 25 pages, and it afterwards ran to 75 pages; but they now say that introductions are cheap to print, so this won’t explain the difference.) Possibly you have the original estimate for the Manilius in your archives: if so, it would be useful and instructive to compare it. You understand what my point is: a page of the Manilius consisted on the average of less than 12 lines of text (large print) and more than 35 lines of notes (small print). In the Juvenal the proportion, I should think, will be more like 25 lines of text to 15 lines of notes, or often less: I remember one place (at the end of the 5th satire) where there are 30 lines of text without a single note. I can pay the sum they ask, but I very much object to, as Constantinople and the Orient Express are both pretty expensive, and I want to go to Italy next spring. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. P T. O. If they are now printing the text and notes, as I understand they are, it ought to be quite easy to ascertain the proportion they bear to one another. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. (incomplete); Richards, 59–60; Maas, 74–5.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 28 Sept. 1904 My dear Richards, I shall make no objection to the price of £70. 17. 11 now asked by the printers. It is probably exorbitant (they were most likely encouraged by the tameness and promptitude with which I paid £84 for the Manilius), but never mind. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Grant Richards Esq. LC-GR3 t.s.

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TO G I L B E RT M U R R AY 13 Oct. 1904  , . |  , .. Dear Murray, If you would send me two tickets1 for the 21st or 28th I should be pleased to make use of them. You cannot deny that you are now in London, therefore your longimpending music-hall can no further be delayed. When is it to be? I am engaged to morrow2 and on Saturday, but not later, except that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are less convenient than other evenings. I received some weeks ago a letter from South Africa whose contents may interest you. The writer, whose name I forget, divides poetry into two classes: that which is tainted with the spirit of Le Gallienne, and that which is not. The latter class is small, and indeed appears to comprise only the following examples. First, and seemingly foremost, A Shropshire Lad. Secondly, Shakespeare’s songs (not, it appears, anything else of his). Thirdly, a few early English poems. Fourthly, Goethe’s Ueber allen Gipfeln.3 Fifthly a translation from a fragment of Euripides, about woods,4 which he once heard read by Professor Murray of Glasgow. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 10. 124–5. Maas, 75.

TO G I L B E RT M U R R AY 17 North Road | Highgate N. 25 Oct. 1904 Dear Murray, I went to the Court on Friday with your two tickets and with a good deal of apprehension, as I find it generally a trial to hear actors and actresses reciting verse. But though I can’t say that witnessing the play gave me as much pleasure as reading it, it did give me pleasure and indeed excitement. I thought Theseus1 on the whole the best. Phaedra is one of the parts 1 For Euripides’ Hippolytus, in Murray’s translation, which opened at the Court Theatre on 16 Oct. 1904 after a short run at the Lyric Theatre. 2 No hyphen. 3 The opening words of the second Wandrers Nachtlied, written in 1780. 4 The first speech of the Messenger: Bacchae, 1043–1152. 1 ‘Alfred Brydone (1864–1920)’: Maas, 76 n.

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which I used to plan out in detail a long while ago, and Miss Olive’s2 plan, though it may be as good, is rather different from mine, and so I was not quite happy with it. Ben Webster3 is not Hippolytus, but who is? The most effective and unexpected thing to me was the statue of Cypris standing quiet there all the time. Your lyrics, which are the most alluring part to read, were of course only imperfectly audible when sung: on the other hand some of the rhetoric in the dialogue came out very well indeed, especially the close of the messenger’s speech. I hear that although you have not quite repeated Aeschylus’ triumph with the Eumenides,4 you have caused members of the audience to be removed in a fainting condition. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 10. 137–8. Maas, 75–6.

TO G I L B E RT M U R R AY 17 North Road | Highgate N. 4 Nov. 1904. Dear Murray, Many thanks for your Euripides,1 which came just in time to prevent me from buying a copy. It is much the pleasantest edition and clearest apparatus to use; and I have been looking through the earlier part of the Heracles in general agreement with your selection of readings. Turning over the pages at random, it strikes me that Verrall2 has exerted a baleful influence: e.g. at suppl. 149 is what I should call a perfectly impossible reading. Why didn’t Porson3 make the conjecture? Not from any lack of fondness for palaeographical neatness: he had that taste, and it sometimes led him too far (as when he proposed κριταί at Aesch. 2 ‘Edyth Olive (d. 1956) began on the stage in 1892 in F. R. Benson’s company. She later appeared in two other of Murray’s translations’: Maas, 76 n. She was born in 1872. 3 ‘1864–1947, acting since 1887’: Maas 76 n. 4 According to the ancient life of Aeschylus which accompanied his plays, pregnant women miscarried and children died because the Furies in Eumenides were so frightening. 1 Vol. 2 of Murray’s Oxford edn. 2 A[rthur] W[oollgar] Verrall (1851–1912), Fellow of TCC, 1874–1912 and Professor of English at Cambridge, 1911–12. He read proofs of Murray’s edn., and Murray thanks him in the preface for communicating to him copious material throughout the entire book. AEH is among those acknowledged for various notes. For further information on AEH and Verrall, see Naiditch (1988), 211–15. 3 Richard Porson (1759–1808). Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge from 1792. AEH wondered whether Porson or Jeremiah Markland stood second to Richard Bentley in textual scholarship: Classical Papers, 1005.

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cho. 37), but not so far as this. In fact Attic tragedy has been studied so long and so minutely by such great men that all the corrections which consist in iteration of syllables, or separation of letters or the like, must almost necessarily have been made already; and when one at this date makes a conjecture of this sort one ought to do it with one’s hair standing on end and one’s knees giving way beneath one; because the odds are a hundred to one that it is a conjecture which our betters were witheld4 from making by their superior tact. Such chances as remain for us are practically confined to cases like Horace serm. I 9 39, where I thoroughly believe in Verrall’s sta re; cases where there was some special obscuring cause, such as ignorance of the form ste = iste, which was first brought to light by Lachmann in 1850. One detail which has just caught my eye: at Her. 1351 the order of the names ‘‘Wilamowitz et Wecklein’’ is neither alphabetical nor chronological. But suum cuique5 is a precept which it is hardly any use trying to keep: e.g. I observe that the Duchess of Sutherland thinks that you are a professor and I only a gentleman. Your poem and mine, by the way, according to Horatio Brown, are the gems of the volume: I think I preferred Mackail and the Irishman who has my initials.6 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. On p. 27 of the collection there is an easy emendation to be made, quite devoid of palaeographical or neographical probability, but certain none the less. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 10. 153–6. Maas, 404–5. The two angle brackets are AEH’s, and mean ‘insert’ (not ‘cancelled’).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 17 Nov. 1904. My dear Richards, As you sent my Juvenal to the printers early in September, it seems to me that they ought to have done something to it by this time. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 61 (excerpts). 4

5 For ‘withheld’. ‘To each his own’. G[eorge] W[illiam] Russell (1867–1935), poet, dramatist, and journalist, who used the pseudonym ‘Æ’. 6

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 24 Nov. 1904. My dear Richards, Almost immediately after I wrote to you last week, I heard, and was very sorry to hear, that there is a crisis in your affairs.1 I hope that this will come out straight, and in the meantime I do not want to worry you with correspondence: I only write just to let you know, as is proper, that I propose to try to find someone else to undertake the publishing of the Juvenal, though I shall not find anyone who will do it for nothing, as you were good enough to say you would. I suppose I may assume that you have no objection, and I will take silence to mean consent. I don’t know if you would have leisure or inclination to come and dine with me somewhere next week, but I should be very pleased if you would: say Friday Dec. 2nd . Perhaps I could get my brother to come.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 61; Maas, 76.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 28 Nov. 1904 My dear Richards, Café Royal, 7. 30, Friday next. My brother will come. I have not done anything about the Juvenal beyond asking the printers whether they had begun to print it. The Shropshire Lad I don’t at all want to interfere with. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 61–2. 1 Richards was declared bankrupt in 1905 and his firm was sold. He resumed business, initially under his wife’s name, ‘E. Grant Richards’, and officially acting as manager. See AEH to Elsina Richards, 8 June 1905. 2 They dined at the Café Royal, and afterwards, perhaps following a visit to a music-hall, went to the Criterion Bar: Richards, 62 (‘I had never before, and have never since, seen him in a bar’).

1905 TO L AU R E N C E B I N YO N University College, London 3 Feb. 1905 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your letter, and may perhaps write to you later on the subject; but just at present I am not taking any steps with regard to the Shropshire Lad. I am yours truly A. E. Housman. BL Loan 29 (papers of Laurence Binyon, placed on deposit by Nicolete Gray).

TO WA LLACE RICE University College, London 15 Feb. 1905. My dear Sir, You are very welcome to include in your selection1 the piece To An Athlete Dying Young; but I object to the inclusion of the other two extracts, because one is only a fragment2 and the other merely mentions football and cricket as palliations of misery.3 If I may offer advice, I should recommend you not to insert poems containing mere casual allusions to athletics. I am obliged by the kindness of your letter, and also by the graceful book of poems which you have been good enough to send me. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Newberry Library (Chicago) MS Ri. Maas, 77.

1

The Athlete’s Garland (1905). Probably ASL XXVII 9–16: ‘Is football playing… the keeper | Stands up to keep the goal’. 3 ASL XVII 3–4, 7–8: ‘Football then was fighting sorrow | For the young man’s soul’, ‘See the son of grief at cricket | Trying to be glad’. 2

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TO W I L L I A M S T E WA RT University College, London 17 February 1905. Dear Sir, I gratefully acknowledge the flattering offer of the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws which in your letter of yesterday’s date you have kindly communicated to me from the Senate of the University of Glasgow. But, for reasons which it would be tedious and perhaps difficult to enumerate, though they seem to me sufficient and decisive, I long ago resolved to decline all such honours, if they should ever be offered me. I have already, with feelings of equal embarrassment, excused myself from accepting a similar title at the hands of another University;1 and if I ever in the future receive the same compliment I shall return the same reply. I can only beg to express my high appreciation of the kindness which has prompted the Senate of your University to offer me this valued distinction, and my great regret that I am not able to accept it. I am your obedient servant A. E. Housman. W. Stewart Esq. Glasgow University MS GUA 22369. Maas, 77.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 1 March 1905. My dear Richards, The applicant may publish the songs so far as I am concerned, but I had rather that you should tell her so, as I do not want to write letters to a lady whose name is Birdie.1

1 Naiditch (1988), 219, suggests that sometime between 1899 and 1904, and perhaps after the publication of the Manilius I in 1903, R. Y. Tyrrell tried to have AEH accept an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin. AEH subsequently declined at least eight honorary doctorates, as well as election to the British Academy: P. G. Naiditch in Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia, ed. Ward W. Briggs and William M. Calder III (1990), 201. The only public honour he ever accepted was an honorary fellowship of his old Oxford college, St John’s. LH, Memoir, 99, notes that AEH wrote ‘This is me’ against a passage in a review of T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom that included ‘There was a craving to be famous; and a horror of being known to like being known. Contempt for my passion for distinction made me refuse every offered honour.’ 1 Identified as Birdie (Bywater or Bywaters) Bennett in Naiditch (1995), 162.

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I told my solicitors to tell your Trustee the state of things about A Shropshire Lad.2 As to the Manilius, they advised me to take possession of the copies, and offered to store them for me temporarily; and I believe this is now being done.3 Thank you for the statement of accounts which you sent me the other day. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 63 (excerpt); Maas, 78.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R 17 North Road | Highgate N. 3 March 1905. Dear Mr Bynner, As you are so good as to offer to send me some books from your catalogue, I should be very glad to have Ivan Ilyitch, by Tolstoy Letters from a Chinese Official 1 The Man with the Hoe.2 The new volume of poems in which you take such an affectionate interest seems to be as far off as ever. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/5. Bynner/Haber (1957), 8.

2 As there was no contract for ASL, rights in it could be sold as Richards’s assets. The book remained with Richards’s trustee, and in 1906 Richards issued as a 6th edn. the remaining sheets of the 1903 printing. 3 Richards, 63: ‘the stock of the Manilius was his property’. 1 Letters from A Chinese Official: Being An Eastern View Of Western Civilization by G. Lowes Dickinson (1903). 2 The Man with The Hoe and Other Poems by Edwin Markham (1902). See Poems (1997), 271, 553, for a short satire prompted by his reading the volume.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 16 March 1905 My dear Richards, Many thanks for your father’s translation of Heliodorus.1 I have never read that author, so my mind will be much improved.2 The surviving stock of Manilius I am allowing to remain in its present lodgings at Messrs Leighton, where it seems to be eating its head off, for they want about £8 before they will consent to part with it. I ought to finish writing the Juvenal preface in ten days, and the greater part of it went to the printers a fortnight ago, but I have not received the proofs yet. I hope you are as flourishing as can be expected. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s.; Richards, 63 (excerpt).

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R 17 North Rd., Highgate N. | London 28 March 1905 Dear Sir, I am much obliged to you for the three books which I have just received, and also for your letter of the 14th . Your office seems to be the spot on earth where I am most esteemed. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/6. Bynner/Haber (1957), viii (excerpt), 9.

1 Heliodorus Aethiopica: or The Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea, translated afresh from the Greek by Franklin T. Richards, with short notes and essays. Book I (printed for private circulation, 1905). 2 In the preface, 4, Richards noted that although Heliodorus is ‘generally classed among the Scriptores Erotici’ his language is ‘remarkably free from offence’.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 11 April 1905. My dear Richards, I had better let you know that the Juvenal is now all printed except the index, and is all made up into pages except the preface, so that the question of publication is close at hand. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 63 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 17 April 1905 My dear Richards, I am very sorry to see your father’s death in to-day’s paper;1 both for the loss to scholarship of his simple and disinterested love of learning, and also that this grief should come upon you now in addition to your other troubles. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 63–4; Maas, 78.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 19 April 1905 My dear Richards, I have a letter from R. & R. Clark1 this morning in which they state the present stage of affairs thus: ‘We shall make up the preliminary leaving the publishers’ imprint blank, and you can instruct us regarding this when you return proofs.’ I had written to tell them that the paper was to be the same as was used for the Manilius; and on this they say:

1 1

The Standard. He must have missed the obituary in The Times on 15 Apr. Printers.

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‘Some considerable time ago Mr Richards requested us to write to him when paper was required and give him the opportunity of supplying it. If you wish it supplied by Mr Richards please write to him accordingly, otherwise please let us know and we shall attend to the matter’. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO E L I Z A B E T H W I S E 17 North Road | Highgate N. 25 April 1905 My dear Mrs Wise, Here you see the effects of Woodchester air. I am not yet, perhaps, so great an artist as Laurence, but it seems to me that the enclosed sketch1 (for it is little more) has a simple beauty of its own, and that the likenesses are lifelike. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Maas, 78.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 4 May 1905 My dear Richards, The last proofs of the Juvenal have arrived to-day; so is it to be Grant Richards or E. Grant Richards?1 Saturday morning will be soon enough for the answer. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 64 (excerpt).

1 Depicting three adults between the Wise’s dachshund Minka and a cockerel. It has ‘THIS SIDE UP’ at the top and ‘DEFENCE OF MINKA’ at the bottom. AEH stayed with the Wise family from 20 to 25 Apr. 1905. 1 See AEH to GR, 24 Nov. 1904, n. 1.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 7 May 1905. My dear Richards, The only address I added was London,1 which I suppose is right. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 28 May 1905 My dear Richards, R. & R. Clark are binding the Juvenal themselves, as they say the style is quite in their line. They think they will be able to get it done by the middle of June, and they want to be told where to deliver the copies. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 5 June 1905 My dear Richards, R. & R. Clark have sent me six copies of the Juvenal, of which I send you one; and they say that the rest of the 100 are finished and ready to be forwarded. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s.

1

The title-page of the edn. of Juvenal specified ‘Londinii’.

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TO E LS I NA RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 8 June 1905. Dear Mrs Grant Richards, Many thanks for your letter: I am proud to be your first author.1 I have told the printers to send you the 94 bound copies which remain of the 100, six having been sent to me. I will send in a few days a list of the individuals and the reviews to which I want to have copies forwarded. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I am sending, to your address, a letter to G. R. which I want him to receive as soon as possible. Illinois MS. Richards, 64 (excerpt, wrongly dated 1 June); Maas, 79.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 8 June 1905. My dear Richards, As I hear that you want to see me soon, it occurs to me to send you the enclosed,1 in case you may be willing and able to use it. If you go, I shall be there about 9 o’ clock, just drunk enough to be pleasant, but not so incapable as a publisher would like an author to be. If you don’t go, you will probably escape a very tiresome entertainment. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 64 (nearly complete); Maas, 79.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 13. 6. 05 30,   [] Your flamboyant production is not on any account to be printed. The following might serve:

1 1

See AEH to GR, 24 Nov. 1904. ‘A card for some unspecified entertainment’: Richards, 64.

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‘‘A critical edition of Juvenal by Mr A. E. Housman, intended to make good some of the principal defects in existing editions, and especially to supply a better knowledge of the manuscripts, will be published by … ’’ (No nonsense about Shropshire Lads), Yrs. A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Pencil. Richards, 64–5 (nearly complete); Maas, 79. In the draft in ink (University of Illinois MS) on headed UCL writing paper, AEH corrected ‘in particular’ to ‘especially’, and explicitly stated that the edn. would be ‘published by E. Grant Richards’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 27 June 1905 My dear Richards, I suppose the delay is more annoying to you than to me, so I will not declaim about it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 65; Maas, 80.

TO K AT H A R I N E T Y NA N H I N K S O N University College, London 4 July 1905 Dear Mrs Hinkson, You have my permission to use the verses you require, and I daresay my brother will not be disagreeable.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS. Maas, 80.

1 In A Book of Memory: The Birthday Book of the Blessed Dead (1906) she included four short extracts from ASL (stanza 2 of LIV, stanza 3 of XIX, the last two stanzas of XXIII, and the first and last two stanzas of LII), and one short extract from a poem by LH. The extracts from ASL were all printed slightly inaccurately.

179

6 July 1905

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 6 July 1905 My dear Richards, Many thanks.1 I don’t think any advertisement is required: books of this sort are best advertised by reviews and the lists of ‘books received’ in the learned journals. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 65.

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R 17 North Road | Highgate N. 6 July 1905 Dear Ashburner, I have told them to send you a copy of an edition of Juvenal which I have just brought out. I wish you to regard it not so much as a monument of genius and erudition as of amiability and forbearance. Though I have the honour of your acquaintance, though you are a palaeographer, and though you reside in Florence, I nevertheless did not ask you to examine for me codex Laurentianus plut. XXXIV 42;1 and the Commercial History of the Italian Republics2 has suffered no interruption from me. Sir John Rotton3 has brought word that you are not coming to England this summer any more than last. If you were here, your valuable advice would be sought on an important question, for I hear that Ellis4 is asking undergraduates and other persons whether they think that he had better marry. I have not seen him for some time, and I fear I am rather in disgrace at present through having reviewed his last edition of Catullus in

1

‘I asked him whether he wanted the book advertised anywhere’: Richards, 65. Not one of the most important Juvenal MSS. 2 Ashburner’s next publication was in fact an edn. of The Rhodian Sea-Law (1909). 3 1837–1926. Legal Assistant to the Medical Department of the Local Government Board, 1869–76, and Legal Adviser, 1883; member of the Council of UCL, 1869–1906, and Vicepresident of the Senate, 1878 and 1882; knighted, 1899. He left his library of some 14,000 vols. to UCL. 4 Professor Robinson Ellis. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

a manner which inspires deep indignation among the correspondents of the Oxford Magazine.5 I saw Horatio Brown twice this time last year: I suppose he is in England now, but I have not come across him. The bill to incorporate the College in the University has passed the Lords and been read once in the Commons. I expect to be in Italy in September, but not near Florence. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 217–18. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 14.

TO J. D. DU F F 17 North Road | Highgate N. 15 July 1905 Dear Mr Duff, I am glad you have had Munro’s book1 reprinted and am much obliged to you for the copy you have sent me. I think though that his recantation of the remarks on 68 682 should have been among the matter added. I do not suppose that you overlooked anything of importance in T;3 but I mean, as I say, that we have all the variants of certain MSS registered and not all the variants of T. For example, if it anywhere has a quotiens in agreement with P,4 I do not feel sure that this would necessarily appear in your notes. The tituli were the very first thing I threw overboard. Are they any use? In Martial they are, no doubt. I have been pleased to see that you expel from your text most of the things which I had crossed out in Lindsay’s.5 As you do not accept your

5 AEH’s review appeared in CR 19 (1905), 121–3 (Classical Papers, 623–7). On 24 May 1905 the Oxford Magazine contrasted the ‘great dignity of tone and signal generosity’ of Ellis’s review of Manilius I in Hermathena with AEH’s review in a journal ‘which will not get wider support in Oxford so long as it prints reviews such as that of which we speak’. 1 Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus by H. A. J. Munro (1819–85), originally published in 1878. The 2nd edn. (1905) contained, along with a prefatory note by Duff, three additional papers, and further illustrations from Munro’s manuscript notes. 2 In the Journal of Philology, 8 (1879), 333–5. 3 T is the florilegium Thuaneum, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS latin 8071. In his recension of Martial in vol. 2 of J. P. Postgate’s Corpus Poetarum Latinorum (1905) AEH contributed emendations of Duff ’s text. He also edited Juvenal for the vol. 4 5 P is Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Palatinus 1696. Published in 1900.

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26 August 1905

own emendation of IX 3 146 I suppose I shall be driven to edit Martial myself, much against my will, in order that it may come to its rights. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 405–6, which was based on the autograph MS once in the possession of R. Shaw-Smith and now missing.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 3 Aug. 1905 My dear Richards, My competent or incompetent hand is quite innocent of any intention to edit Catullus; but Nonconformist ministers will say anything.1 They believe in justification by faith, and act accordingly. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Thanks for the German review (very hostile) of the Manilius. It is written by a young man who makes false quantities. Illinois MS. Richards, 65; Maas, 80.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R 17 North Road | Highgate N. 26 Aug. 1905 My dear Mr Bynner, If you will send me, as you kindly offer, these volumes out of your catalogue:— Woodberry’s Swinburne1 W. S. Cather’s Troll Garden2 W. B. Smith’s Color Line3 I shall be very much obliged.

6

Quo for quod. Richards, 65, thinks that the Revd W. Robertson Nicoll, editor of The British Weekly, may have made an announcement, but nothing has been traced. 1 George Edward Woodberry, Swinburne (McClure, Phillips, & Co., 1905). 2 The Troll Garden (1905), a collection of seven short stories by Willa Cather, who had visited AEH in London in 1903. 3 William Benjamin Smith, Color Line (1905). 1

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Letters 1872–1926

It is amiable of you to wish to inscribe your poems4 to me, and I cannot exactly refuse my permission; only I would rather that neither you nor anyone else should do so. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/7. Bynner/Haber (1957), 10.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 21 Sept. 1905 7,  ’

  |  My dear Richards, I have been moving about in Italy and have only just received your letter of the 5th . I shall be back on Monday, and shall be pleased to look at the translation if you desire it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 65 (excerpt)

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 25 Sept. 1905. My dear Richards, You can send a copy for review to Mr Waltzing. If you will let me take you to dine somewhere, I will let you take me to a music hall or theatre afterwards, on Wednesday or any later evening of the week. As I am just back from France and Italy, I am feeling British, and unless you protest I will take you to the Holborn and order the one good dinner which I know how to order there (there is only one): it is very simple and straightforward and distinctly British; so if you don’t think you can stand it, say so. I leave you to fix the day, and also the hour. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 65; Maas, 81 (both almost complete, and in Maas dated as c.23 September). 4 An Ode to Harvard and Other Poems (1907). Bynner to T. B. Haber, 13 Nov. 1956, quoted in Bynner/Haber (1957), 10: ‘I almost wish now I had done so in spite of him’.

183

21 October 1905

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 5 Oct. 1905. My dear Richards, Don’t send a copy of the Juvenal to the Oxford Magazine. The request merely means that Owen1 would like to write a second anonymous review. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 66 (almost complete); Maas, 81.

TO J. L. G A RVI N University College, London 11 Oct. 1905. Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your letter of the 9th ; but, as you anticipate, I am not able to compose a poem on Trafalgar.1 I am afraid too that I admire Napoleon more even than Nelson. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R 1 Yarborough Villas, | Pinner | Middlesex 21 Oct. 1905 My dear Mr Bynner, I have received the four books you have been good enough to send me, and I return my best thanks to you and your firm.

1 S[idney] G[eorge] Owen (1858–1940), Student of Christ Church, Oxford, since 1891, and editor of the Oxford text of Persius and Juvenal (1903). AEH made scathing remarks on the Juvenal in CR in Nov. that year (Classical Papers, 602–10), ignored it in his own edn. (1905), came back to it in his Lucan (xvii n. †), and further exposed Owen’s shortcomings as a scholar in CR 18 (1904), 227–8 (Selected Prose, 95–7; Classical Papers, 617–18). See Naiditch (1995), 26–7, for further information. 1 Garvin was editor of Outlook at the time, and seems to have asked AEH for a poem to mark the centenary of the British victory under Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar on 21 Oct. 1805.

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You will see that I have a new address.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/8. Bynner/Haber (1957), 11.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 North Road | Highgate N. 31 Oct. 1905 My dear Richards, After our failure to meet last week I am afraid that I forgot, together with many other things, that you wanted to see me; my excuse is the bother and discomfort of a change of house which is now going on. On Thursday after 2 o’clock I can meet you where you like. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 67; Maas, 81.

TO W. W. S E TO N 10 Nov. 1905  , | . |  , .. Dear Seton, I will compose a Latin epistle to the University of Melbourne,1 if I cannot induce my assistant2 to do it for me. These functions however belong properly, in a properly constituted academic body, not to the Professor of Latin but to the Public Orator; which reminds me that I have never seen any provision made for that officer in any of the schemes for completing the equipment of the College. Perhaps the Council will take the matter into consideration. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCL MS (Council file 1/43b).

1 When his landlady Mrs Hunter moved to Pinner from Byron Cottage, 17 North Road, Highgate, where he had lived from 1886, he moved with her. 1 This was done, but the text is missing. AEH also composed celebratory public addresses to the universities of Sydney and Aberdeen, and another for the Charles Darwin centennial: see Naiditch (1988), 120, for further information. 2 Lawrence Solomon, appointed in 1904: Naiditch (1988), 120 n.

185

15 November 1905

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 14 Nov. 1905 My dear Richards, It afflicts me very much that I cannot come to your lunch and meet your attractive company of guests, but I have got much too bad a cold and cough. I have been in the country, and reached here only last night, when I found your note. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 67 (incomplete); Maas, 82.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 15 Nov. 1905  , . |  , .. My dear Richards, I have come up to the College to do what is necessary, but I am not fit for company. My colds are always bad ones. I am very much annoyed on your account as well as my own. I send you my best wishes. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. My books are in confusion at present, but I will look out a copy of the Shropshire Lad. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 68 (incomplete); Maas, 82.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 15 Nov. 1905. My dear Richards, Here is a copy of the first edition; but if you are going to publish a new one, let me see the final proofs. There is no other way to ensure accuracy. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. The Clarks tell me that they have sent you 100 bound copies of Juvenal. Illinois MS. Richards, 68 (incomplete); Maas, 82.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO J. W. M ACK A I L 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 23 Nov. 1905 Dear Mackail, I am glad to have the Hundred Poems,1 both on their own account and because it was I who suggested to the publishers that they should ask you to edit them: I forget exactly what I said, but probably I described you as the least barbarous Scotchman of my acquaintance. They were so much pleased with the result that they wrote to thank me. You seem to admit elegiacs from almost anyone except the three regular practitioners.2 What they produce is not of course lyrical poetry in the strict ancient sense, but it is sometimes poetry, which is more than I could say of Horace’s sapless political odes or the talk-talk of Boethius. I think I should have included the Copa.3 I am glad to see No. 79.4 stabilis per aeuom terminus5 and vepris inhorruit ad ventum6 will earn you the fool’s reproach; which, says Blake, is a kingly title.7 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 20 Dec. 1905. My dear Richards, John Lane wrote to me about a week ago, asking if I could give him the publication of A Shropshire Lad in England and America, or in America only. I replied that I had given the publication in England to E. Grant Richards and that I could not do anything about America without consulting that

1 An advance copy of The Hundred Best Poems (Lyrical) in the Latin Language, selected by J. W. Mackail, repr. with corrections (Gowans & Gray, 1906). 2 Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius. 3 Short poem in elegiacs, wrongly attributed to Virgil, describing a tavern girl who dances to castanets to entertain her customers. 4 Seneca, Troades, 361–80 (on death having no terror). 5 In Horace, Carmen Saeculare, 26, where the usual reading would be stabilisque rerum. 6 In Horace, Odes, 1. 23. 5, where Bentley and Keller proposed the reading Mackail adopted (instead of veris inhorruit adventus). 7 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plate 9, l. 8: ‘Listen to the fool’s reproach: it is a kingly title’.

20 December 1905

187

firm.1 Then he writes me the enclosed, on which I should like to have your views. Please return the letter. Thanks for Drummond’s Cypress Grove,2 which is new to me. The cover, if you want my opinion, is both ugly and silly;3 but you probably have a just contempt for my artistic taste and will not allow this remark to embitter your Christmas. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 68; Maas, 83. 1 ‘John Lane evidently and not unnaturally thought that my difficulties left Housman open to offers’: Richards, 68. Though John Lane had bought for distribution in the United States 162 copies in sheets of the first edn. of ASL (1896) from Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co. Ltd., and 300 copies of the third edn. from Richards in 1900, the book was not copyright there and Lane held no rights in it. 2 Prose work by William Drummond of Hawthornden (1623). GR reprinted it as ‘the first of the Venetian Series, a collection of sixpenny books on which I vainly embarked’: Richards, 68. 3 ‘The cover… was made of a patterned paper specially brought from Varese. I was proud of it’: Richards, 68.

1906 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 17 Jan. ’06 My dear Richards, Lane is pressing for a reply: how about McClure’s?1 Thanks for Hyde’s illustration,2 which I think very nice. I have read the Parisian part of The Sands of Pleasure:3 it is interesting and well written. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. P.S. The above remark about the novel is not to be regarded as an entry for your prize competition. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 69 (excerpts); Maas, 83.

TO BL AN CH E BAN E University College, London 20 Jan. 1906 The publisher is E. Grant Richards, 7 Carlton Street, London W. There is to be a new edition soon, but I think that the last is not yet exhausted. A. E. Housman. William White, ‘More Housman Letters’, Mark Twain Quarterly, 5. 4 (Spring 1943), 13. The MS is a card written in answer to his correspondent’s enquiring where she could secure a copy of ASL.

1 McClure, Phillips and Company. At the instigation of Witter Bynner, McClure’s Magazine had introduced many American readers to poems from ASL. 2 GR had sent AEH a specimen topographical illustration of ASL by William Hyde with the idea of interesting AEH in an illustrated edn., which GR would eventually publish in 1908. William Hyde (1859–1925) studied at the Slade School of Art and specialized in printmaking techniques of etching, engraving, and mezzotint to produce illustrations. He illustrated Milton, Shelley, and Belloc, among others. He burnt much of his work, however, judging it to be not good enough. 3 Novel by [Alexander Bell] Filson Young (1876–1938), published by GR.

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24 January 1906

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 24 Jan. 1906. My dear Richards, I ought to tell you at once, as it may affect your plans, what I hear from John Lane this morning:—that John Lane Company of New York have informed him that they intend to make plates and reprint A Shropshire Lad in America. The history of the matter is this. Lane, as I told you, wrote to me on Dec. 12, asking to be given the publication of the book, or its publication in America, and adding that of course there was nothing to prevent him from reprinting the book there, but that he would not ‘commit this act of piracy’. I replied that I must consult E. Grant Richards, but that if, on second thoughts, he could bring himself to turn pirate, it would inflict no injury on me personally, as I should not in any case accept royalties. John Lane Company say that they regard my kind letter as tantamount to permission to do what they intend to do. It may interest my publisher to learn that she has broken all the traditions of the trade by making arrangements with another publisher in New York1 without giving John Lane Company the opportunity of taking the new edition: that company is reluctantly, in self-defence, compelled to issue an edition of its own. There is etiquette, I daresay, even in Pandemonium.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 69–70 (wrongly dated as 20 January); Maas, 84.

1 Mitchell Kennerley, whose edn. appeared in 1907: Naiditch (2005), 95–6. It was one of several unauthorized American edns.: see William White, ‘A. E. Housman, An Annotated Check-list’, The Library, 4th series, no. 23 (1943), 33; A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman, Jubilee edn., with notes and a bibliography by Carl J. Weber (1946), 93. See AEH to GR, 8 Feb. 1919, n. 1. See also Naiditch (2005), 95–6, for further information. 2 The palace in hell built by the fallen angels in Paradise Lost.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner] I prefer McClure’s; though they are under a delusion when they think I have promised them anything.1 I particularly do not want to have anything to do with the other worthy.2 Yrs A. E. Housman. 28 Jan. 1906. Illinois MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 7 Carlton Street | Regent Street S. W.’ Richards, 70 (excerpt).

TO P RO F E S S O R H E N RY JACK S O N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 30 Jan. 1906. My dear Jackson, I wished that you should get the Greek professorship,1 in order that you might cease to sit up till 4 in the morning preparing lectures and looking over essays; but as your most intimate friends assure me th[at] you do this because you like it, I do not see any particular reason why I should congratulate you. In any case, do not take any notice of this letter, as your mass of correspondence must be only second to that of your friend Chamberlain when he got in for West Birmingham.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 32 50 . Piece torn off at ‘that’. Maas, 84.

1 Witter Bynner, who worked on McClure’s staff, had asked AEH to let McClure, Phillips and Company publish his next book. See AEH to Bynner, 13 Oct. 1903. 2 John Lane. 1 Jackson had been elected to succeed Sir Richard Jebb as Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. 2 Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914), Mayor of Birmingham, 1873–5, Liberal MP for Birmingham, 1876, and president of the Board of Trade, 1880–5, was elected MP for West Birmingham in Dec. 1885 following a campaign on what George Joachim Goschen famously dubbed the ‘Unauthorised Programme’ of the Liberal Party.

191

17 February 1905

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 10 Feb. 1906. My dear Richards, Thanks for cheque for £3. 2. 3. As to the Manilius, I have no objection to incurring any publicity which may be entailed by your suing the binders as you propose. I will neither pay anything nor risk paying anything (because enough copies have been sold to make known what I wanted made known, and my spare money I prefer to spend on producing other works). But when you say that it is of course understood that you pay the bill, I do not see why you should want to pay it, and I do not see what particular advantage you would gain by the rescue of my property from Leighton.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 71 (incomplete); Maas, 85.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 17 Feb. 1905.1 My dear Richards, I am not a member of the Authors’ Society.2 I enclose your receipt of July 20th 1903 for £83. 9. 0. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS.

1 Richards, 71, removes the last two words. Leighton was probably the binder who held stock of the Manilius. See AEH to GR, 1 Mar. 1905, n. 3, and 16 Mar. 1905. 1 AEH wrote ‘1905’, corrected on the MS to 1906 in another hand: Richards, 71, is sure it should be 1906. 2 The Society of Authors, founded in 1884 to promote the business interests of authors and protect their rights.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 26 Feb. 1906. Dear Rothenstein, I shall be very pleased to dine with you on Friday at 7. 15. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng. 1148 (740) 1.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 11 March 1906. My dear Richards, When I found your letter on the breakfast-table this morning, it reminded me that I had been dreaming about the subject in the night. I suppose that your amiable interest had been acting on me by telepathy. Anyhow I dreamt that I met the friend who introduced me to the wine, and asked him for its name, and he told me, and it was right; but alas, that is just the part of the dream that I have forgotten. It was a longer name than Corvo or Syracuse. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I have been looking at the map of Sicily and I think it was Camastra.1 PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 71; Maas, 85.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 17 March 1906. My dear Richards, Please let me know when you are in possession of the Manilius, in order that I may close accounts with the lawyers I employed. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Maas, 85.

1

Confirmed by AEH to GR, 29 Mar. 1906.

193

29 March 1906

TO E L I Z A B E T H G I B S O N University College, London 20 March 1906. Dear Madam, I thank you for your kindness in sending me your poems, which I have read with pleasure, especially perhaps the pieces on pp. 15 and 16 of From a Cloister.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 29 March 1906 My dear Richards, Thanks for your news about Manilius and for your efforts in the matter, now crowned with success. I have ascertained that the name of the wine is Camastra, for the other day I was turning out a pocket and came upon the note I had made at the time. It appears that this benighted metropolis, full as it is of execrable Capri, contains none; but mind you order it if you find yourself at the Cavour in Milan. I am afraid there is no chance of my being in Paris, at any rate so early as Easter Tuesday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 71 (nearly complete); Maas, 86.

1 Vigo Cabinet Series, no. 22 (Elkin Mathews, 1904). The poem on p. 15 is Mad: O Maidens, would ye learn my pride and glee, | Why garlanded adown the wind I flee— | At Mary Mother’s shrine to bend the knee? … | For three long days my lover cherished me.  Nay, Ask not whither fled my kingly guest. | I rear upon my happy field a nest, | Heedless if he be gone, north, south, east, west … | For three nights long I lay upon his breast. The poem on p. 16 is The Bridge: I built a bridge across the severing stream; | And, though you never come, | The waters erewhile dumb | Beset the piers with happy singing-dream.  When I have fallen asleep to their sweet sound | You may pass, longing, by, | And your heart, waking, cry, | ‘‘Could but the builder of the bridge be found!’’

194

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 7 April 1906 My dear Richards, Thanks for the copies of A Shropshire Lad. I suppose it is the edition of 1903 put into a white cover instead of a red,1 as it seems to have only the few misprints which distinguish that issue.2 The get-up, to my untutored eye, is nice. If I am in Paris at all, it will be, roughly speaking, from the 19th to the 24th . Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 72 (incomplete); Maas, 86.

TO P RO F E S S O R H E N RY JACK S O N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 29 April 1906 My dear Jackson, I enclose a paper for the Journal of Philology.1 I hope I am doing correctly and acceptably in still directing to you as ‘‘Dr’’.2 I have been told by some authority that it is the higher title. I may be in Cambridge this day week, and if so I will come and look you up. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 32 51 . Maas, 86.

1

2 It was. See AEH to GR, 20 Nov. 1902, n. 1. ‘Corrections and Explanations of Martial’, published in JP 30 (1907), 229–65 (Classical Papers, 711–39). 2 Since Jackson’s appointment as Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. 1

195

18 May 1906

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 7 May 1906 My dear Richards, I have just been away at Cambridge for the week-end. I shall be free on Thursday, (Friday I am not quite sure of), and I will look after the dinner if you will see about some dramatic entertainment that does not begin too early. I must warn you that I will not go to Nero.1 I came back from Paris on April 26. The weather was only just decent. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 72 (incomplete).

TO P RO F E S S O R H E N RY JACK S O N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 18 May 1906 My dear Jackson, In Mart. XI 99 5–6 I quite agree with you about nimias, and I think Minyas absurd as well as ungrammatical; but I never have been able to stomach magni, because culus is πρωκτός,1 not πυγή,2 and there seems to be no point in accusing the lady of εὐρυπρωκτία.3 I think she was what Squire Western calls Lady Belleston in Tom Jones book XVII chap. 3,4 nothing more. At X 68 9–10 I have been accustomed to content myself with this interpretation: ‘Shall I tell you how you talk; respectable married woman that you are? Just as lasciviously as if you were abed with your man’,—the question numquid being equivalent to a negation. You make the distich cohere much better with what follows, but you have to pour into scire cupis more meaning than it can easily hold. At XI 68 2 on the other hand I think the next line follows less naturally after your interpretation of the parenthesis. Certainly III 26 5 is a striking parallel, but I am not at ease about that verse itself: Madvig says ‘puta non potest ironice dici pro eo quod est putasne’.5 1 ‘Nero was a Beerbohm Tree production at His Majesty’s. Stephen Phillips wrote it’: Richards, 72. 1 2 The anus. The buttocks. 3 4 Having a wide anus (through being often sodomized). ‘That fat a—se b—’. 5 Adversaria critica ad scriptores Graecos et Latinos, 2 (1871–84), 163.

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I have not read any of De Quincey since I was at school, so I do not know what he says about Suet. Dom. 10,6 a chapter which contains a good deal. The passages I quoted at XII praef. seem to me to show that candor and candidus often lie well on the sunny side of their English derivatives, and signify something very like generosity or indulgence. At XII 69 it is true that Friedlaender’s7 words do not actually exclude the possibility that he understands the epigram as I do; but I think that if he did he would have taken occasion to say that he disagreed with the earlier commentators. I suppose you see that Grenfell and Hunt8 have found a lot of the Phaedrus and Symposium in Egypt. The Symposium is the one dialogue of Plato that I have properly read, so I am interested. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Robert H. Taylor Collection).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 23 June 1906. My dear Richards, I enclose the lawyers’ exciting narrative of the rescue of Manilius, which they have sent to me. I have been reading the Athenaeum: you seem to me to have the advantage in argument and especially in temper.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 72 (nearly complete). 6 De Quincey argued that in ch. 10 of Suetonius’s Domitian the retort ‘laudanti vocem suam dixerat, Heu taceo’ of Aelius Lamia was a corruption of ‘Suauem dixisti? Quam uellem et Orpheutaceam’ (‘Sweet is it? Ah, would to heaven it might prove to be so sweet as to be even Orpheutic’). De Quincey attributed the corruption to the gnawing of a rat or to the spilling of obliterating fluid on a unique manuscript: The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, ed. David Masson, 6 (1890), 421–8. 7 The standard edn. of Martial by L. Friedländer (Leipzig, 1886). 8 Papyrologists B[ernard] P[yne] Grenfell (1869–1926) and A[rthur] S[turridge] Hunt (1871–1934) who had carried out excavations in the Fayum in Egypt. 1 GR was attacked in The Athenaeum, 4101 (2 June 1906), 671, and 4103 (16 June 1906), 732–3, by E. V. Lucas (1886–1938), for whom he was publisher before the failure of his publishing house in 1904. Lucas claimed that GR’s new publication of W. G. Waters’s Travellers’ Joy was derivative, in idea, format, illustration and binding, of his own anthology The Open Road: A Little Book for Wayfarers (1899), and argued that since GR still owed him royalties for the anthology, which had been subsequently reissued by Routledge, Waters’s similar text was ‘the one kind of book which neither Mrs. nor Mr. Grant Richards was entitled to put forth’. GR

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30 June 1906

TO J. D. DU F F 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 26 June 1906 Dear Mr Duff, I agree that at Plin. ep. VI 8 6 the text seems to give no coherent sense. What one expects is something like ‘quid autem, quam reparare non posse quod amiseris, grauius est?’ but I cannot think of any plausible correction. In 22 7 I suppose satis means ‘fully’: it pretty often inclines to this sense: thus sat scio regularly means ‘I know right well’, and in scitago it is very prominent. I think nimis would fall short of the sense required, as the moral of the anecdote is that one cannot trust even one’s most intimate friends; and omnibus satis would be rather beside the question. In 11 4 quam me is legitimate for quam ego sum since the case in the other member of the comparison is accusative also: Madvig § 303.b.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS a. 22558(3) .

TO J. D. DU F F 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 30 June 1906 Dear Mr Duff, At VI 22 7 I think your insertion of plus quam is very pretty and very likely right. VI 11 4 I should construe like this: ‘I pray those same gods (listen you to my words) that it may be their good pleasure that everyone who thinks it worth while to imitate me may excel me’. He is showing us what a noble nature he has. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS a. 22558(4) . replied in The Athenaeum, 4102 (9 June 1906), 701, and 4104 (23 June 1906), 765–6, to the effect that Lucas’s case was ‘based on misapprehension, or on ignorance of all the facts’. By 23 June, GR had been provoked by Lucas’s repeated references to the failure of 1904: ‘If I sold matches in the street I should certainly please some people, but under the most favourable circumstances I could not hope to earn enough … to wipe out the bankruptcy proceedings … By and by I hope my creditors may realise that in being connected with the starting of a new publishing house I am selling what talents I have for their advantage.’ 1 Of his Latin Grammar (1857, etc.).

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Letters 1872–1926

TO M R LOW E 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 4 July 1906 Dear Mr Lowe, Many thanks for the Blake tickets.1 Your offer about Heine is very handsome, but I beg you to dismiss from your mind the notion that I shall ever translate either him or anyone else. I should want about £20,000, and I should stipulate for anonymity. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 8534.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner | England 23 July 1906 Dear Mr Bynner, I have received Woodberry’s Swinburne (this is the second copy you have been good enough to send me) and also Lowes Dickinson’s Greek View of Life.1 This I am very glad to have: his writing is always worth reading; and I am pleased to see that he is appreciated in America, for in this country he is hardly so well known as he ought to be. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/9. Bynner/Haber (1957), 12.

TO M E S S R S A L E X A N D E R M O R I N G 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 17 Aug. 1906 Dear Sirs, Mr Grant Richards included my book A Shropshire Lad in his series of The Smaller Classics1 without consulting me, and to my annoyance. I contented myself with remonstrating, and did not demand its withdrawal; but now 1

For the Carfax (London) exhibition of Frescoes, Prints and Drawings by William Blake (1906). The Greek View of Life (originally 1896) by historian and philosophical writer G[oldsworthy] Lowes Dickinson (1862–1932), Fellow of KCC, 1887, and Lecturer in Political Science, 1896–1920. 1 The 5th edn. (1904). 1

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17 August 1906

that I have the chance, I take it, and I refuse to allow the book to be any longer included in the series. I hope that you will not be very much aggrieved; but I think it unbecoming that the work of a living writer should appear under such a title. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3 (t.s. in LC-GR). Published in Grant Richards, Author Hunting, by an Old Literary Sportsman: Memories of Years Spent Mainly in Publishing (1934), 99; Maas, 87.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 17 Aug. 1906 My dear Richards, Alexander Moring Ld. have written to me asking to be allowed to continue to include A Shropshire Lad in The Smaller Classics. I have refused, and have told them how atrociously you behaved in ever including the book in the series, and how glad I am to have the chance of stopping the scandal. I suppose you won’t be in Paris between next Tuesday and Saturday. I shall be at the Normandy. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. 18 Aug. Mr Balfour Gardiner1 may publish The Recruit with music if he wants to. I always give my consent to all composers, in the hope of becoming immortal somehow. Illinois MS. Richards, 72–3 (nearly complete); Maas, 87.

1 English composer [Henry] Balfour Gardiner (1877–1950). His setting was performed on 3 July 1906, and subsequently published. He also did settings of When the lad for longing sighs (1906), and When I was one-and-twenty (1908): Banfield (1985), 449.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner | England 21 Sept. 1906 Dear Mr Bynner, I have been travelling about Europe, and your letter of a month ago has only just reached me. You have already been good enough to send me copies of all the works of Mr Lowes Dickinson which you mention, except that on Religion.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/10. Envelope addressed ‘Witter Bynner Esq. | c/ McClure, Phillips & Co. | 44 East Twenty-Third St. | New York | U. S. A.’ and redirected to The Players Club. Bynner/Haber (1957), 13.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 30 Sept. 1906 My dear Richards, I make no objection to their printing the verses, though the translation is stupid. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 17 Oct. 1906 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, It will give me great pleasure to come to supper on Monday. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 2.

1

Religion: A Criticism and a Forecast (1905).

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31 December 1906

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 31 Dec. 1906 My dear Richards, I am now back from the country and can see you any time on the 3rd Jan. I am not anxious to accede to Lane’s proposal: quite the reverse. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 73 (incomplete).

1907 TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 14 Jan. 1907 Dear Rothenstein, Will you dine with me at the Café Royal on Friday, February 1st , at 7. 30? The form which these orgies take is that after dinner we go to a music-hall, and when the music-hall closes, as I have no club, we are thrown on the streets and the pothouses: so you know what to expect. On the evening when I last saw you, you were stricken with illness, and I afterwards heard that you had gone to Brighton to recruit. I hope you are well now. My kind regards to Mrs Rothenstein. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 3. Maas, 87–8.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 23 Jan. 1907 My dear Rothenstein, I had asked two other people, but you will meet them both to-night, I believe, if you go to Trench’s1 affair. I am sorry you cannot come; but I will make another effort on some future day, when perhaps we may contrive to defeat the counterplots of Mrs Rothenstein. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 4.

1 Frederic Herbert Trench (1865–1923), poet and playwright. His New Poems: Apollo and the Seaman, The Queen of Gothland, Stanzas to Tolstoy and Other Lyrics was published in 1907, though possibly later in the year (the Bodleian copy is stamped 16.11.07).

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7 February 1907

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 26 Jan. 1907 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, I shall be very pleased to come to supper on Wednesday. I am suffering much more from sorrow than from anger. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 5.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 7 Feb. 1907 My dear Laurence, I have induced Dr Morris1 to tell me, on condition that mamma does not hear that he told, the amount of his bill for last year. It is about £70. 0. 0; and I want to find out, if possible, what this will mean to mamma. I have no clear notion of what her income is and what margin it generally leaves her; and perhaps you or Clemence can give me some notion. I am anxious to prevent her from feeling any severe pinch from the bill, but on the other hand I don’t want to be extravagant or ostentatious; so if you can help me to judge what I should give her in order to effect these two ends I should be much obliged. Your bad behaviour in the theatre2 I first heard of from your letters which were read to me at Hereford; I had seen nothing in the papers. I see the play is now taken off, but I suppose it will go into the provinces. I hope at any rate you made something out of it.

1 Dr Edgar Freeman Morris, LSA, London, of 134 St Owen Street, Hereford, the town in which Lucy Housman was now living. 2 LH had collaborated with Harley Granville Barker on the libretto for Liza Lehmann’s light opera The Vicar of Wakefield, and had withdrawn his name from the production when substantial alterations were made during rehearsal. At the première on 12 Dec. 1906 he nearly got into a fight with the manager of the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, Mr Curzon, whose untruthful account of events was reported in the newspapers. LH’s account is in The Unexpected Years (1937), 234–8.

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Rothenstein has made me a present of one of his three portraits of me.3 Perhaps when the weather is warmer and the spring more advanced you and Clemence will come out here and look at it. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 168–9; Maas, 88 (both slightly incomplete; the latter with the wrong date).

TO C. F. K E A RY 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 9 Feb. 1907 Dear Keary, I shall be very pleased to dine with you on Wednesday, 7. 45. I saw Ker1 the other day and told him you were in town, and he expressed the intention of finding you out. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO W. W. S E TO N 5 March 1907   . |  .  , , .. Dear Seton, In reply to your note of the 2nd , which I find here this morning, I do desire that Mr Solomon1 should be re-appointed as my Assistant. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman The Secretary. UCL Council Correspondence 1/158. 3

Drawings, done in 1906. W[illiam] P[aton] Ker (1855–1923). Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at UCL, 1889–1922. Assistant to W. Y. Sellar, Professor of Humanity, Edinburgh University, 1879–80; Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, 1879–1923; Professor of English Literature and History, University College of South Wales, Cardiff, 1883–9; and Professor of Poetry at Oxford, 1920–3. Publications include: Epic and Romance (1897), The Dark Ages 1904), English Literature: Medieval (1912), and edns. of Dryden’s Essays (1900) and of Lord Berners’s translation of Froissart’s Chronicles (1901–3). For further information, see Naiditch (1988), esp. pp. 57–64. 1 See AEH to Seton, 10 Nov. 1905, n. 2. 1

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23 April 1907

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS   | 7,   ’ |  Wednesday, 17 April 1907 My dear Richards, On receiving your letter this morning I have sent you off a telegram, asking you, or rather commanding you (as is the manner of telegrams) to come and dine on Friday or lunch on Saturday. Perhaps it is impossible for you, however obedient, to get here on Friday; but, if you can, name your own dinner-hour, no matter how late. I may be still here on Sunday, but it is uncertain. Yours A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 73–4; Maas, 89.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 23 April 1907 My dear Rothenstein, I am returning to you by Parcel Post Hudson’s El Ombú,1 which I have kept longer than I ought. I have read it with respect rather than admiration: the last story, the supernatural one, I thought the best. A piece like El Ombù itself, hateful characters and harrowing events, showing man and God at their worst, is good to some extent if it is true, because then it is a weighty indictment of the nature of things. I also send a copy of my poems which I promised you a long while ago. I think it is practically free from misprints, except one in the last piece, which I have corrected.2 The copy now in your possession I beg you to throw in the fire3 while there is a fire, before Mrs Rothenstein has had her spring cleaning and put Brunswick black4 on the grate.

1

El Ombú and Other Tales by W[illiam] H[enry] Hudson (1841–1922) was published in 1902. In ASL LXIII 9, ‘seeds’ corrected to ‘seed’. See AEH to GR, 20 Nov. 1902, n. 1. 3 Probably the 5th edn. (1904), possibly the 2nd edn. (1898), of ASL, both of which were inaccurately printed: see Poems (1997), Introduction, xxv. 4 Black varnish made from turpentine and asphalt or lamp black. 2

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Letters 1872–1926

Would you come and dine with me at the Café Royal on Friday May 10th at 7. 30? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 6. Maas, 89.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 30 April 1907 My dear Laurence, I don’t at all want to contribute to Mrs Bland’s1 publication.2 I contributed to the Venture only because you were the editor.3 I suppose she already knows that I am morose and unamiable, and will not experience any sudden or agonising shock. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Now all day the hornèd herds Dance to the piping of the birds; Now the bumble-bee is rife, And other forms of insect life; The skylark in the sky so blue Now makes noise enough for two, And lovers on the grass so green —Muse, oh Muse, eschew th’obscene BMC MS. Memoir, 169, but the verse is misleadingly appended to letter of 16 Feb. 1929 ( Memoir, 182); as also in Maas, 276.

1 E[dith] Nesbit (1858–1924), writer of children’s literature and wife of Hubert Bland, founder member of the Fabian Society. She was a friend of LH. 2 The magazine The Neolith, first issued in Nov. 1907, combined literary and pictorial art. LH contributed to the second issue. It foundered after the fourth. 3 See AEH to LH, 9 Aug. 1903.

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2 May 1907

TO P RO F E S S O R RO B I N S O N E L L I S 1 May 1907.   . |  .  , , ..

Dear Mr1 Ellis, Loewe’s edition of the cod. Matr. M 31 of Manilius has been sent over from Goettingen and is now in the library of this college, where it will remain till midsummer. I send you word of this in case you may wish to consult it; or I should be very pleased to give you any information about it. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45. Removed from M. Manilii astronomicon liber primus, ed. Housman (1903) (UCLA S/C 84563 v. 1). Naiditch (1996), item 35.

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 2 May 1907 My dear Ashburner, I have not heard anything of you since two Septembers ago, when we met in Milan and you introduced me to Camastra, an acquaintance which has materially alleviated the sorrows of the Italian table d’hˆote. If you are coming to England this summer I hope you will dine with me some evening; I might almost say any evening outside the last fortnight of June, which is filled and embittered with examination papers. I spent about three weeks in Italy last autumn, chiefly in Rome and Capri, which latter was new to me, and gave me my first real contact with the South-Italian character, which is interesting, but rather vile. I have not been doing much in the way of writing, but I hope that the Commercial History of the Italian States1 is going forward. The College prospers passably: it is now incorporated in the University, but one does not discover any difference, except that the Senate is now called the Professorial Board. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 16. 1 1

Instead of the more friendly ‘Dear Ellis’. See AEH to Ashburner, 6 July 1905, n. 2.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 7 May 1907 My dear Richards, Thanks for cheque for £1. 10. 5. Wednesday is my best day for lunch, or else Friday. The Athenaeum had previously reviewed both the Manilius and the Juvenal some time ago: to the Manilius they gave quite a long review in large print.1 Thanks for The Triumph of Mammon,2 which is much more interesting to read than The Theatrocrat;3 but as for his knowledge which is going to change the world, it is just like the doctrine of the Trinity: probably false, and quite unimportant if true. The five lines at the top of p. 17 are the sort of thing he does really well.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 74 (nearly complete); Maas, 89–90.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 23 May 1907. My dear Richards, On pages 1, 8, 13, 24, 46, 72, 73, 83, I have marked for correction, if possible, certain ugly over-running of words from one line to another. Since these over-runnings existed in neither the 1896 nor the 1900 edition, it seems absurd that they should be necessary in this, which has smaller print than the former and a larger page than the latter. Moreover, on general grounds, a person like me, who habitually writes in metres which have short lines, ought not to be deprived by printers of the neatness which it is easy, in such metres, to preserve. 1 The Athenaeum, 4148 (27 Apr. 1907), 504, a review of both the Juvenal and the Manilius. AEH was praised as ‘one of the most trenchant and skilful Latin scholars of the day’, whose ‘brilliant and uncompromising expositions of textual matters’ were a pleasure to read; but the reviewer remarked also that ‘a little modesty would improve his case’. 2 God and Mammon: A Trilogy, vol. 1, The Triumph of Mammon, by John Davidson (E. Grant Richards, 1907). 3 Published in 1905. 4 [beauty breaks] In blossoms and the sweet sex of the rose | Perfumes the way, or when the crescent moon, | Recut anew in pallid gold, adorns | The saffron sunset, like an odour changed | To purest chrysolite and hung in heaven …

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4 June 1907

The further over-runnings which I have marked on pages 68, 82, 101, occurred in one or other of the two other editions, and therefore I do not so much object to them; but I suspect that they are really unnecessary. The over-runnings on p. 48, on the other hand, may be necessary, as they occurred in the 1st edition and were only avoided in 1900 by not indenting the lines; but I am disposed to think that non-indentation would be preferable. I feel that I did not earn my lunch the other day by the amount of information I was able to afford. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 74–5; Maas, 90.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 26 May 1907 My dear Richards, I shall be very pleased to call for you at 4. 30 on Tuesday, though you have not told me anything about your friend or his pictures1 before. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 4 June 1907. My dear Richards, I enclose, as you asked me, some suggestions for Shropshire views. I have just received some press-cuttings from America, from which it appears that in addition to John Lane’s edition1 there is one by Mosher.2 If you have facilities for getting hold of these, I should be rather interested to see them. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 75. 1 1 2

The artist William Hyde. See AEH to GR, 17 Jan. 1906. First in 1897, from plates of the first edn. (1896), then in 1906. T[homas] B[ird] Mosher’s unauthorized edn. first appeared in 1906.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas, Pinner, 12 June 1907. I have just noticed a /trifling/ misprint which I think I did not mark in the proofs of the new Shropshire Lad. In the poem XXIV, p. [36], 1st stanza, 2nd line, the stop after the word ‘prime’ should be a full stop, not a comma. I am much obliged for the Mosher edition, which is nicely got up, except for the stupid practice of breaking stanzas in two at the foot of a page. It has misprints too. Yrs. A. E. Housman. Illinois MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 7 Carlton Street | Regent Street | S. W.’ The square brackets in the text are AEH’s. Richards, 76.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [1 Yarborough Villas, Pinner] 15. 6. 07. Oh no, it is not worth while inserting an erratum. A. E. Housman. Illinois MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 7 Carlton St | Regent St | S. W.’ Richards, 77 (nearly complete).

TO J O H N LA NE 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 29 June 1907. Dear Mr Lane, Many thanks for the two copies of your American edition: I am no judge of book-production, but they seem to me quite nice. I am sorry that I am not free next Friday and cannot have the pleasure of meeting you and Mrs Lane and your impressive list of guests. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

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2 July 1907

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 29 June 1907 My dear Richards, Pray who gave Mr E. Thomas leave to print two of my inspired lays in his and your Pocket Book of Poems and Songs?1 I didn’t, though he thanks me in the preface. Just the same thing happened in the case of Lucas’ Open Road,2 issued by the same nefarious publisher. You must not treat my immortal works as quarries to be used at will by the various hacks whom you may employ to compile anthologies. It is a matter which affects my moral reputation: for six years back I have been refusing to allow the inclusion of my verses in the books of a number of anthologists who, unlike Mr Thomas, wrote to ask my permission; and I have excused myself by saying that I had an inflexible rule which I could not transgress in one case rather than another. Now these gentlemen, from Quiller-Couch3 downward, will think I am a liar. Mr Thomas thanks me for ‘a poem’, and prints two: which is the one he doesn’t thank me for? My temper, as you are well aware, is perfectly angelic, so I remain yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 77–8; Maas, 91.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 2 July 1907. My dear Richards, Thanks for your letter. What you have got in your head is the fact that I allow composers to set my words to music without any restriction. I never hear the music, so I do not suffer; but that is a very different thing from being included in an anthology with W. E. Henley or Walter de la Mare.

1 GR’s Pocket Book of Poems and Songs for the Open Air (1907), edited by the nature writer and (later) poet Edward Thomas (1878–1917), contained ASL IV and XLII (Reveille, The Merry Guide). 2 GR published the anthology The Open Road by his literary adviser the journalist and essayist E. V. Lucas (1868–1938) in 1899. 3 Essayist and critic Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944) was editor of The Oxford Book of English Verse (1900). He was knighted in 1910 and appointed Professor of English at Cambridge in 1912.

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Letters 1872–1926

I did not remonstrate about the Open Road: I was speechless with surprise and indignation. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 78; Maas, 91.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner | England 20 August 1907 Dear Mr Bynner, I thank you for your kindness in sending me your book of poems1 with its very varied contents. The passage on p. 34, ‘And there, as though the night … ’ [,]2 is really beautiful poetry. Among the lighter pieces I like The Hypocrite3 best. When you wrote to me last you were embarking on some new line in life, which you did not specify;4 I hope that you are prospering. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/11. Envelope addressed ‘Witter Bynner Esq. | c/ Messrs Small, Maynard & Co. | Publishers | Boston, Mass. | U. S. A.’ and redirected to ‘Lidge Lodge | Chesham | N. H.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 14.

1

An Ode to Harvard and Other Poems (1907). And there, as though the night were their especial hour, | None others using it so well as they, | I heard the bell, that rings at dusk beside the balconied tower, | Send gently with its iron tongue | All those that wake away. 3 When Celia said that for her sake | I must not take of wine, | My habit or her heart must break, | I straightway drew the line— | Yet not so much for Celia’s sake | As secretly for mine. || By grace of her I’m full of wit,— | (Or think I am—what matters it?) || I gave it up because I won | A wine thereby so rare | That out of all the vineyards none | Has yielded to compare!— | I left it off because I won | The sparkling of her hair! || By grace of her I feel my worth | Immortal on a mortal earth. || And Celia meantime loves to laud | My exodus from vice, | And does not guess me by the fraud | Intoxicated thrice, | Watches in fact a little awed | The seeming sacrifice. || I wonder would she take amiss | Confession of my wickedness? 4 In 1906 Bynner left McClure’s and the publishers McClure, Phillips & Co., for Small, Maynard & Co. and freelance writing. 2

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31 December 1907

TO T H E E DI TO R O F COUNTRY LIFE [   |    , , ..] 7 Nov. 1907 Dear Sir, I am obliged by your proposal, but several causes, of which barrenness is the chief, prevent me from contributing verses to periodical publications. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. White (1950), 404; Maas, 92.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 31 Dec. 1907. My dear Richards, I am here, and not likely to go away. I believe I have not thanked you for sending me certain books published by you, or rather by Mrs Richards. A happy new year to both of you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 79 (incomplete).

1908 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 3 Jan. 1908 My dear Richards, I am not disposed to give Mr Levey the permission he asks for. For several years back I have refused to have my verses printed in collections. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 80 (almost complete).

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 9 Feb. 1908. Dear Mrs Rothenstein, I am sorry for the misunderstanding and shall be very pleased to come on the 19th . When Rothenstein gave me his portrait of me1 he also lent me (not gave) a portfolio to carry it away in. This ought long ago to have returned to him, but it has been swallowed by the man who framed the portrait, or otherwise vanished; so I have sent another, which I hope has now reached the artist and will occasionally remind him of me when he uses it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 7. Maas, 92.

1

One of three done in 1906.

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17 February 1908

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 17 Feb. 1908 My dear Laurence, I am not in any hurry for the money advanced towards Miss Lake, and I should be grieved to hear that you had poisoned Cousin Mary and Cousin Agnes on my account. I should be very glad to look through your selections.1 Did I ever say anything abusive about Spikenard?2 I think on the whole it is about the cleverest of your poetry books. Could you give me the exact reference to a paper by Phillimore on the Greek Anthology which you once showed me, I think, in the Monthly Review?3 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. So overpowering is your celebrity that I have just received an official letter from my own college addressed to ‘Professor L. Housman’. BMC MS. Memoir, 169–70; Maas, 92 (both incomplete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 17 Feb. 1908 My dear Richards, I am told that a young lady1 whom I have met once or twice in Gloucestershire, and who ‘‘wants to take up black and white drawing’’ /(having done watercolours hitherto, I think)/ and who ‘‘has lately been studying under Cameron,2 and he says that her architectural drawings are wonderful’’, wants an introduction to my publisher. (I rather gather that she is under the deplorable impression that my publisher is Macmillan, but 1

For LH’s Selected Poems (1908). Published in Feb. 1898. ‘He had described it as ‘‘nonsense verse’’ ’: LH, Memoir, 169 n. See the letter dated Oct.–15 Nov. 1897. 3 No such article appeared in The Monthly Review. 1 Hester Frood, later Mrs Gwynne Evans. ‘Unfortunately, I could at the time find no serious work for the lady’: Richards, 80. Born in 1882, she exhibited at the Royal Academy and held several one-woman shows. Richards records that she did a painting of his small office at 7 Carlton Street for him: Author Hunting, 225. She first met AEH at Woodchester in the summer of 1906 when he was visiting the Wise family (Richards, 325). 2 David Young Cameron (1865–1945). Painter and etcher. Elected Royal Academician, 1920; knighted, 1924. Richards (81 n.) avers that though Cameron praised her work she was not in any sense his pupil. 2

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let that pass.) As you were talking the other day about some architectural book, I wondered if you would care to see her. She is tall and beauteous, but let that pass too. And pray what is the exact process of introducing people to one’s publisher? Does one provide them with a letter, which they present at the door of the spider’s parlour? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 80; Maas, 93.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 20 Feb. 1908 My dear Richards, I showed your picture to our professor of Archeology,1 who says that it is mostly fanciful, and the rowing arrangements impracticable. Representations of triremes exist at Pompeii and have been reproduced in several books, the best of which is probably Baumeister’s Denkmaler.2 Thanks for your reply about Miss Frood, for such is her name, and also for Filson Young’s book,3 which is pretty. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 81 (slightly inaccurate); Maas, 93.

1 Ernest Arthur Gardner (1862–1939). Professor of Archaeology at London University, 1896–1929. AEH’s spelling ‘Archeology’ is non-standard. 2 A. Baumeister (ed.), Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums zur Erläuterung des Lebens der Griechen und Römer in Religion, Kunst und Sitte. 3 vols. (München and Leipzig, 1884–8). AEH writes ‘Denkmaler’. 3 The Lover’s Hours, published in 1907 by Richards (Richards, 81 n.). Maas’s error in identifying the volume, corrected in Naiditch (1995), 162, may have been caused by Richards’s transcription error of ‘new book’ for ‘book’, though Maas does not repeat this particular error.

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26 February 1908

TO J. P. P O S TG AT E 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 22 Feb. 1908 Dear Postgate, I return Headlam’s pamphlet,1 for which I am much obliged, and hope I have not kept it an unconscionable time. He has the comic vocabulary and phraseology at his fingers’ ends, and keeps a sharper eye on the metre than Wilamowitz;2 but he does not see so far as he ought into the situations and the action, and this has led him into some strange mistakes. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Newcastle MS. Maas, 94.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 26 Feb. 1908. Dear Mrs Rothenstein, During the last week I have been engaged on a special piece of work which interested me and caused me to postpone as much of my ordinary work as could be postponed; so that now I have arrears which must be got rid of, and will not allow me to be with you to-night. I am very sorry. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 8. Maas, 94.

1 The posthumously published ‘Restorations of Menander’ (1908) by Walter [George] Headlam (1866–1908), Fellow of KCC, 1890–1908. AEH’s copy of the pamphlet survives (SJCO, b 4): Naiditch (1995), 22 n. Headlam’s publications include: Fifty Poems of Meleager, with a Translation (1890), On Editing Aeschylus: A Criticism (1891), and A Book of Greek Verse (1907). AEH inscribed Here are the skies, the planets seven (AP V) in the copy of the Manilius I (1903) he presented to Headlam. On AEH and Headlam, see Naiditch (1995), 22–3. 2 Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848–1931), eminent German classical scholar. Professor of Greek Studies at Berlin, 1897; editor of series Philologische Untersuchungen, 1880–1925; editorial director of Inscriptiones Graecae, 1902. He published ‘Der Menander von Kairo’ in Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum (1908), 34–62.

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TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 1 March 1908. My dear Laurence, With your inclusions1 from Spikenard I agree, except that I have very decidedly struck out one. In the other books I have actually not struck out anything /(except once)/, and have even made one or two additions, which I think quite as good as the average of the inclusions. The pieces which I think your best, apart from Spikenard, are, in Rue, Long through the night, Amid this grave-strewn, What know ye of, and Dark to its nest; in Mendicant Rhymes The Settlers; and in The Little Land The Elphin Bride: so I think these should in any case go in. Mendicant Rhymes itself, though rather obscure and untidy, is decidedly pretty, but the stanza where ‘Chloe’ rhymes with ‘Evoe’ would have to be altered, because Evoe is a word of two syllables, εὐοῖ, and the oe is a diphthong, and you might put two million dots on the top of it instead of two without changing its length! Speaking generally, I think the inclusions at present too many and too monotonous: I should not put in all the sonnets of The Little Land (sonnets stodge up a book more than anything, even blank verse), nor so much of Rue. The strong point of your poetry seems to me to be a lively fancy: you seem rather to value the pieces on account of thoughts or emotions which suggested them, without enough considering whether these are really reproduced in the words. Thus Across these barren clods is much more attractive and intelligible to a reader than a great deal of its surroundings, which you prefer; and similarly A Garden Enclosed is more successful than The Man in Possession, though I don’t understand ‘life’s a fault’ in the last verse. The New Orpheus I should call too long, and by no means so good in its way as Advocatus Diaboli, though this wants making clearer and neater in parts. I should be glad to look over the text when the selections are made, especially as you have a way of treating words like ‘Messiah’ and ‘royal’ as if they were a syllable shorter than they are,—possibly in the vain hope of making amends for ‘Evoë’. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 170–1; Maas, 94–5.

1

See AEH to LH, 17 Feb. 1908.

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16 May 1908

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 27 March 1908 Dear Sir, Messrs Goodwin & Tabb1 may have the permission they desire to publish a setting of When I was one-and-twenty. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Illinois MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 8 May 1908 My dear Richards, I could look in about 3. 30 next Thursday, if that would suit you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 16 May 1908 My dear Richards, Mr I. B. Gurney1 (who resides in Gloucester Cathedral along with St. Peter and Almighty God)2 must not print the words of my poems in full on concert-programmes (a course which I am sure his fellow-lodgers would disapprove of); but he is quite welcome to set them to music, and to have them sung, and to print their titles on programmes when they are sung. If you can lunch with me on Wednesday I will come down about 1 o’ clock. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 81; Maas, 95. 1 1 2

London orchestral librarians and music publishers. See List of Recipients. He was an unofficial assistant organist there: Banfield (1985), 234.

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TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 26 May 1908 My dear Laurence, I enclose cheque for five guineas which Kate has asked me to send you towards the sundial in Bathwick cemetery.1 I was down there last Saturday: the stone looks well enough, but the dial is conspicuously marked with an advertisement of the Birmingham Art Company, or whatever it is, which will have to be erased. The sign of our redemption, which has also been added, is less obnoxious, except that its addition is due to a lying priest.2 […] Text, slightly corrected, from that in Hawkins (1958), 165.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 27 May 1908. My dear Richards, I have written to R. & R. Clark.1 The fates seem to be against our meeting, but after all I don’t know that it is necessary we should meet about Hyde’s drawings.2 I did not know that they were to be in colour, and should have preferred black and white; but the colour has a good effect in the autumnal scene on Wenlock Edge. As to the four I saw, I liked three of them; but the one entitled On The Teme had nothing distinctive about it and might have been anywhere: the crescent moon, for instance, is a cosmopolitan embellishment, and I have seen it in France. He might have got a much more striking and characteristic view of the Teme under Whitecliff just opposite Ludlow. But the three views of Clee Hill and Ludlow and Wenlock Edge are quite the sort of thing required. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 81–2 (nearly complete); Maas, 96. 1 The churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, Smallcombe, on the outskirts of Bath, where Robert Housman died in 1905. The sundial is a family memorial, encircled by plates commemorating the members. 2 The vicar thought the monument pagan, but agreed to it provided it was surmounted by a cross, which was eventually carved on the sundial’s side. There is a photograph in HSJ 25 (1999), between pp. 56 and 57. 1 Edinburgh printers responsible for AEH’s M. Manilii astronomicon liber I (1903). 2 For the illustrated ASL (1908).

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6 June 1908

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 5 June 1908 My dear Richards, Gowans and Gray1 have written to me and I have told them that for eight years I have been refusing permission to others and cannot make an exception for them. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 6 June 1908 My dear Richards, 1. I do not in the least want the crescent moon removed from the drawing On The Teme, as Mr Hyde seems to think. 2. I suppose it was you who sent him on his wild goose chase to Hughley.1 I carefully abstained from suggesting that subject. 3. A view of the Wrekin from the neighbourhood of Much Wenlock, as he suggests, would do quite well. 4. I have no objection to his proposal about the frontispiece. 5. Long years ago I warned Laurence that if ever I wrote a book I would never let him decorate it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 82; Maas, 96–7.

1

Publishers. To discover that the church in Hughley Steeple (ASL LXI) in fact had no steeple. See AEH to LH, 5 Oct. 1896, and to an unknown correspondent, 11 Feb. 1929. ‘I had not sent Hyde to Hughley’: Richards, 82. 1

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TO P RO F E S S O R H E N RY JACK S O N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 26 June 1908. My dear Jackson, No doubt you are snowed up with congratulations:1 do not take any notice of this. There is something to be said for a Liberal government after all.2 If you experienced a sudden access of salubrity about 1. 45 to-day, that was caused by Rothenstein and me drinking your health. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 32 52 . Maas, 97.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 27 June 1908 My dear Laurence, I enjoyed parts of your play1 very much, especially the first transformation of the picture, which was so effective that I think the act ought to have ended there. Olangtsi is very good and very well acted, and Mee-Mee too is quite nice, and the Jews, especially the opulent one, are amusing. The acting of the students on the other hand, especially their voices and intonation, I thought almost the worst I had ever come across; and the words they have to say /and sing/ seem to me to contain a good /deal/ of your wet wit. And then there is the infernal music.2 Theatres are beginning to exhibit notices asking ladies to remove their hats: my patronage shall be bestowed on the theatre which goes a step further and requests the orchestra to be silent. The sleep-walking scene ought to have been good; but it left me faint and weak from the effort of straining to hear the human voice through the uproar of pussy’s bowels. Rothenstein asked me to express to you his great pleasure and admiration. He also explained to me the moral; which is that if one wants to be a

1

On his appointment to the Order of Merit. The Liberals, led by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election, and in government would have recommended Jackson for the OM. 1 The Chinese Lantern, which opened at the Haymarket Theatre on 16 June 1908. 2 By Joseph S. Moorat (1864–1938), chiefly known as a songwriter. 2

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27 June 1908

great artist one must be absorbed in a work of art. He very politely assumed that I saw it myself; but alas, I did not. Both Millington and George Fletcher3 want to see me at the Bromsgrove dinner on the 8th , so I am going; but I have announced to Bunting4 that I shall not make a speech. I read an article on your work by a most affected writer in a magazine whose name I forget,5 though I have got it in the next room; and I have sufficient artistic taste to be aware that the drawing of a lady and a tortoise is good. About the Night I should not have felt sure; not that I have anything against it. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 171–2; Maas, 97–8.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 27 June 1908 My dear Richards, On the title page the three words A Shropshire Lad should be in one line, as in all the editions except the atrocious production of 1904. I have also marked small details on pp. vii and 13. The repetition of p. 3 as p. 11 is one of those sacred mysteries with which I don’t interfere.1 The corrections apply also to the American edition; but I am retaining the proofs of that unless you want them back. Bywater2 is resigning the Greek chair at Oxford, and Herbert Richards3 ought to succeed him. Whether he will is quite another question.4 It is a 3

See List of Recipients. William Louis Bunting (b. 1873), who taught at The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove, 1897–1904, and was now secretary of the Old Bromsgrovian Club: Maas, 98 n. 5 ‘The Work of Laurence Housman’ by Charles Kains-Jackson, in The Book Lover’s Magazine: Books and Book-Plates, 7. 6 (1908), 227–35. 1 Richards, 83, supposes that AEH’s corrections are to the proofs of the illustrated edn. of ASL (1908). 2 Ingram Bywater (1840–1914), Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 1863–84; Reader in Greek at Oxford, 1884, and Regius Professor, 1893–1908. 3 Herbert [Paul] Richards (1848–1916). Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, 1873. He was GR’s uncle, and also one of the examiners who had failed AEH in Greats in 1881 (Richards, xx, 125, 144). The others were Bywater, T. H. Grose, H. J. Bidder, and R. W. Macan. Richards, 144, notes that AEH respected Herbert Richards as a scholar and got on well with him. All mentions of him in AEH’s letters confirm this. 4 Gilbert Murray was appointed. 4

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Regius professorship, and the King generally asks the advice of one or two persons whom he supposes to be good judges. He has not applied to me: possibly because we have not been introduced. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Have I changed my publisher? What has become of E. Grant Richards?5 Illinois MS. Richards, 83 (nearly complete); Maas, 98.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 4 July 1908 My dear Richards, The manuscript is numbered M 31 in the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid. It contains Manilius and the Silvae of Statius. What I really want is to have photographs of the first 107 pages, on which the Manilius is written.1 The cheapest process is called (I think) rotary-bromine, in which no negative is used: whether this is practised in Madrid I can’t be sure. The sums one is charged for photographs of MSS vary greatly in different towns and countries: I am prepared to go to £20, though it ought to be less, and in Rome at any rate would be very much less, probably about £5. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 84; Maas, 99.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 15 Aug. 1908. Dear Mrs Rothenstein, This is annoying: now that you are in Gloucestershire1 I am back in Middlesex, and expect to be before long in Italy. The place where I was staying was Woodchester, on the opposite side of Stroud to you. I have never been nearer Thougham than Bisley, where there used to be seven springs and five curates. 5

GR was again publishing under his own name (rather than that of his wife). AEH was now working on his edn. of Manilius II, published by GR in 1912. 1 The Rothensteins had bought Iles Farm, Far Oakridge, Gloucestershire, in the summer of 1908. 1

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27 August 1908

I saw an impressive and mysterious work of Rothenstein’s, The Doll’s House2 at the Franco-British Exhibition.3 Some parts of Gloucestershire are horribly infested with harvest-bugs at this time of year: I hope you are not devoured by them, or otherwise prevented from enjoying yourself. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 9.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 26 Aug. 1908. th I am going abroad on the 30 for about a month, and expect to be in Paris in the third week of September, probably at the Normandy. Yrs. A. E. Housman. Illinois MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 7 Carlton Street | Regent Street | S. W.’ Richards, 84 (nearly complete).

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 27 Aug. 1908. Dear Ashburner, I expect I shall pass through Lausanne early on /Tuesday/ morning. I shall not stop, but shall scrutinise earth, water and sky in order to decide whether it is a fit place for me to stop some other time. I am afraid I am hardly likely to be in Venice as late as the 18th , unless Brown or Andrea or the weather is quite extraordinarily fascinating, or unless Garda detains me on my way there longer than I expect. But no doubt the glories of your new hotel will be all-sufficing and deprive you of any wish for my company or anyone else’s. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 226–7. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 17. 2

Reproduced in Rothenstein’s Men and Memories, 1. 346 f. An exhibition of French and British manufacturing and art held May–October 1908 in Shepherd’s Bush, London, to promote entente cordiale. 3

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Letters 1872–1926

TO P RO F E S S O R F R I E D R I C H VO L L M E R 22 Sept. 1908 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your postcard and by your offer to send me your photographs of MSS; but I do not purpose to write any more on the Culex,1 and I have no doubt that your edition, when it appears, will provide information as full and accurate as could be wished. I have read with interest your paper on the ‘kleineren Gedichte’ in the Kgl. Bayer. Akad., and I am very glad that you are also preparing an edition to supersede the disorderly and untrustworthy production of Ellis.2 Your power of work is admirable and amazing: I see that you also have on hand an edition of Phaedrus and the fabulists. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek MS: p.c. addressed ‘Herrn Dr. Fr. Vollmer | Professor Kgl. Bayr. Universität | München | Königstr. 69r | Germany’.

TO P RO F E S S O R G I L B E RT M U R R AY 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 17 Oct. 1908 Dear Murray, I see in the paper the confirmation of what has been common rumour for some time past, and I congratulate you on having survived a Scotch professorship long enough to obtain what I hope will be consolation even for that.1 I think you are now well on your way to take that place in the public eye which used to be occupied by Jowett2 and then by Jebb; and as you are a much better scholar than the one and a much better man of letters

1 ‘AEH had just published ‘The Apparatus Criticus of the Culex’, Transactions of the Classical Philological Society, 6 (1908), 3–22 (Classical Papers, 773–86), mentioning his photographs of MSS Vat. lat. 2759 and Corsinianus 43 F 5. 2 Robinson Ellis’s edn. of the Appendix Vergiliana appeared in 1907. 1 Murray was Professor of Greek at Glasgow, 1889–99, and had just been appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford. 2 Benjamin Jowett (1817–93). Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, 1855–93; Master of Balliol College, 1870–93. He published translations of Plato (4 vols., 1871), Thucydides (2 vols., 1881), and Aristotle’s Politics (1885). AEH held his scholarship in low esteem: see Naiditch (1988), 175–6.

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3 November 1908

than the other, the public will be a gainer without knowing it, and good judges (by which I mean myself) will be less at variance with the public. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. You will be buried under letters of congratulation, so take no notice of this. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 14. 90–1; I. Henderson, Gilbert Murray: An Unfinished Biography (1960), 143; Maas, 99.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 3 Nov. 1908 My dear Laurence, On page 111 ‘when first knighted’ sounds very prosy,2 though I don’t think my suggestion much better, as it is ambiguous. I have not found much else to note. The pieces on pp. 18 and 283 are really quite nice: I dont4 remember noticing them much before. I was at Cambridge a week or two ago, and met a lady who asked if I were the author of Gods and their Makers.5 Always honest, I owned that I was not: I said I was his brother. ‘Oh, well,’ said she, ‘that’s the next best thing’. It appears that the work is a household word with them: they have a dog or a cat called after one of your divinities. I thought your selections were to be published by Grant Richards, but I see another name on the proofs.6 Love to Clemence and Cousin Mary. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 172–3; Maas, 100 (both slightly incomplete).

1

Of the page proofs of LH’s Selected Poems (1908). Printed as ‘a good knight newly knighted’ 3 Two Songs: I : Sleep lies in every cup | Of land or flower: | Look how the earth drains up | Her evening hour! || Each face, that once so laughed, | Now fain would lift | Lips to Life’s sleeping-draught, | The goodlier gift. || Oh, whence this overflow, | This flood of rest? | What vale of healing so | Unlocks her breast? || What land, to give us right | Of refuge, yields | To the sharp scythes of light | Her poppied fields? || Nay, wait! Our turn to make | Amends grows due: | Another day will break, | We must give too! and The Fellow Travellers: Fellow-travellers here with me, | Loose for good each other’s loads! | Here we come to the cross-roads: | Here must parting be. || Where will you five be to-night? | Where shall I? We little know. | Loosed from you, I let you go | Utterly from sight. || Far away go taste, and touch, | Far go sight, and sound, and smell! | Fellow-travellers, fare you well,— | You I loved so much! 4 For ‘don’t’. 5 Published in 1897. 6 Sidgwick & Jackson were the publishers. 2

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Letters 1872–1926

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 8 Nov. 1908 My dear Laurence, The changes in Advocatus Diaboli are very judicious. The line on p. 52 is as bad as ever. I think you should try what you can do with default or assault;1 for I am afraid that salt and malt and cobalt are no good. There is however a kind of stiff clay called gault, in which I daresay sepulchres are sometimes dug. On p. 71, last line but one, I should restore the old reading, because it is not good to have two lines with their last halves so much on the same model as the pangs he bore and the wound he wore.2 On p. 86 there is a foot missing from line 7. The misprint on p. 101 is eloquent of the printer’s cockney pronunciation. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. ‘Time’s assault’ is perhaps a thing towards which you might take up some attitude or other in your ancestral vault. BMC MS. Memoir, 173; Maas, 100 (both incomplete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Pinner 8 Nov. 1908. My dear Richards, I do not care for the new edition;1 but as it was brought out simply to please you and not me, that does not matter. Coloured plates always strike me as vulgar (though I understand that they are the fashion at present), and these drawings of Hyde’s do not seem to me nearly so good as those in his London book.2 The end papers, on the other hand, I rather like; though the horses seem to be letting the man do all the ploughing. It lies, I find, on drawing-room tables, so all is well. 1 As printed: Or, open to the skies, a vault | Where basking sunnily I lie, | And, negligent to Time’s assault, | With foot in earth prepare to die. 2 As printed: Little ye know the pangs He bore, | Ye friends whom Love forgave: | There was a bitterer wound He wore | For souls he could not save. 1 The illustrated edn. (2000 copies) of ASL. 2 London Impressions: Etchings and Pictures in Photogravure (1898).

229

25 November 1908

To the fate of the widows and orphans whom it appears that you have been introducing to outside brokers3 I am totally indifferent, having no spirit in my body.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 85; Maas, 101.

TO M A RG A R E T WO O D S 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 17 Nov. 1908 Dear Mrs Woods, Naturally I do not like refusing a request of yours; but still I feel a sort of repugnance to signing copies for sale. I have never signed any except for personal acquaintances, and, on one occasion, for American ladies who declared that they had crossed the Atlantic on my account. Bazaars, too, are often held for objects which I disapprove, though I daresay yours is quite respectable. The notion of coming to lunch some day is much more attractive; but perhaps that is only conditional, and held out as an inducement. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 25 Nov. 1908   . |  . Permission may be given to Miss R. C. Smyth to set the three poems Nos. 13, 15 and 18 as she wishes. A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. 3 ‘The Academy, through, I believe, the pen of T. W. H. Crosland, had just then attacked me for allowing (for payment) a book-mark advertising the business of an outside broker to be placed for a while in the books I published’: GR, 85. The Academy, 66 (24 Oct. 1908), 392–3, brought to notice the fact that GR had placed in all his publications a bookmark advertising the Financial Review of Reviews, the publication of The Investment Registry Ltd. The Academy acknowledged GR’s need, but questioned this method, to pay off his creditors. Speculating on the high probability of GR’s publications being read largely by ‘widows and orphans’, it asked: ‘Would Mr. Grant Richards or Mr. A. E. Housman … advise a widow or an orphan possessed of securities to entrust the management of them to an outside broker?’ (393). 4 Daniel 7: 15: ‘my spirit in the midst of my body’; James 2: 26: ‘the body without the spirit is dead’.

230

Letters 1872–1926

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 26 Nov. 1908 My dear Kate, When I got your letter I intended to answer it almost immediately, but the news about Aunt Mary checked me by causing me to expect something new each morning, and so now the days have gone by, and I have neither sent back your enclosures nor answered your invitation. As to this, I could not have got away last week end, nor can I this, as I am going to Wimbledon; and the week after I have an engagement which would force me to curtail the visit, and meanwhile I am afraid the leaves are rapidly coming off the trees, and the weather (affected, my dear Kate, by the streams of meteors, which at this season intersect the earth’s orbit) will be growing nasty; so I think I had better wait. The two letters I return, and I also enclose the family tree sent me by Colonel Chippindall.1 I think you had better keep this as you are the only one of us to continue the race;2 only remember that it is my property, and if I want it back when they make me a peer you are not to say I gave it to you nor pretend that you have lost it. Colonel Chippindall says that he has portraits of our great-grandfather’s mother and sister, and invites me to go to Bedford to lunch some day and look at them. He also said (in September) that Lune Bank was for sale, and seemed anxious that one of us should buy it. I went abroad at the end of August for about three weeks, which I spent chiefly at Venice and on the Lake of Garda, where I was five years ago. This time however I stayed at some of the less frequented places, such as Garda itself, which on the former occasion struck me as the prettiest part of the lake, when viewed from the steamboat in which I was coming away. On land it is not so satisfactory, as the cypresses and olives which ornament the hills are mostly in private grounds, and there is the usual Italian lack of real open country. Also the food and cooking did not suit me, and when I got to Venice, as sitting all day in a gondola is not the best thing in the world for restoring one’s digestion, I was more uncomfortable, for about five days, than I have been for a long time. The campanile has

1 Richards, 460–1, provides a facsimile of a ‘family chart written out by A. E. Housman in 1908 for Colonel Harold Chippindall, a relative who was preparing a much more extensive chart’. W[illiam] Harold Chippindall (b. 1850) was an expert on parish and family history. 2 The rest of the Housman family was childless.

231

16 December 1908

now risen to half of its old height and the work is going on more briskly,3 so that they expect to finish it [ … ] LC-GR2 t.s.: copy of part of a letter. Richards, 378 (brief excerpt). I have corrected ‘May’ to ‘Mary’ and ‘Lime’ to ‘Lune’ (Lune Bank being ancestor Robert Housman’s home).

TO P RO F E S S O R F R I E D R I C H VO L L M E R [30 Nov. 1908] My dear Sir, I have examined with great pleasure the cod. Harl. 2745,1 which contains ‘flora uirgilii’ on pp. 84vers. –86rect, ; but among these I find nothing from the append. Verg. except Culex 79 sqq. on p. 85vers. written thus: [ … ] This is preceded by ‘stimulas dedit aemula uirtus’ (= Luc. 1. 120) and followed by Verg. Aen. X 467 sq. breue etc. But on p. 97rect. , preceded by excerpts from Juvenal and followed by excerpts from [?Bretlin], are the following ‘flores uirginalis’: [ … ] SJCO MS, draft in pencil corrected in pencil on torn foolscap sheet, with P. Ouidi Nasonis Metamorphosen Libri XV, ed. Otto Korn (Berlin, 1880). The MS is accompanied by another torn foolscap sheet bearing references in AEH’s handwriting to passages in the cod. Harl. 2745.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 16 Dec. 1908 My dear Laurence, Thanks for your poems.1 I suppose if I say anything in praise of the cover and get-up you will detect insinuations as to the contents, so I had better not. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 173.

3 The Campanile of S. Marco, some 99 m. high, was first built 888–912, and completed 1156–73. On 14 July 1902, it collapsed. An exact reproduction was immediately begun, and opened on 25 Apr. 1912. See MP XLIV 23 (‘The tower that stood and fell’), and notes in Poems (1997), 456. 1 In a letter of 24 Nov. 1908, Vollmer had asked AEH to examine the British Museum MS for him: with AEH’s copy of Vollmer’s Poetae Latini Minores, 5 (1914), SJCO b 1. 1 Selected Poems (1908).

232

Letters 1872–1926

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 16 Dec. 1908 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, Alas, your letter, which I suppose came by the second post, did not get into my hands till I came back from College this afternoon, and so I cannot make time to escape to Hampstead out of the press of work of this last week of term. I am very sorry, but I hope you will have a happy Christmas. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 10.

TO RO S A JAC K S O N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 17 Dec. 1908 Dear Mrs Jackson, I am sending you a copy of the latest edition of my poems, illustrated. I do not admire the illustrations so much as I admire the poems, but it was done chiefly to please the publisher.1 I was glad to have your information about Mo.2 How did Rupert3 fare at Cambridge? A merry Christmas to all of you.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS, inspected at Sotheby’s, 4 Nov. 2001. Tipped-in on front fixed end-paper of copy of ASL (1908). Copy in Lilly MSS, 3. 1. 6. Excerpt quoted in Sotheby’s catalogue, The Library of Frederick B. Adams, Jr, Part 1: English & American Literature (6 Nov. 2001), 31. 1

See AEH to GR, 8 Nov. 1908. Moses Jackson. See List of Recipients. 3 Rupert W. P. Jackson (b. 2 Oct. 1890), eldest son of Moses and Rosa. He received a doctorate, and, during the First World War, won both the Military Cross and the Croix de Guerre: Naiditch (1995), 143. 4 In a letter of 5 May 1936 to LH (BMC), Rosa Jackson wrote of AEH: ‘I have been honoured with his friendship for over 40 years & my late husband (who was at Oxford with him) & my sons all loved him dearly.’ 2

1909 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner] No, I never go abroad in the winter; and also I am going on a visit in Surrey. Yrs A. E. Housman 7 Jan. 1909. Illinois MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 7 Carlton Street | Regent Street | S. W.’ Richards, 85.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 15 Jan. 1909 My dear Rothenstein, Will you dine with me at the Café Royal on Friday Feb. 5th at 7. 45? I am anxious to know what it is that you think British Art requires in order to regenerate it: whether it is ribald laughter going up to heaven, or a river of laughter coming down from heaven; for the papers are not agreed.1 Remember me to Mrs Rothenstein. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 11. Maas, 101.

1 In his lecture at the London Institution Rothenstein had argued that art would remain second-rate ‘until a great river of laughter comes down from Heaven at … the pictures which are daily shown as works of serious importance’.

234

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 15 Jan. 1909 My dear Richards, Miss or Mrs Jewell1 may be told that she can set and publish to her heart’s content. If you like to add that she displays an honourable scrupulousness which is doubly remarkable inasmuch as it makes its appearance in a woman and an American; or if you like to quote the opinion of a doctor which I see in today’s paper, that there are more people with unbalanced minds in Boston than anywhere else, do so; but don’t say that I put you up to it. Will you dine with me at the Café Royal on Friday Feb. 5th at 7. 45? I am also asking Rothenstein. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I will remember about the Cheshire Cheese.2 Illinois MS. Richards, 86; Maas, 101–2.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 23 Jan. 1909 My dear Richards, I have received your noble present of Montaigne,1 and I only wish the rest of my library were fit to keep it company. I have never read him yet in Florio’s translation: as a boy I used to study Cotton’s,2 which is good, but less good, I suppose. Thank you also for the guide to Paris.3 The question whether I ever go to Vienna depends on the question whether you produce a similar guide to it.4

1

American composer Lucina Jewell (b. 1874). She did not publish any settings of AEH. Ancient eating-house in Fleet Street, London, associated with Dr Johnson and also with the Rhymers’ Club, which met there, 1891–4: see W. B. Yeats’s account in The Trembling of the Veil (1922). 1 Translation by John Florio (1553?–1625), first published in 1603, of Montaigne’s Essais, repr. by GR in his Elizabethan Classics series. LH was responsible for the decoration on the spine (Richards, 86). 2 The translation by Charles Cotton (1630–87), first published in 1685. 3 Paris (1908) by Leonard Williams, the first in a projected series of Grant Richards’s Waistcoat-Pocket Guides. 4 GR produced no such guide, and AEH never did visit Vienna. 2

235

1 May 1909

The pudding5 was not only palatable but digestible. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 86; Maas, 102.

TO M R T H O M P S O N University College, London 16 March 1909 Dear Mr Thompson, I expect to suffer much from the Bazaar,1 especially in purse; but my reputation, such as it is, I will preserve intact, and not injure it by writing verse to order. I have never done so for anyone, even when offered bribes, literature not being my trade. And I certainly shall not molest my poor brother, who ought not to suffer for mere consanguinity, which is no crime. I hope you will be more successful in capturing other prey, and will bear me no ill-will for my ungraciousness. I am yours truly A. E. Housman. Photocopy of ALS in LC AEH Collection.

TO P RO F E S S O R F R I E D R I C H VO L L M E R University College, London 1 May 1909. Dear Sir, I am much obliged by the gift of your treatise on the Appendix Vergiliana, which is full of information and interest.1 Your opinion that the Zanclaea of Vat. 2759 at cul. 332 comes from Ouid. fast. IV 499 may gain some support from the fact, which I pointed out in the Journal of Philology XXV p. 244, that the sua pagina dicit of the same MS at cul. 402 comes from the same poem, III 791 ‘itur ad Argeos: qui sint, sua pagina dicet’.2 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek MS. 5

‘The beef-steak, lark, kidney and oyster pudding of the Cheshire Cheese’: Richards, 86 A fund-raising event arranged by one of the colleges of London University. 1 P. Vergilii Maronis iuvenalis ludi libellus von Fridericus Vollmer (M¨unchen 1909): Naiditch (2003), 151. 2 In ‘Lucretiana’, Journal of Philology, 25 (1897), 226–49; Classical Papers, 423–41, and specifically 437. 1

236

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner] 12 May 1909 Thanks. Manilius Book II may perhaps be ready next year. Yrs A. E. Housman. Illinois MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 7 Carlton Street | Regent Street | S. W.’ Richards, 87 (nearly complete).

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 28 May 1909 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, I hope that my conversation through the telephone yesterday did not sound brusque. I am very little accustomed to using that instrument. I was very sorry not to be able to come to the theatre with you, but I had an engagement out of town for the evening, and I was just leaving the college to catch my train when the beadle told me that someone had been enquiring for me. Please tell Rothenstein that all my Jewish students are absenting themselves from my lectures from Wednesday to Friday this week on the plea that these are Jewish holidays. I have been looking up the Old Testament, but I can find no mention there of either the Derby or the Oaks.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 12. Maas, 102–3.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 29 May 1909 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, It is an attractive proposal, and if it is decently fine on Monday I will come over some time in the day. If you go out, perhaps you would leave

1 Horse races run at Epsom on 26 and 28 May 1909. In 1909 the Jewish Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) fell on 26 and 27 May.

237

18 July 1909

word behind you as to what part of the heath1 you are likely to be found on at some hour or other. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 13.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 6 July 1909 My dear Richards, I am very much indebted to you for sending me Royall Tyler’s Spain,1 which is a capital straightforward business-like book, exactly the sort of thing I like and find exciting. How the public will bear the absence of the usual twaddle I don’t know. My only objection is to the title, as I think Spain is a neuter noun.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 87; Maas, 103.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 18 July 1909 My dear Richards, I must thank you for Antonio,1 though I have no time at present to do more than glance at it, and also for your cheque, of which I send no formal receipt, because you told me last year it was unnecessary. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 87.

1

Hampstead Heath in London. Spain: A Study of Her Life and Arts (1909), published by GR. 2 It is nevertheless conventional to make countries feminine. 1 Novel (1909) by Ernest [James] Oldmeadow (1867–1949), published by GR. It deals with Portugal and the wine trade. 1

238

Letters 1872–1926

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 11 Aug. 1909 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, I am glad you have found such a pleasant spot and are enjoying yourselves. I have been rather industrious and have only been away for short visits. I may perhaps be going for another to Swanage, where my married sister and her family are, or were; for I hear nothing from them, and they have probably perished in the water-famine which you just escaped. I don’t expect to come to France much before September, and then I shall not stay very long; and all the time that I can spare from the vices of Paris (as to which, consult William) I expect to spend in visiting cathedral towns which I have not yet seen. The life you sketch at Vaucottes-sur-mer,1 and kindly invite me to join you in, is very attractive, but when it is gone it is gone, and has not stored one’s mind (except of course with the instructive conversation of the Rothenstein family, including John’s2 views on the soul and our future life) and one cannot boast about it afterwards. Though, after all, that is equally true of the vices of Paris. Remember me to all who remember me, and believe me yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 14. Maas, 104.

TO L I LY T H I C K N E S S E [1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner] 11 Aug. 1909 Dear Mrs Thicknesse, My blood boils. This is not due to the recent commencement of summer, but to the Wrongs of Woman,1 with which I have been making myself acquainted. ‘She cannot serve on any Jury’; and yet she bravely lives on. ‘She cannot serve in the army or navy’—oh cruel, cruel!—‘except’—this adds insult to injury—‘as a nurse’. They do not even employ a Running

1

Where the Rothensteins often spent the summer. John [Knewstub Maurice] (1901–92) the Rothensteins’ eldest son. 1 The Rights and Wrongs of Women: A Digest, with Practical Illustrations and Notes on the Law in France, by Ralph Thicknesse (1909), a practical guide for those who wished to see the law changed in favour of women. 2

17 August 1909

239

Woman instead of a Running Man for practising marksmanship. I have been making marginal additions. ‘She cannot be ordained a Priest or Deacon’: add nor become a Freemason. ‘She cannot be a member of the Royal Society’;2 add nor of the Amateur Boxing Association. In short, your unhappy sex seem to have nothing to look forward to, excepting contracting a valid marriage as soon as they are 12 years old; and that must soon pall. Thanks for the picture card. I did not know, or had forgotten, that you were at Woodbridge.3 If you can find an old hat of Edward FitzGerald’s they will let you write three columns about it in the Athenaeum. But some literary people are so proud that they despise these avenues to fame. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Memoir, 204; Maas, 103–4.

TO G R A N T R I C H A R D S ’ S P U B L I S H I N G M A NAG E R 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 17 Aug. 1909. Dear Sir, The applicant may be given permission to publish settings of the four poems, but must be told that this permission conveys no exclusive rights of any kind.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. I should be obliged if the enclosed envelope could be forwarded to Mr Richards. Illinois MS. Richards, 87 (incomplete).

2

The quotations are from pp. 13, 15, and 14. In Suffolk, home for the last twenty-three years of his life of Edward Fitzgerald (1809–83), best known for his translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859, etc.). 1 ‘Somebody must have been warning Housman of the possibility that one or other of the composers to whom the poet so readily granted permission might be under the impression that he was the only one so favoured’: Richards, 87. 3

240

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 24 Aug. 1909 My dear Richards, I shall be very pleased to dine with you on Thursday, if you are not then dead of ptomaine poisoning,1 in which case please appear as a ghost and cancel the engagement. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 88.

TO G R A N T R I C H A R D S ’ S P U B L I S H I N G M A NAG E R 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 14 Sept. 1909 Dear Sir, The enclosed request must be refused. Your[s] faithfully A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. The final ‘s’ in ‘Yours’ is inadvertently omitted by AEH.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 5 Oct. 1909   . |  ,  , , .. Dear Mrs Rothenstein, I shall be very pleased to come to tea to-morrow, full of good advice. This is our first week of term, and I am writing this note in the intervals of giving good advice to students; so I am in full practice. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 15.

1 Food poisoning. Ptomaine is the generic name of certain alkaloid bodies found in putrefying animal or vegetable matter. ‘I have no idea why the possibility of poisoning entered his head’: Richards, 88.

241

12 October 1909

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 8 Oct. 1909   . |  ,  , , .. My dear Richards, I have noted the day and hour at which I am to go and have my teeth taken out by Lamb,1 but I find that I have not got his address. I like Masefield2 very much. Who was the other young man, who reads Manilius?3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 88; Maas, 104–5.

TO P RO F E S S O R G I L B E RT M U R R AY 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 12 Oct. 1909 Dear Murray, I shall be very pleased to stay with you the night of Nov. 26. I have work at the College in the morning, and will come down in the afternoon. I have chosen a dry subject for my paper,1 as I have no doubt that scholarship at Oxford is taking on an excessively literary tinge under the influence of the new professor of Greek.2 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 16. 85–6. Maas, 105.

1 Henry [Taylor] Lamb (1883–1960), who studied painting in London and Paris and was a founder-member of Camden Town and London groups. He qualified at Guy’s Hospital, 1916, and served as medical officer, being awarded the MC in 1918. Later he did portraits of other writers, including Lytton Strachey, Evelyn Waugh, and Lord David Cecil. 2 The poet John Masefield: see List of Recipients. 3 Eric Maclagan. 1 ‘Greek Nouns in Latin Poetry’, read to the Oxford Philological Society in New College on 26 Nov. It was later published as ‘Greek Nouns in Latin Poetry from Lucretius to Juvenal’ in the Journal of Philology, 31 (1910), 236–66 (Classical Papers, 817–39). 2 Murray.

242

Letters 1872–1926

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 14 Oct. 1909.   . |  ,  , , .. Dear Mrs Rothenstein, I shall be very pleased to come to tea to-morrow. This afternoon I am to have my portrait done, again;1 not at my own desire, needless to say. Three hours sitting, which I have already gone through for Rothenstein, ought to be quite enough for one mortal life. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 16.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 16 Oct. 1909 My dear Richards, I can sit to Lamb again next Thursday at the same hour, if that will suit him. Why was I ever born? This question is addressed to the universe, not to you personally. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 89; Maas, 105.

TO G R A N T R I C H A R D S ’ S P U B L I S H I N G M A NAG E R [1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner] 7 Nov. 1909 Permission must not be given to Mr Williams1 to print the poems in his programme. A. E. Housman. Illinois MS.

1 1

See AEH to GR, 8 Oct. 1909, n. 1. Vaughan Williams: see next letter.

243

27 November 1909

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 11 Nov. 1909 My dear Richards, ‘The terms’ on which Mr Lambert1 may print my words with his music are that he should spell my name right. As to Mr Vaughan Williams, about whom your secretary wrote: he came to see me, and made representations and entreaties, so that I said he might print the verses he wanted on his programmes.2 I mention this lest his action should come to your ears and cause you to set the police after him. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 90; Maas, 105–6.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 27 Nov. 1909 My dear Richards, Well, I will go to Lamb next Thursday if he likes, and I have written to tell him so: I have addressed the letter to 8 Fitzroy Street, though I am not quite sure if that is the number: if not, let me know. I hope you will relate this incident to Mrs Richards, in order that she may see what a false notion of my temper she has, and how angelic it really is. I met your uncle1 in Oxford yesterday, and returning here I find his last book,2 for which I am much obliged to the author or publisher, whichever is the donor: the enclosed slip says that it is sent for review and will not be published till the 29th of last month. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. Richards, 90 (nearly complete); Maas, 106.

1 E. Frank Lambert’s setting of ASL XXII (The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread) was published in 1914. 2 On Wenlock Edge, a song cycle for tenor voice, piano, and string quartet, by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), was completed in 1909. It consisted of settings of ASL XXXI (On Wenlock edge the wood’s in trouble), XXXII (From far, from eve and morning), XXVII (Is my team ploughing), XVIII (Oh, when I was in love with you), XXI (Bredon Hill), and L (In valleys of springs of rivers). 1 Herbert Richards. 2 Aristophanes and Others (1909), published by GR. Herbert Richards was also the author of Notes on Xenophon and Others (1907), Platonica (1911), and Aristotelica (1915).

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Letters 1872–1926

TO P RO F E S S O R G I L B E RT M U R R AY 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 9 Dec. 1909. Dear Murray, I have read Mrs Taylor’s poems,1 that you were kind enough to give me, with a good deal of pleasure and interest. There are phrases and lines that are quite beautiful, and she has not only technical skill but impulse; and yet there is a curious indistinctness about the general impression, and hardly a poem that rings clear. She is rather like the second Lord Lytton;2 susceptible to the beauty of other people’s poetry, and giving out an answering note, beautiful in its way; and she is not so terribly fluent as he was, nor such a bare-faced thief. The appeal to the optic nerve is almost shameless, and becomes monotonous. I like best some of the short pieces, like The Young Martyrs.3 The poem on the Magi,4 as you said, is also good. Will it ever be possible to break female poets of using such words as ‘‘passional’’5 and feeling proud of it? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 16. 125–6. Maas, 106–7.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 30 Dec. 1909 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, I shall be very pleased to dine with you on Wednesday, and in the mean time I wish you all a happy new year. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 17. 1

Rose and Vine (1909) by Rachel Annand Taylor (1876–1960). Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton (‘Owen Meredith’), first Earl of Lytton (1831–91), and son of the novelist Edward George Earle [Bulwer-] Lytton (1803–73). His published verse includes Clytemnestra, The Earl’s Return, The Artist and Other Poems (1855), The Wanderer (1859), Fables in Song (1874), and King Poppy (1892). 3 ‘They wore their wounds like roses | Who died at morningtide. | From Youth’s enchanted closes, | From loves that did adore them, | With perfumes broken o’er them, | As bridegroom goes to bride, | They rode the Flaming Ride. | They wore their wounds like roses | Who in their morning died.’ 4 The Magi. 5 Mrs Taylor has ‘The passional Porch-verse’ (in The Race) and ‘passional pomegranates’ (in The Tree of Life). 2

1910 TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 4 Jan. 1910 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, I am quite happy and content with the new arrangement, and will come in some time before 9. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 18.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT University College, London 10 Feb. 1910 Dear Sir, For some years past I have refused to anthologists permission to print poems of mine, because these requests were becoming frequent and the poems are few. I am afraid therefore that I cannot in fairness make an exception in your case. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 11 Feb. 1910 My dear Richards, I should be very glad to come on the 27th , or, as you suggest, on the night of the 26th . Only don’t ask your friend Crosland1 to meet me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 90 (nearly complete). 1 ‘I did not. I had no thought of doing so. I do not know whether Housman ever read much of T. W. H. Crosland’s work, but he certainly thought poorly of him as a man … . My

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TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 15 Feb. 1910   . |  .  , , .. Dear Mrs Rothenstein, It is a nuisance, but I am going away at the end of the week, and am consequently obliged to pack into the middle of it work which I should otherwise postpone, and so I really am not able to come. I am very sorry, but your gatherings are always such galaxies of intellect that you will not miss me severely. I saw a whole row of portraits by W.1 at Dr Herringham’s2 the other night. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 19.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 15 Feb. 1910. My dear Richards, As you are so good, I could come down on the 26th by the 5. 50 from Paddington (I am writing with only a rather obsolete Bradshaw1 at hand), and I should be very glad to stay till the Monday morning. Let me know the name of your house, unless your own celebrity in the neighbourhood is sufficient.2 In Venice I almost always go to the Europa, which has absolutely the best possible situation and is not too large. In dignity, according to my gondolier,3 it ranks next to Danieli’s, where the food and drink are better, own connexion with Crosland, whether as a man or as a writer, had ceased years before’: Richards, 90–1. T[homas] W[illiam] H[odgson] Crosland (1865–1924) was a poet, anthologist, and miscellaneous author. GR had published two works by him in 1903: The Five Nations, and a reprint of his 1902 anthology English Songs and Ballads. 1 William Rothenstein. 2 Wilmot Parker Herringham (1855–1936), physician. Vice-chancellor of London University, 1912–15; knighted, 1914. His wife Christiana (1852–1929), an accomplished artist in tempera and watercolour, and the translator of the Book of the Art of Cennino Cennini (1899), was a friend of Rothenstein. 1 Railway guide, published 1842–1961. 2 He had been invited to GR’s house Bigfrith, at Cookham Dean in Berkshire: Richards, 91 n. 3 Andrea.

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28 February 1910

but which is noisy, and not central enough, and dearer. A cheaper hotel, which I hear well spoken of, is the Luna, close to the royal palace: I have been inside it, and it struck me as well managed. The Grand should be avoided, they say. The best restaurant to my thinking is the Vapore, and my gondolier tells me that all foreigners say the same. From the Piazza you go under the clock and along the Merceria till you come to a high bridge over a canal: there, instead of crossing it, you turn sharp to the left. Much greater simplicity is to be had at either of the two Giorgiones, one near San Silvestro and one near the Santi Apostoli; but the food is not very appetising, except the Baccalà pizzicato (salt cod mashed up with milk and pepper) which they have on Fridays. At Milan I always stay at the Cavour, which I believe is really the best hotel, and certainly the most pleasantly situated. It is rather far from the cathedral, but fairly near to the picture gallery. The Hˆotel de la Ville, in the centre of the city, is, according to Horatio Brown, the best in Italy, but Ashburner dislikes it: you have met them both, so you can choose which to believe. The Cavour is not cheap, but nothing outrageous. The restaurants of Milan I know nothing about. I suppose I have been in one or two, but if so I have forgotten them. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 91–2; Maas, 107 (both nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner. 28 Feb. 1910 My dear Richards, We were prematurely separated at Praed Street and I could not take a proper farewell of you, so I must write to say how much I enjoyed myself, and to congratulate you on the combined excellencies of your neighbourhood, your house, and your family. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s.; Richards, 92.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 28 Feb. 1910 Dear Mr Bynner, I was glad to hear from you and to learn that you are well and active; but as to your enquiry, I have not published any poem since the last that you have seen. The other day I had the curiosity to reckon up the complete pieces, printed and unprinted, which I have written since 1896, and they only come to 300 lines, so the next volume appears to be some way off. In barrenness, at any rate, I hold a high place among English poets, excelling even Gray.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/12. Bynner/Haber (1957), 16; Maas, 108.

TO MILDRED PLAT T 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 2 March 1910 Dear Mrs Platt, I shall be very pleased to come on Monday. Gin is defined in the dictionary as ‘‘a trap or snare’’, but it is quite unnecessary in this case. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 108.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 4 March 1910 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, People are asking me out a great deal too often, and you are one of the chief offenders. I am not a social butterfly like you: nature meant me for solitude and meditation /(which frequently takes the form of going to sleep)/: talking to human beings, whether ‘‘lovely ladies’’ or not, for 1 Thomas Gray (1716–71) wrote over 3000 lines of poetry. As ASL contained 1331 lines, and the classical translations published in 1890, 119 lines, an additional 300 would bring the total to 1750. The verse published in AEH’s lifetime, including light verse, amounts almost exactly to the same corpus as Gray’s.

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22 March 1910

any length of time leaves me in a state of prostration, and will finally undermine my health unless I take care. By declining your invitation for next Wednesday I calculate that I shall make you very indignant, and then you will leave me severely alone for a long time, which may save me from premature decease,—at least, if other people do the same, as I will try to make them. Yes, I had a very fine and pleasant Sunday at Marlow, or rather Cookham Dean.1 I am, though you may not think so, yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 20. Maas, 108.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 22 March 1910. Dear Rothenstein, I am much obliged to you for sending me Mrs(?) Cornford’s poems.1 I do not call them exactly good, except in phrases here and there; but they are really interesting and I am glad to have them. The verses about the horse and donkey are quite capital,2 and the triolet about the unhappy lady in gloves has moved me to the imitation on the opposite page.3 I hope Mrs Rothenstein does not languish. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. O why do you walk through the fields in boots, Missing so much and so much? O fat white woman whom nobody shoots, Why do you walk through the fields in boots, 1

With the Richards family. Frances [Crofts] Cornford (1886–1960), Charles Darwin’s granddaughter. Rothenstein persuaded her father Francis Darwin to print privately her first book, Poems (1910), and it met with some critical acclaim, e.g. in Roger Fry’s review in the TLS: ‘Frances Cornford Writes’, Poetry Book Society Bulletin, 3 (Sept. 1954), 1. She published nine vols. of poetry in all. She married F. M. Cornford in 1909: see notes on AEH’s letter of 1 May 1934. 2 The light verse A Short Prayer. 3 In Frances Cornford’s To a Fat Lady seen from the Train, AEH replaces ‘gloves’, ‘loves’, and ‘doves’, with ‘boots’, ‘shoots’, and ‘coots’, and cuts out the repetition of the first two lines at the end. See AEH to Rothenstein, 4 May 1932. For a discussion of AEH’s version and of his fondness for making such alterations, see Archie Burnett, ‘Poetical Emendations and Improvisations by A. E. Housman’, Victorian Poetry, 36. 3 (Fall, 1998), 289–97. 1

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When the grass is soft as the breast of coots And shivering-sweet to the touch? O why etc. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 21. Maas, 109.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 12 April 1910. My dear Richards, Whatever the result may be, I am very much obliged both to Maclagan and you for your warfare against the Spanish character.1 I also have to thank you for Masefield’s two novels, of which I have read Captain Margaret.2 Quite readable, and containing a number of interesting details; but bad. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 93; Maas, 109.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 17 May 1910 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, Many thanks for the card,1 which I shall probably utilise on the 27th rather than the 26th , as I shall have more time at my disposal. I hope to find some of the works which Rothenstein executed last August, with you holding his chair to save him from being blown over the cliff; and I shall be interested in trying to discover if the strokes of the artist’s brush show any traces of the struggle between Love and Death which was raging around him. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 22. Maas, 110. 1 GR and Eric Maclagan had been trying to procure photographs of the Madrid MS of Manilius. See AEH to GR, 15 July 1910. AEH had previously failed to obtain photographs: See CQ 1 (1907), 291 (Classical Papers, 704). 2 Published by GR in 1908. The other was Multitude and Solitude (1909), also published by GR. 1 For admission to the private view of an exhibition of Rothenstein’s paintings and drawings (including one of AEH) at the Goupil Gallery. See AEH to Alice Rothenstein, 18 July 1910.

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9 June 1910

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 4 June 1910 My dear Richards, I am sorry I cannot come to your desolate home, but I am engaged here tomorrow. I have telegraphed, which I don’t know whether I ought to have done, as I daresay you are charged a lot for delivery. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 93 (nearly complete)

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 9 June 1910. My dear Laurence, I would rather not sign your memorial;1 chiefly because I don’t think that writers as a class are particularly qualified to give advice on the question; and moreover it is certain to be signed by Galsworthy2 and Hewlett3 and everyone I cannot abide. Also I cannot say that ‘the solution of this question appears to me to be urgent’. Even if I were actually in favour of women’s suffrage in the abstract I think I should like to see some other and less precious country try it first: America for instance, where the solution ought to be just as urgent as here. Thanks for the pamphlet. I see you have another just published;4 but as that costs 6d I recognise that it is my duty to buy it; which indeed I am quite able to do, as your literary activity has fallen off of late, and my finances are recovering from the strain it used to put on them. Love to Clemence: I hope she has read, or will read, Ann Veronica5 (the prison scenes).6 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. McGill MS. Memoir, 174–5, where it is printed out of chronological sequence; Maas, 110. 1

‘A declaration by authors in favour of Woman Suffrage’: Memoir, 174 n. John Galsworthy (1867–1933), novelist and dramatist. Many of his plays deal with social injustice. 3 Maurice [Henry] Hewlett (1861–1923), novelist and poet. 4 Articles of Faith in the Freedom of Women. 5 By H. G. Wells, 1909. The heroine is an emancipated ‘new woman’ and a suffragist. 6 Clemence was imprisoned in Holloway Gaol, 30 Sept.–6 Oct. 1911, for non-payment of taxes. She was protesting against taxation without representation. See K. L. Mix in HSJ 2 (1975), 47. 2

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 19 June 1910 My dear Richards, I shall be very pleased to come the Saturday after next and stay till the Monday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 30 June 1910. My dear Richards, The train on Saturday which would suit me best if it suits you is the 4. 50 from Paddington. I can stay till the Monday morning. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 15 July 1910 My dear Richards, I have received the photographs, which are quite satisfactory, and I am very grateful to you as well as to Maclagan and his hidalgo,1 for I should never have got them without your assistance. Also I must thank you for Masefield’s plays,2 which are well worth reading and contain a lot that is very good; only he has got the Elizabethan notion that in order to have tragedy you must have villains, and villains of disgusting wickedness or vileness. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 94; Maas, 111. 1 The Spanish gentleman was Don Guillermo de Osma (1853–1922), identified by Maclagan in a letter to GR of 31 Jan. 1937 (LC-GR1 MS) and in a note in Richards, 94. Maas, 111 n., notes that he was an Oxford-educated Spanish diplomatist and founder of the Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid. 2 The Tragedy of Nan, and Other Plays (1909).

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18 July 1910

TO E R I C M AC L AG A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 15 July 1910 Dear Mr Maclagan, I have received and examined the photographs, and find them complete and quite satisfactorily clear; and I assure you that it is a great comfort to possess them, and that as I shall constantly be using them I shall constantly be feeling gratitude to you for your trouble and your success. I must also thank you for the rather surprisingly low price at which you have managed to secure them. I will write as you suggest to Don G. de Osma. I enclose cheque for £2. 15. 0, and am yours sincerely and gratefully. A. E. Housman. Private MS. Richards, 94; Maas, 111.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 18 July 1910 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, It is a pleasure to hear that anyone is so happy as you appear to be, and when you say that no one can possibly be so happy in England I am not in a position to contradict you. I am engaged in composing an erudite work, which you will refuse to read, and my feelings do not rise much above tranquil satisfaction and the consciousness of virtue. I am afraid there is no chance of my sharing your raptures, as I shall not get away till the end of August, and then shall most likely go to Belgium. I went to Rothenstein’s show with the ticket,1 and admired particularly the farmyard and the quarry, which I had seen before, and the piece called Spring, which I had not; but particularly and extremely the picture Night, though I fear that the subject may have something to do with this, and that a dark tree with the moon rising behind it might produce much the same effect on me even if it were painted by Mr B. W. Leader.2 The Standard called it a great picture; and I suppose that a picture which is praised by the Standard and admired by me must have something wrong 1

See AEH to Alice Rothenstein, 17 May 1910. Benjamin Williams Leader (1831–1923), painter of landscapes in England and Wales. His paintings include ‘In the Evening there shall be Light’ (1882), a depiction of a sunset beyond a deserted graveyard, which secured his election to the Royal Academy in 1883. 2

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with it, and that Rothenstein will reel under this double blow. I find on looking at my catalogue that I have supplied alternative titles to some of the pictures: opposite 57. A Study I have written ‘Mrs Rothenstein detected in a prevarication’, and opposite 42 the elucidation ‘Lady, watching her 1st husband die of poison administered by herself, reflects, with melancholy, that her 2nd may be no better’. Tell Rothenstein that while standing before the portrait of the artist I heard another visitor say, with just an instant’s pause between the utterances, ‘Very unkind,—very like’. At the end of this month I am going for a few days to Swanage, which reminds me that I have never seen a picture of what I think one of the most wonderful views I know, Egdon Heath, seen from the hills south of it, with the heather in bloom and Poole Harbour reaching its arms into the midst of it. But this is such a summerless year that I doubt if the heather will be properly out when I get there. It may be better in France: if so I congratulate both of you. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 23. Maas, 111–12.

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 22 July 1910 My dear Sir, I am much obliged for your interesting paper on the Crab.1 I do not know if you have observed, what was new to me when I read it in Boll’s Sphaera (Teubner 1903) pp. 304–5 and tab. IV, that Cancer appears in Egyptian zodiacs sometimes as a beetle. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. St Andrews MS 23587.

1 ‘The Emblem of the Crab in relation to the sign Cancer’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 39 (1899), 603–12.

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24 October 1910

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS   | 7   ’  |  5 Sept. 1910 My dear Richards, I am going home on Wednesday, so we have accurately timed our visits so as to miss one another, which is annoying, but cannot be helped. The first thing I was told of when I got here was the recent departure of my friend M. Gran’ Reesharr. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 94–5 (nearly complete); Maas, 112.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S 19 Oct. 1910   , |  .  , , ..

Dear Sirs, You are right in assuming that I object to the printing of my poems in concert programmes. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 95 (nearly complete).

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 24 Oct. 1910 Sir, I shall be obliged if you can send me 15 of the volumes enumerated over the page. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. [Overleaf] M¨uller (C. O.) History of the Doric Race, trans. by Tufnell & Lewis. James (Montague Rhodes). Ghost-Stories of an Antiquary Tabb (John B.). Lyrics. ,, ,, Poems. Butler (Samuel, St. John’s Coll. Camb.), The Way of All Flesh. Benson (A. C.). Life of E. W. Benson.

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Benson (E. F.). The Babe B.A. Coleridge (Sara), Phantasmion. Bierce (Ambrose), In the Midst of Life Beyle (M. H.). The Chartreuse of Parma, tr. by Lady Mary Loyd. Proctor (R. A.). Watched by the Dead. Benson (A. C.). Walter Pater. Bennett (Enoch Arnold). Anna of the Five Towns. Cory (W.) Extracts from Letters Etc. by F. W. Cornish Ellis (H. Havelock). Man and Woman. Vizetelly (H.). Port and Madeira. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 15 Nov. 1910 My dear Richards, Mr Hemsley may print the verses he wants in his Latin book.1 As to the Manilius, tell the enquirer that you have no information. I have just been lunching with Frank Harris,2 who came down on me at the College like a wolf on the fold. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 95 (nearly complete); Maas, 113.

TO J O H N M A S E F I E L D University College, London 25 Nov. 1910 Dear Mr Masefield, If you have a spare ticket for Pompey1 I am sure I should be interested to see it. I am very glad you can come on the 9th . I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Texas MS. 1 Latin Elegiac Verse-Writing. Modelled upon Ovid, by W. J. Hemsley and John Aston (1911). It contains ASL XX (Oh fair enough are sky and plain) under the title Reflections for translation into Latin. 2 Controversial author, journalist, and editor (1856–1931). See his Latest Contemporary Portraits (1927), 272–83 (‘A Talk with A. E. Housman’), for his (inaccurate) account of the interview. 1 Masefield’s play Pompey the Great (1910).

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21 December 1910

TO D. A . S LATE R University College, London 21 Dec. 1910 Dear Slater, Many thanks for your book of verses.1 ‘Other men on other manors rob the hen-roosts of to-day’2 might have appeared in the third part of Locksley Hall if Tennyson had lived to write it.3 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. 1

Aeneas, and other verses and versions (1910). The line appears in poem XIII, To A Clerk of Oxenforde (H. W. G.). 3 Tennyson’s Locksley Hall (1842) and Locksley Hall Sixty years After (1886) are written in the metre of the line quoted. 2

1911 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 17 Jan. 1911 My dear Richards, Will you dine with me at the Café Royal on Friday Feb. /3rd / at 7. 45? I am asking Platt, whom you have already met under other circumstances.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 97 (nearly complete); Maas, 114.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [19 Jan. 1911] No certainly not1 HOUSMAN. LC-GR t.s. Telegram dated Jan. 19, 1911 addressed to ‘Richards | Capitol Hotel | London’. Richards, 99.

TO MILDRED PLAT T Pinner, 19 Jan. 1911 Dear Mrs Platt, Yours was the first letter,1 so I will answer it first and thank you for your congratulations, which show a very Christian and forgiving spirit, considering my remissness in attending your at homes. The prospect of exchanging you for Mrs Frazer2 is one of the clouds on my horizon; but please do not repeat this remark at all to your Cambridge acquaintances. 1 At AEH’s instigation, Platt had visited GR to see if he would publish The Agamemnon of Aeschylus: Richards, 96. 1 AEH is refusing to be interviewed by a London daily newspaper: Richards, 99. 1 Congratulating AEH on his appointment as Professor of Latin at Cambridge. 2 See List of Recipients.

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19 January 1911

I should be very pleased to dine with you any day next week but Tuesday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 114.

TO P RO F E S S O R F. C . BU R K I T T University College, London 19 Jan. 1911 Dear Professor Burkitt, I have to thank you both for a kind letter and for interesting material from MSS. Often, when I look into the Vienna Corpus,1 and see the many excellent spellings, frequently relegated to the foot of the page by the editors, I am almost persuaded to be a Christian.2 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7568 B.461.

TO E D M U N D G O S S E University College, London 19 Jan. 1911 My dear Gosse, Many thanks for your kind letter. In most respects, though not quite in all, I think the change is matter for congratulation. If the exhalations of the Granta1 give me a relaxed sore throat, more poems may be expected.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Brotherton MS (Gosse Correspondence). Maas, 114.

1 Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, an edition of early Christian writings begun in Vienna in 1866. 2 Acts 26: 28: ‘Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.’ 1 Cambridge river. 2 AEH associated his writing poetry with ill-health. See the letter to Webb, 17 June 1896, n. 6.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 20 Jan. 1911 My dear Richards, First, many thanks for your congratulations. Then, as to the dinner, Platt is an easy-going character and will not mind having the date shifted if you cannot come on the 3rd . Next week will be quite time enough to let me know. Thirdly, I am afraid there is no safe immediate prospect of my finding my way to your French cook, as next Sunday I lunch in town, and expect to be at Godalming on the next after that. Thank you all the same. I suppose the mysterious ‘‘six’’ in the enclosed telegram is really an official emendation of (‘‘sic’’), and has no reference to a six o’ clock tram. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 97; Maas, 115 (both incomplete).

TO H . M C L E O D I N N E S 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings | Pinner 21 Jan. 1911 My dear Innes, I beg you to inform the Master and the College Council that I accept their offer of a fellowship with great gratitude and a high sense of the honour done me. Macaulay1 used to rank a Fellow of Trinity somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor: I forget the exact order of the three, but I know that the King of Rome was lower down, and His Most Christian Majesty of France quite out of sight. Platt will no longer be able to despise me. Also I thank you for your own kind congratulations. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS Letters c. 1 192 .

1 The historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, first Baron Macaulay (1800–59), who entered TCC in 1818 and was elected to a Fellowship in 1824.

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25 January 1911

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 22 Jan. 1911 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, I thank you sincerely for your very kind letter. I expect I shall see you and Rothenstein sometimes in Cambridge, as I know you have friends there. Besides, the Cambridge terms are agreeably short, and I shall most likely spend some part of each year in London. To have less work and more pay is always agreeable, and that will be the case with me. The drawback is that I shall be obliged to be less unsociable. I am glad to hear your news from Benares.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 24. Maas, 115.

TO T H O M A S H E R B E RT WA R R E N 1 Yarborough Villas, | Woodridings, Pinner 25 Jan. 1911. Dear Mr President, Many thanks for your kind letter of congratulation. There were at any rate two members of the College 1 in my time whose teaching I remember with gratitude, and both are still living: Mr Snow2 and Mr Bidder.3 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. MS inspected at Bloomsbury Book Auctions, 24 Jan. 2006. 1 Nowadays known as Varanasi, on the L. bank of the Ganges in N. India, one of the seven sacred cities of the Hindus. It was made a new state by the British in 1910. Rothenstein was painting in India, 1910–11. 1 SJCO. 2 T[homas] C[ollins] Snow (1852–1926). At SJCO, Fellow, 1875–82, Librarian, 1877–82; Lecturer in Classics, 1883–1903, and in English Language and Literature, 1895–1903; Lecturer in English Language and Literature, Jesus College, Oxford, 1906–17. Hugh Last described him as the ‘only serious classical scholar among the Fellows of St John’s in 1877’: The Oxford Magazine, 56 (1937), 189. Gilbert Murray regarded him and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff as the two teachers of whose influence he was especially conscious: Ancient Greek Literature (1897), xi. He taught AEH, 1877–9, and wrote a warmly supportive testimonial when AEH applied for the professorship at UCL in 1892: Naiditch (1988), 20. AEH sent him copies of his edn. of Juvenal (1905) and of LP (1922), and perhaps of other publications. For further information, see Naiditch (1988), 239–41. 3 The Revd H[enry] J[ardine] Bidder (1847–1923). Fellow of SJCO, 1871–1923, and in his time also Bursar and Keeper of the Groves. He regarded AEH as ‘a man on whom he had done

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Letters 1872–1926

TO M A RG A R E T, LA DY RA M S AY 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 26 Jan. 1911 Dear Lady Ramsay, Many thanks for your kind congratulations. Joy does predominate over sorrow, as I am fond of money and fond of leisure; but as I am also fond of solitude, and shall not have it at Cambridge, there is some sorrow mingled with the joy; apart from leaving friends and the College. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCL MS: Sir William Ramsay: Letters and Papers, 15. 155. Maas, 115.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 30 Jan. 1911 My dear Laurence, Although you are very conceited and Clemence, I fear, very rowdy, I thank you both for your congratulations. It is not by any means certain that I could have secured the Oxford chair by waiting for it; and on the whole I think I prefer Cambridge. I spent one of my hard-earned half-crowns on the English Review containing the trial-scene of your play:1 it interested me, but I did not think it would interest most people, without the Censor’s assistance. Disraeli visited the villa where your heroine resided in Italy,2 soon after the trial. Its decorations, he says, were of such a character that it was

his best to make an impression—and failed’ because he ‘refused to consider Plato’s meaning except so far as it was relevant to the settlement of the text’: Hugh Last to A. S. F. Gow, 1 Nov. 1937 ( TCC Add. MS a. 71162 ). Last also reports that Bidder found that ‘his efforts to commend the argument of the Republic to Housman’s consideration were apt to be parried by a monologue in the varied display of scholarship to be found in the work of Bekker, K. E. C. Schneider, Stallbaum, and K. F. Hermann’: The Oxford Magazine, 56 (1937), 69. Bidder was one of the five examiners who had no option but to fail AEH in Greats, though he was forbidden by examination statute to discuss or pass judgement on a member of his college. 1 Act 3 of LH’s Pains and Penalties, which was concerned with George IV’s attempt to divorce Queen Caroline, appeared in the issue of Nov. 1910. Though refused a licence by the Lord Chamberlain, the play was published in 1911. 2 The Villa d’Este on Lake Como, which Disraeli visited in 1826.

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30 January 1911

painful to view them in company with a lady.3 The local Italians regarded the tumult in London as a great joke.4 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. There may be material for another loyal and Hanoverian drama in the trial which begins on Wednesday.5 BMC MS. Memoir, 174; Maas, 116 (both incomplete).

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 30 Jan. 1911. My dear Ashburner, Many thanks for your congratulations. Ker and I were talking about you the day before your letter came, and he gave me your new address. I attribute my election to the fact that I was personally unknown to the majority of the electors, and the other candidates were not. I hope next year to come and see Italy in the spring for the first time,1 and Florence earning its name. If by any chance you ever go to Cesena, tell me beforehand, and I will annoy you by providing you with an hour’s job.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 251–2. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 18.

3 ‘It is a villa of the first grade—and splendidly adorned, but the ornaments are with[ou]t an exception so universally indelicate that it was painful to view them in the presence of a Lady and only the drawing rooms and the saloons are exhibited for the upper apartments are of a nature beyond all imagin[at]ion. We were refused admittance … ’: to his father, 2 Sept. 1826; letter 52/75 in Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1815–1834, ed. J. A. W. Gunn (1982). 4 ‘Here if they possessed any interest might you obtain thousands of stories of her late Majesty—but the time is passed thank God for them. Our riots in her favour are the laughing stock of all Italy’ (Disraeli in the same letter). 5 The King vs. Edward Frederick Mylius, who was charged with publishing a libel of and concerning the King, specifically attacking the royal marriage. (Mylius was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment.) 1 He visited Sicily. See AEH to Webb, 19 Apr. 1912. 2 To consult MS S 25. 5, written in 1457. It contains Manilius and Q. Serenus Sammonicus: see Codici e libri a stampa della Biblioteca Malatestiana di Cesena: ricerche ed indagini di Raimondo Zazzeri (Cesena 1887), 462, and Mucciolo’s Catalogus (Cesena 1780–4), 2. 164–5. By 1930, AEH had seen it for himself: Manilius V, xvii n. †.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO AG NATA BU TLE R 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 3 Feb. 1911 Dear Mrs Butler, I have been solacing my journey home with your son’s1 excellent verses which the Master2 was good enough to give me. Oxford men, following Dryden, sometimes refer to Cambridge as Thebes.3 Trinity Lodge, at any rate, seems to me a happy combination of Athens and Sybaris.4 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS ( J. R. M. Butler papers).

TO P RO F E S S O R H E N RY JACK S O N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 12 Feb. 1911 My dear Jackson, I have to thank you for your detective treatise,1 which I have been reading with great interest and with the result that I am more uncertain than ever. I do now see more clearly the objections to Datchley being Edwin; but on the other hand the experimental title Edwin Drood In Hiding which you quote on p. 86 most strongly suggests that he was not killed. And I feel in the marrow of my bones (though I do not pretend that that is the seat of intellect) that Datchley is no woman. Moreover, unless Dickens was a great knave, his account in c. xviii of how Datchley ‘became bewildered’, ‘with a general impression on his mind that Mrs Tope’s was’ etc., shows that Datchley, though familiar with the events, knew Cloisterham only from hearsay. I am rather coming round to my first impression that Datchley was Bazzard. It is true that they are not a bit alike, except in the colour of their eyebrows; and in God’s world that would be against the identification; but Dickens’s world is less like God’s than is Shakespeare’s or even Balzac’s. 1

See List of Recipients. He is not known to have published any verses. H. M. Butler: see List of Recipients. 3 In Prologue to the University of Oxford (Tho’ Actors cannot much of Learning boast), 37: ‘Thebes did His Green, unknowing Youth ingage’. 4 i.e., of intellectual and cultural pre-eminence and wealth. 1 About Edwin Drood, published by Cambridge University Press (1911). 2

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7 March 1911

The Special Board for Classics ask me to say, not later than the 17 th , what lectures I propose to give in the next academic year. As this depends on the question whether I am to lecture in this academic year, I should be grateful if I could be informed what decision the General Board comes to as soon as possible after their meeting on the 15th . I know of course that the final decision lies with the Senate. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 32 54(a) .

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 15 Feb. 1911 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, If the Thursday you speak of is next week, I should be very pleased to come; but if, as past experience leads me to fear, your Thursday means to-morrow, I am sorry I have got an engagement already. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Are you in the New Machiavelli?1 and if so, who are you? Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 25.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 7 March 1911 My dear Richards, The Wolsey Hall1 people do not know what they are talking about: my Juvenal would be no use to students whatever. The proper Juvenal for English students is Duff’s, Cambridge Press.2

1 1 2

H. G. Wells’s The New Machiavelli (1911) concerned a politician involved in a sexual scandal. Oxford correspondence college, founded in 1894. Published in 1898, 1900, and 1914.

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When Blackwell3 says ‘‘Eriphyle’’ he means the Fragment of a Greek Tragedy which appeared in Cornhill about ten years ago.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 100–1; Maas, 116.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 32 Panton Street | Cambridge 27 April 1911 My dear Laurence, This is to say that I am not coming to hear your seditious play,1 and I shall not make any attempt to see you, as your time will probably be taken up with more whole-hearted admirers. For the same reason I suppose you will not be coming to see me, though I shall be glad to see you if you do. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 175; Maas, 117.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 32 Panton Street | Cambridge 27 April 1911 My dear Richards, Mr Butterworth may have permission.1 I shall go to Paris on Thursday May 11th and come back the following Tuesday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 101 (nearly complete).

3

Oxford bookseller Benjamin Henry Blackwell (1849–1924). The Cornhill Magazine,  10 (Apr. 1901), 443–5, the third printing of the parody AEH wrote in 1883. 1 In defiance of the Lord Chamberlain, LH gave a public reading from Pains and Penalties. 1 See AEH to GR, 21 Nov. 1911. 4

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26 May 1911

TO F. M. CORN F OR D 32 Panton Street | Cambridge 17 May 1911 Dear Cornford, Thanks for your letter, which I found when I came back last night. I caught sight of your face at one point of the lecture,1 and was gratified by the expression it wore. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 58427, fos. 94–5.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College, Cambridge 17 May 1911 Dear Mr Bynner, It is true that I am now Professor of Latin here, and I thank you for your congratulations. Of course it is nonsense when they talk about my ‘steadily refusing to write any more poetry’: poetry does not even steadily refuse to be written by me; but there is not yet enough to make even a small book. I am glad to hear of you and your projects. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/13. Bynner/Haber (1957), 17; Maas, 117.

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L 21 Panton St., Cambridge 26 May 1911 Dear Mr Cockerell, It is very good of you to offer to show me over the Museum,1 and I should be glad to avail myself of your kindness some morning between 10 and 1. I think I had better leave you to fix the day, as your time is

1 1

AEH’s inaugural lecture at Cambridge, 9 May 1911. See the textual note on the next letter.

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Letters 1872–1926

probably much more occupied than mine: the only professorial function I am discharging this term is that of residing. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.). Maas, 117.

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L 27 May 1911 Many thanks: I will come at 11 o’ clock on Monday. A. E. Housman. BL Add. MSS 54316–17, fo. 619: p.c. addressed ‘The Director | Fitzwilliam Museum’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH.

TO P RO F E S S O R I S R A E L G O L L A N C Z Trinity College, Cambridge 9 June 1911 Dear Sir, I am greatly obliged by your letter and by the kind and flattering proposal of the Council of the British Academy, but I beg that I may not be nominated for election as a Fellow. The honour is one which I should not find congenial nor feel to be appropriate.1 I am, dear Sir, Yours faithfully A. E. Housman The Secretary of the British Academy BMC MS. Memoir, 112 (excerpt).

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 11 June 1911 My dear Laurence, Although I had very few official duties during the Cambridge term I was much occupied with social duties, which are a deal worse, and either from the climate or the heat was generally tired when I was not occupied, so that 1 This is consistent with AEH’s usual practice of refusing public honours. See AEH to Stewart, 11 Feb. 1905, and note.

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28 June 1911

I have not thanked you for the proofs of your play.1 It interested me, but I should not have thought it would interest most people, nor be effective on the stage. However, everyone who heard you was loud in praise of your reading,2 and apparently swallowed Caroline whole. An undergraduate came to me to get your address, which I gave him, after exacting assurances that he was not bent on avenging the glorious house of Hanover.3 I shall now be here, off and on, till October probably. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 175; Maas, 118; both slightly incomplete, and the latter with the wrong address.

TO H . E . BU T L E R 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 28 June 1911 Dear Butler, I did not see at the time the announcement, which I understand has been made, of your appointment as my successor, so that I am rather belated in sending my best wishes for your success and happiness. I think you will find at University College pleasant colleagues and tractable pupils. If there is any information about the work that you think I could supply I should be very pleased to do so; but you will very likely be able to get all you want from Platt, whose classes are in many respects parallel to the Latin. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305. Maas, 118.

1

Pains and Penalties. See AEH to LH, 30 Jan. 1911, n. 1. See AEH to LH, 27 Apr. 1911, n. 1. 3 LH’s play dealt incidentally with ‘the marital relations of King George IV and his wife Queen Caroline’, and the Lord Chamberlain’s office banned it on grounds that ‘the author had dared to pass unfavourable comments on the character of King George IV; and hostile reference upon the stage to the great-grand-uncle of our reigning Sovereign was … incompatible with respect for the institution of monarchy’: LH, The Unexpected Years (1937), 245. 2

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Letters 1872–1926

TO E D I T H W I S E 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 11 July 1911 My dear Edie, I suppose you have now been back some time from your Coronation jaunt.1 I can hardly imagine Woodchester without you at Woodchester House;2 but this is the very remark my mother made to the William Housmans3 in a letter which she wrote when Mr and Mrs Wise had just taken up their abode there. I always thought the Arthur Dunn’s house and garden very eligible, though I never yet have been inside either of them. About my coming to see you for a week end: I shall be going on a short visit to Kate in her cottage at Swanage about the first week in August: would it suit you if I came either just before or just after that? I was in residence at Cambridge during the May term, though with no definite work to do. I shall go there permanently at the end of September, and be living in Trinity College. I went away to Godalming to avoid the Coronation, and had a very wet day there, but a fine bonfire in the evening. Laurence came to Cambridge while I was there, and read to an admiring audience his censored play about Queen Caroline;4 but I lent no countenance to sedition. Love to all. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Woodchester, Glo’ster 4 Aug. 1911 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, It unfortunately happens that I am away, and paying a series of visits. This is about six miles from Bisley, near which you once spent a summer holiday. 1 George V was proclaimed king on 6 May 1910, and his coronation took place in Westminster Abbey on 22 June 1911, with celebrations in London. 2 Following the death of Edith’s mother on 13 Feb. 1911, the Wise family moved from Woodchester House to Oakley House, Woodchester, near Stroud. 3 William Housman, solicitor at Bromsgrove and then Bath, was AEH’s father’s uncle, and father of AEH’s stepmother Lucy. Pugh, 28–33, provides further information. 4 Pains and Penalties.

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17 August 1911

I had not heard about New York,1 but I suppose it is natural revulsion after India. I hope Rothenstein will find subjects equally inspiring. I may be going to Belgium and making the acquaintance of the van Eycks,2 who were, when I last received information on the subject, the painters. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 26. Maas, 118–19.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 15 Aug. 1911. My dear Richards, This is rather a miscellaneous letter. 1. The Second Book of Manilius is nearly finished, and a large portion of it will be ready for the printers by the end of this month, so I want them to start upon it while I am abroad in September. It had better be published on the same arrangement as the First, if you have no objection. 2. I expect to be in Paris in the first week of September and again in the third: about the 24th I shall take up my abode permanently in Cambridge, of which I will send you due notice when the time comes. 3. Can you tell me anything definite of the Hˆotel de Crillon as to expense? e.g. whether one would get a bedroom and bathroom for 20 francs or so. I shall most likely go either there or to the Continental. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 101; Maas, 119.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 17 Aug. 1911 My dear Richards, I did not receive the letter you wrote to Cambridge. Did you address it to Trinity College or to 32 Panton St.? 1 Rothenstein spent four months of 1911 involved in exhibitions of his drawings and paintings in New York, Boston, and Chicago. 2 Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck (1390?–1441), who perfected oil painting, and Hubert (d. 1426), supposed by some to be his brother.

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Letters 1872–1926

You may make the announcement1 in the Athenaeum if you will let me see it first. The arrangement I prefer is to deal with the printers through you, as they will pay you more attention than me. Thanks about the Crillon. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Illinois MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 101 (excerpts).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner] Yes, I received the Gourmet’s Guide,1 for which of course I ought to have thanked you before, as also for several other books of yours; but the fact is you spoil me. A.E.H. 20 Aug. 1911. Illinois MS p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 7 Carlton Street | Regent Street | S. W.’ LC-GR t.s. Richards, 101–2.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 28 August 1911 My dear Richards, 1. I have just despatched to you by Parcel Post the text and notes of the Manilius. If you will be good enough to acknowledge receipt of them, I can go abroad with a mind at ease. 2. This second book is to be printed in just the same form as the first, of which the printers had better have a copy to guide them. 3. It will be convenient to me if at first, in slip, the text and notes are printed separately, not together as on the former occasion.

1

Of vol. II of the Manilius, published in 1912. Lieut.-Col. N. Newnham-Davis’s The Gourmet’s Guide to Europe, of which GR published the 3rd edn. in 1911: Richards, 101–2 n. 1

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28 August 1911

4. The type-written text contains the letters J (cap.)

j (l.c.)

v (l.c.)

These are everywhere to be changed to I

i

u.1

The compositor’s simplest way to avoid error will be to put lids on the receptacles containing the types of the forbidden forms, so that his hand cannot get into them; but no doubt he is too proud to take advice from me. 5. As to errors of the press and corrections. On former occasions the proofs have come to me full of the usual blunders,—numerals wrong, letters upside-down, stops missing, and so on. I have then, at the cost of much labour, removed all these errors. Then, when the last proof has left my hands, the corrector for the press has been turned on to it, and has found nothing to correct; whereupon, for fear his employers should think he is not earning his pay, he has set to work meddling with what I have written,—altering my English spelling into Webster’s American spelling, my use of capitals into his own misuse of capitals, my scientific punctuation into the punctuation he learnt from his grandmother. What ought to be done is the reverse of this. The errors which are introduced by the printer should be removed by the press corrector, who will do it more easily and rapidly, though not more efficiently, than I; then and not till then the proofs should come to me, and after that no corrections should be made except by me. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. P.S. Because my hand is particularly good and clear, printers misread it wherever they can; but there is only one letter which they can misread, and that is the letter r. At the end of a word they pretend they think it is s, and in other positions they pretend they think it is v. If they would just notice how I write it, and not expect to find , it would save trouble. Illinois MS. Lined foolscap sheets. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 102–3; Maas, 119–20.

1

See AEH to GR, 12 Oct. 1902, n. 4.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Yarborough Villas | Woodridings, Pinner 30 Aug. 1911 My dear Richards, It is a sine qua non that Book II of the Manilius should be identical with Book I in type, arrangement, paper, and get-up generally. If this can be secured, I have no decisive objection to changing the printers. But still I should prefer Clark,1 unless you have some decided reason on the other side. They are more accurate than Maclehose2 or any one who has ever printed the Classical Review; and when the Juvenal was finished they wrote to me to say that they hoped I would employ them for any similar work in future: though I don’t suppose this was due to any sentimental affection for me. Moreover I am a conservative, and do not like changing anything without due reason, not even a printer,—nay, not even a publisher. Your Athenaeum notice is quite chaste in style. I have put in a word or two.3 I am off to Paris to-morrow, and shall be at the Continental for a week. Any letter after that had better be addressed here. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Princeton MS ( J. Harlin O’Connell Collection 3 E-M, Housman folder). LC-GR t.s. Richards, 103 (nearly complete); Maas, 120.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 2 Sept. 1911 Yes, this lady can have what she wants. A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s.

1

R. & R. Clark of Edinburgh. For ‘MacLehose’ (the printers of vols. II–V of the Manilius). 3 The notice in The Athenaeum, 4376 (9 Sept. 1911), 302, read: ‘Prof. A. E. Housman has nearly ready for the press a second book of his critical and explanatory edition of Manilius. It will be published, as was the first, by Mr. Grant Richards.’ 2

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1 October 1911

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Hatch End 22 Sept. 1911] I don’t know if you have given my old address to the printers; but if so, please tell them also of the change. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s., which supplies the address and date from the postmark. On printed card announcing ‘Mr A. E. HOUSMAN | has moved to | TRINITY COLLEGE, | CAMBRIDGE.’ Richards, 103.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS /Trin. Coll./, | . 1 Oct. 1911 My dear Richards, The account for Manilius I is not where I thought it was, and to look for it through my heaps of old bills and letters would take more time than I can spare; so unless I come across it by accident I cannot send it you. But I find from my bank book that I paid you a cheque for £83. 9. 0, and a month later another for £3. 1. 0, which I suppose was for binding. I have told you already that I think this second book must cost more. The Juvenal, including binding of 200 copies, was £69. 7. 0; but that is irrelevant. I am horrified at your bringing back a Tauchnitz1 and sending it to a respectable person like me. I gave it to you because otherwise I should have left it in France. There is a lovely portrait of my disreputable relatives2 in yesterday’s Standard. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 104 (nearly complete).

1 A volume from the Leipzig publisher, Bernhard Tauchnitz, probably from the ‘Library of British and American Authors’, of which there were more than 4000 volumes in 1908. The volumes were intended exclusively for Continental distribution. 2 LH and Clemence, on the occasion of the latter’s imprisonment for non-payment of taxes. See AEH to LH, 9 June 1910, n. 7. ‘On 30 September 1911 she was arrested by the bailiff ’s official from Somerset House, sentenced, and taken to Holloway Gaol in a taxi, Laurence riding with her, and press photographers following. That night the Evening Standard printed the picture of Clemence and Laurence in front of the Gaol … ’: K. L. Mix, HSJ 2 (1975), 47. The picture is reproduced in HSJ 18 (1992), opposite p. 42.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS /Trin. Coll./ | . 5 Oct. 1911 My dear Richards, Your letter of July 27 has at last turned up, and I return its enclosure. Thanks for your cheerful information about the price of the Manilius; but we don’t know what the author’s corrections will run to. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 104 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 18 Oct. 1911 My dear Richards, I am grateful for the cuttings you send me and for your note about Filson Young, and also to him; but it is too soon at present, as I shall not have spare money for indulging my passions in that direction for some time to come.1 I should like to know when you are going to America, and for how long, on account of the Manilius. The printing seems very creditably correct, but I have little time to revise the proofs just at present; and in any case I mean to revise the notes en masse, and not piece-meal as the instalments come. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Princeton MS ( J. Harlan O’Connell Collection). LC-GR t.s. Richards, 104.

1 ‘For some time Housman had been talking of setting up a car of his own, but since that, to be useful, would also have necessitated the hiring or setting up of a chauffeur, the project came to nothing. Filson Young, just then, was an authority on motoring, and had volunteered, through me, to take Housman over the Olympia show and to see that he had the opportunity of examining those cars which would be most suitable. Housman, when he came to see me in Berkshire, would often take a car from Cambridge for the journey, and he seemed when touring in France always to travel by car rather than by train’: Richards, 104–5.

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6 November 1911

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 24 Oct. 1911 My dear Richards, I enclose the whole text of Manilius II corrected. The notes will occupy me longer. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 105 (nearly complete).

TO H . W. G A RRO D Trinity College, Cambridge 24 Oct. 1911 My dear Sir, I have no wish to prevent other scholars from editing Manilius, but rather the reverse; and I think the world is probably wide enough for both our books,1 as each contains a good deal which the other does not. I congratulate you on your addition to our knowledge of the cod. Venetus.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Maas, 121.

TO W I L F R I D S C AW E N B LU N T Trinity College, Cambridge 6 Nov. 1911 My dear Sir, It is very kind of you to ask me to pay you a visit,1 and it would give me great pleasure to do so; but as I am a new comer to Cambridge I am at present much tied by invitations, and it is not possible for me to get away 1

Garrod’s translation of, and commentary on, Book II of Manilius was published in 1911. AEH declined to review it on its publication, but attacked it unrelentlingly in the preface to Manilius V (1930): ‘His conjectures were singularly cheap and shallow … The apparatus criticus is neither skilful nor careful, often defective and sometimes visibly so … The commentary … contains so much error that the only readers who can use it with safety are those whose knowledge extends beyond Mr Garrod’s’: Selected Prose, 47: Ricks (1988), 388–9. 2 AEH in the Preface to Manilius V : ‘The most valuable part of its contents was the new and enlarged knowledge of the cod. Venetus provided by his discovery of Gronouius’ collation in the margin of a book of Bentley’s’: Selected Prose, 47; Ricks (1988), 388. 1 See AEH to Blunt, 19 Nov. 1911.

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next Saturday. The earliest date at which I am free is a fortnight later, and as you are good enough to ask me to name a time I will suggest Saturday the 25th to Monday the 27th , if that is convenient to you. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. West Sussex Record Office MS: Blunt MSS, Box 29.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S & CO Trinity College, Cambridge 9 Nov. 1911 Dear Sirs, I have been very agreeably surprised by the accuracy of Messrs MacLehose’s printing. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 105 (nearly complete).

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S & CO Trinity College, Cambridge 11 Nov. 1911 I should be obliged if you would send me one copy of the 2/6 edition (I think that is the price) of A Shropshire Lad. A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082: p.c. addressed ‘Messrs Grant Richards & Co. | 7 Carlton Street | Regent Street | S. W.’ LC-GR 3 contains a t.s. copy. White (1950), 404.

TO W I L F R I D S C AW E N B LU N T Trinity College, Cambridge 19 Nov. 1911 Dear Mr Blunt, There appears to be a suitable train which will bring me to Southwater at 5. 48 on the 25th , and another which will take me away at 10. 34 on the Monday morning, so I propose to use these.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. West Sussex Record Office MS: Blunt MSS, Box 29. 1 AEH and the author and editor Wilfrid Meynell (1852–1948) were Blunt’s guests for the weekend. See letter to Blunt, 6 Nov. 1911. In My Diaries: being a personal narrative of events,

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10 December 1911

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 21 November 1911 My dear Richards,] The composer Butterworth is said to say that he has your express permission to print my words on concert programmes. What is the truth of the matter?1 I know you are in America and shall not expect an answer till you return. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 105.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 10 Dec. 1911 My dear Richards, I hope you are back safe from among the Americans. I enclose, corrected, the first 4 slips of the Manilius notes. These can now be printed in pages, in combination with the text, which I returned corrected more than a month ago. Care should be taken that at any rate the beginning of a note on a line /of the text/ should be on the same page as the line itself. This is not absolutely necessary where the two pages are both presented to the eye at once; but it is absolutely necessary where turning the leaf would be involved. Now that the term is over I shall be progressing quickly with the corrections and the preface. I mean to stay here for the vacation. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 106.

1888–1914, ii, 1900–1914 (published 1919–20), 387, Blunt recorded of AEH: ‘He does not smoke, drinks little, and would, I think, be quite silent if he were allowed to be.’ Gow, 47: ‘Housman said the description was perfectly accurate (except that so far as he could remember there was little to drink)’. 1 Butterworth was at fault in that he ‘had failed … to distinguish between permission to set to music and permission to print in concert programmes’: Richards, 105. See AEH to GR, 27 Apr. 1911.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 13 Dec. 1911 My dear Richards, I enclose slips 5–12 of the Manilius notes. I also have over-eaten myself this term (being asked to so many College feasts) and drunk too much of that noble but deleterious wine Madeira.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 106–7.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 19 Dec. 1911. My dear Richards, I now enclose about half of the preface to Manilius, with figures a to g for insertion. Over the page I give some directions for the printers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. [Overleaf] Preface. The type, both large and small, should be the same as in the preface to book I. The figures must be neatly and clearly executed. They should on no account be larger than I have drawn them; indeed I should like them to be considerably smaller, provided that clearness is not sacrificed. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 107 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 28 Dec. 1911 My dear Richards, I enclose:— The second half of the preface to Manilius, (13 pages), with 3 figures. The remainder of the notes (slips 23–54) corrected. 1 ‘Housman had a great liking for Madeira, drinking it now and again instead of Port’: Richards, 107 n., where it is also noted that AEH once paid the excess cost of a madeira above TCC’s Wine Committee’s limit in order to secure the wine for the college.

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30 December 1911

I should have thought I ought to have received by this time the combination of text and notes (slips 1–22). A fortnight hence I shall begin to be busy again, and have little time for this job. But I suppose all Scotland will be drunk.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 107 (incomplete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 29 Dec. 1911 My dear Richards, I return corrected the pages 1–16 of Manilius, which are satisfactory in most respects. But I must call attention to the transpositions of letters on pp. 6, 8, 9. These errors are new; and the printers ought to take care not to introduce new errors. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College, Cambridge 30 Dec. 1911. My dear Kate, I am staying here through the vacation as I am seeing a book through the press and found that I could not do much at it during the term. Being conscientious, I took a good deal of time to prepare my lectures; and being a new-comer, I was much asked out to dinner. People here are very hospitable and friendly. The attendance at my lectures was from 20 to 30 (which, though not large, is from 20 to 30 times greater than the attendance at my predecessor’s),1 several of whom were lecturers themselves. I believe the lectures are considered good (as indeed they are). I don’t know that the climate exactly suits me, and probably I have drunk too much port at College Feasts; but I am not feeling stupid, which is the great thing. 1 1

Following New Year celebrations, which AEH surmises will affect MacLehose the printers. J. E. B. Mayor (1825–1910), who had been Professor of Latin since 1872.

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The twins of Mrs Martin of Hereford called on me the other day, when they were up for scholarships. They were as fluent and self-possessed as ever, and conversed affably on subjects which they thought likely to interest me. I see that each got a scholarship or exhibition, though only for £40,2 Cambridge being less munificent than Oxford and they less intellectual than Gadd.3 I was glad to have your letter at Christmas: I also heard from Jeannie. Love to all. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 1 . Memoir, 146 (incomplete); Maas, 121.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 31 Dec. 1911. My dear Richards, 1. I have returned under another cover the seven diagrams executed by the printers, with directions. 2. I enclose herewith a diagram (Z) and letter-press, both of which are to stand on the page facing the first page of text and notes: their size must therefore be regulated accordingly. This is the last diagram which I shall require: they are eleven in all, I think. 3. I also enclose a short paragraph to stand at the beginning of the preface. 4. Will you lunch with me at the Café Royal on Wednesday Jan. 3; and, if you can, will you name your own time? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. 5. I have to thank you for a note and a novel. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 107–8 (nearly complete).

2 Stephen Staffurth Martin of St Paul’s School, London, was admitted to KCC on 8 Oct. 1912 as a ‘Fielder Exhibitioner’. He was killed in action on 13 Aug. 1917 while serving as a corporal in the Middlesex Regiment. Thomas Lyttle Martin (1893–1982), also of St Paul’s School (1906–12), was elected to a scholarship worth £40 p.a., at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to which he was admitted on 7 Oct. 1912. He graduated BA, 1918, and MA, 1921, and went on to teach at St Paul’s School. 3 Cyril John Gadd (1893–1969), a pupil at King Edward’s School, Bath (where KES’s husband Edward was headmaster) won a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford. A classical scholar, he later became the leading British Sumerologist of his time.

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31 December 1911

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge] As regards the Manilius diagrams, it occurs to me that perhaps I ought to remark that I drew them as they are to appear in print, without allowing for the reversal of right and left which takes place in printing. A. E. Housman. 31. 12. 11. BMC MS: p.c. addressed to ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 7 Carlton St | Regent St | S. W.’ LC-GR t.s. Richards, 108 (nearly complete).

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 31 Dec. 1911 Dear Sirs, I return the seven drawings of diagrams for the Manilius, and I return also my own original drawings, which must also be returned to the printers. The work is very nicely executed, and the only fault I find with it is that the artist has imitated too closely my own imperfect draughtsmanship. I have failed in several cases to put II and on the same level, and in the diagram c (hexagona) the inequality is unpleasant to the eye and should be corrected somewhat as I have pencilled on the tissue paper. As to the size of the blocks, the chief matter to be considered is the following. It is important that the diagrams should be inserted exactly at those points in the letterpress which I have indicated in my MS. But when the preface is put into pages, it may happen that the end of a page will cut a diagram in two; and the greater the perpendicular height of the diagram, the oftener this is likely to happen, and the more difficult it will be to remedy. The printers must remember to place under the diagrams the titles shown in my drawings. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards Ld. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 108 (nearly complete); Maas, 122.

1912 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 4 Jan. 1912 My dear Richards, I return pp. 17–48 of the Manilius notes corrected. The printers have introduced two new errors, aque for quae on p. 25 and II for I on p. 33: this last is a perfectly atrocious action, and I cannot imagine how such a thing could come to pass. I wonder where they will stop if they once begin altering numerals: it will be impossible for me to detect them except by chance. I want to have pp. 1–16 again, as I overlooked some things which were wrong. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 109; Maas, 122.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S & CO Trinity College, Cambridge 7 Jan. 1912 Dear Sirs, I return the three redrawings of diagrams, together with the originals, which should also be returned to the printers. The only error is that in the diagram M the small loop of the sign of Leo is not rightly executed. I have now drawn it more clearly in pencil on the original. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 109 (nearly complete).

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1 February 1912

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College, Cambridge 9 Jan. 1912 (Manilius) I am obliged by your note of yesterday; but I certainly do wish to see pp. 17–48 again at some time before they are printed. A. E. Housman. BMC MS: p.c. addressed to ‘Messrs Grant Richards Ld | 7 Carlton St. | Regent St. | S.W.’ LC-GR t.s. Richards, 109 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 12 Jan. 1912 My dear Richards, I hope that the Manilius may appear before the end of February, and it occurs to me that it might avoid delay if they already began to prepare the cover: they know the number of pages (text and notes and preface combined) well enough to be able to judge of the size: the only addition will be about 3 pages of index, which I cannot complete till the preface is paged. I therefore enclose a rough pattern: the type and colour to be just the same as vol. I. The label on the back to be MANILII II. HOVSMAN Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 109–10; Maas, 122.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 1 Feb. 1912 My dear Richards, I enclose the only parts of the Manilius in which there are still corrections to be made, and I also send the Index (to be printed in double columns just as in the other volume), and corrigenda to Book I, to face p. 118. This completes the book. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 110.

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TO TH O M A S PY M Trinity College 2 Feb. 1912 Dear Pym, I am very grateful indeed for the tragic drama.1 I will not enquire which of you invented the bedmaker arriving on the bicycle; but that is the supreme stroke. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Dora Pym, Tom Pym: A Portrait (1952), 39.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge. 11 Feb. 1912 My dear Richards, I enclose the last corrections of proofs. I do not want to see them again, and so far as I am concerned all is now ready for publication. I suppose I can trust them to make the binding the same colour as Book I. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 110; Maas, 123.

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 14 Feb. 1912 Dear Cockerell, Will you come to the Combination Room1 a little before 7. 45 tomorrow? Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS.

1 Fellow or Felon? or The Master and the Miscreant, a tragic melodrama in two acts by ‘Thomas Wentworth’ and ‘William Brown’ [alias Pym and Denys Winstanley]. It was first performed in the A.D.C. Theatre, Cambridge, at a Smoking Concert on 22 Feb. 1909, and first revived, with Pym in his original part, in the Lent term Smoking Concert of 1912. 1 The Fellows’ common room at TCC.

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4 March 1912

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Feb. 1912 My dear Richards, I enclose a list of copies to be sent ‘from the author’, and also for review. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 110 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Feb. 1912. My dear Richards, I enclose cheque for £75. 8. 10. When will the precious work be published? The Cambridge term ends on March 15, the coal-strike begins to-morrow,1 and the destruction of the national wealth is a question of days. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 110; Maas, 123 (both nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [4 March 1912] I expressly said no corrections required Housman.1 LC-GR t.s. Telegram dated March 4, 1912, addressed to ‘Richards | 7 Carlton Street | London | S. W.’ Richards, 110; Maas, 123.

1 The national strike of miners, in support of their demand for a minimum wage for every man and boy working underground, continued until 11 April. 1 ‘The printers … must have raised some fresh query about the proofs’: Richards, 110.

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TO P. G. L . W E B B Trinity College, Cambridge 19 April 1912 Dear Webb, I have just come back from abroad and found here the translations from Heine you have been kind enough to send me.1 I have been dipping into them, and was very much pleased with the piece on p. 33.2 The conclusion of Faust I don’t like any better than the original. I am very glad to have the book. I have been in Sicily, where the weather and wild flowers were all that could be desired. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Maas, 123.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge] When Manilius II is published, if it ever is, will you send a copy ‘from the author’ to Monsieur G. Saenger1 Wasili-Ostrow, 16ème ligne, N 9 St Petersburg in addition to the list of names you have already. A. E. Housman. Cambridge, 23 April 1912 Princeton MS ( J. Harlan O’Connell Collection): p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 7 Carlton Street | Regent Street | S. W.’

1

Translations from Heine and Goethe, by Philip G. L. Webb (1912). ‘from Die Heimkehr’: The moon is up and cresting | The waves with silver rays, | My love in mine arms is resting, | Her head on my heart she lays.  The lovely child is clinging, | As I lie by the lone sea-strand; | ‘What song is the wild wind singing? | Why trembles thy snow-white hand?’  ‘Those are no winds go sighing, | But mermaids’ songs they be; | And it is my sisters crying | Who were drowned long since in the sea.’ 1 Gregory E. Saenger was the author of six classical papers in Russian, 1910–12, and he had sent copies to AEH: see Naiditch (2004), 155. 2

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1 May 1912

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 28 April 1912 My dear Richards, A month ago you wrote to say that you were informed that Manilius II was on the sea. Where are you now informed that it is? at the bottom? or is the vessel approaching London via Yokohama? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 110; Maas, 124.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 1 May 1912 My dear Richards, Mr Butterworth can have what he wants.1 Two months ago I sent you a list of the persons and newspapers to which I wished copies of the Manilius to be sent. Probably you have lost it, in which case please let me know at once and I will draw up a new one: don’t keep the poor wretches waiting another couple of months. Whether I can lunch with a person who is so far from being what he should be is a question which I will consider between now and my next visit to London. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 110–11; Maas, 124 (both nearly complete).

1 Composer George Butterworth (1885–1916) was almost certainly seeking permission to publish ‘Bredon Hill’ and Other Songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’ (1912), which included settings of XXI (Bredon Hill), XX (Oh fair enough are sky and plain), VI (When the lad for longing sighs), XXXV (On the idle hill of summer), and LIV (With rue my heart is laden). His settings of six different songs from ASL had been published in 1911.

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TO F. J. H . J E N K I N S O N Trinity College 3 May 1912 Dear Jenkinson, I shall not need to consult further the Holkham MS of Manilius, and so far as I am concerned it may be returned. I am very grateful to you for procuring it. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 6463 (E) 7386.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge 17 May 1912 Dear Mr Bynner, It is very good of you to have sent me your poem,1 which I return as you request. It has a number of fine lines, as That homeless politics have split apart The common country of the human heart. The only criticism I have to make, if it is a criticism, is that my personal ear is not pleased by verses of more than 10 syllables in this mixed metre, though I know that Patmore2 and others have used them. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/14. Bynner/Haber (1957), 18.

1 An Immigrant, the Phi Beta Kappa poem read at Harvard in June 1911 and enlarged and published in 1915 as The New World. 2 Coventry Patmore (1823–96), who used such metres (iambics with irregular numbers of feet per line) in The Unknown Eros, Amelia, and Tamerton Church-Tower.

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22 May 1912

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College, Cambridge 22 May 1912 Dear Mackail, You well describe as extraordinary the pleasure with which you are kind enough to say you read my commentary.1 I don’t believe any one in Cambridge will read it, whether with pleasure or with agony: the Latinists here are very well disposed towards me but terribly afraid of Manilius. I return your notes, which I am obliged to you for sending me, and I add remarks on some of them. 3. I don’t think it admits of dispute that sub with the abl. in Manilius can mean ‘in the person of’. There is another example at IV 766, about which I wrote on p. lxxi of the 1st volume; and in IV 25 no other interpretation is possible, for Troy, except as embodied in Aeneas, was overthrown. That non euersa means the opposite of uicta is a circumstance which does not affect the question. Of course tutam sub Hectore is also quite good in itself: I only prefer uictam because I think it more appropriate. 23. The nymphs in Stat. Theb. IV 684 are fluuiorum numina because they belong to the rivers, but the rivers do not belong to them. ustic is not very like at. 55. durato ore = beak[.] 90. haec seditio ‘ces deux mouvemens opposés de l’océan’ Pingré. Stat. Theb. IX.141–2 Siculi … seditione maris, the tides of the straits of Messina. 193. If you came across superest, quaeritur alterum, it would surprise you a good deal more than superest et quaeritur unum. 246. You understand the phrase much as I do; my only difficulty is the lack of an exact parallel. 324. sequentum surely would not make sense, for the partem summam belongs only to the 4th sign. sequentis is wanting in precision, but so is prioris; and the defence, as I say in my note, is that only the signs where the angles come are taken into consideration. 328. I don’t think there is any ellipsis of the subject of duplicat: its subject is the nearest preceding substantive. 337. The angle in question is 90◦ , not 60◦ . 419–21 (and 718 and 774–81). If you are going to rid Manilius of redundant ornament, you have your work cut out for you: even his 1

On Manilius II.

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admirer Scaliger confesses that he does not know when to leave off. Here you will have to remove 422 as well, because sic etc. will have nothing proper to refer to; and if you eject the description of summer and winter you ought not to spare its pendant, the description of spring and autumn which follows. 521. The four tropical signs are the leaders of the four triangles, and the opposition of triangle to triangle is effected by the two diameters which join those signs. The other four diameters, joining the subsidiary signs (e.g. Taurus and Scorpius), can only say ditto. 534. (quid) mirer, I agree, is not Manilius’ usual way of talking, but it is inoffensive in itself and can hardly be got rid of without great expense. In your conjecture I think neu should be ne, as no conjunction is in place. 574. que unites the participle defixa and the clause quod … feruntur, both of which are causal. So in Ouid. met. V 367 que unites postquam exploratum satis est and deposito metu, both of which are temporal. 544. dant would certainly have the advantage of making the construction of Pisces clear, and Scorpius acer would quite account for the change to dat[.] 552. The Centaur is called geminus (IV 784) as being bimembris. 566. fugata seems to me not only more violent but less suitable than the fugiens I conjectured in 1903. With a passive participle one would expect uirtute or a uirtute rather than sub. 615. If you like uellere better than corpore I think you ought to like tergore better still. 644–5. It is desirable to procure a stellarum for uagarum, but what parte wants is the genitive mundi, and I don’t think the sense of your supplement is admissible. 699. Of course ecce much oftenest stands at the beginning of a verse, but it has no native repugnance to the end, and stands there in Verg. Aen. III 219. 745. (Lucr. VI 85). quoque does not seem to be found except in quoqueuersus. 826. If quae is right, at caeli is probably as good as anything else; but qui is supported by the parallels I quoted. 860. The future participle of nascor, so far as it exists at all, is nasciturus; and the sense which you procure is not germane to the matter in hand. 891. que is not attached to words ending in c by poets earlier than the 4th century (Madvig Cic. de fin. V 40, Haupt opusc. III pp. 508–10): the exception, Ouid. fast. IV 848, is one of those which prove rules. huice is not used in the classical period at all.

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2 July 1912

917. If we had thea here I should have expected theos in 909–10. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Maas, 406–7.

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N Trinity College, Cambridge. 15 June 1912 I have been away for a week, and find here your two papers, for which many thanks. I am reading Bird and Beast 1 with great interest. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. St Andrews MS 23590: p.c. addressed ‘Professor D’Arcy Thompson C.B. | University College | Dundee’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 2 July 1912 My dear Richards, I shall be staying in London during the first few days of next week; so that if you are there, and still cherish your benevolent intention of asking me to lunch, you will have your chance. I see that you are coming out as a novelist: Huîtres or Crevettes roses or some such title.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 111.

1 ‘On Bird and Beast in Ancient Symbolism’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 38 (1897), 179–92. 1 Caviare, Richards’s first novel, published in 1912.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 5 July 1912 My dear Richards, I shall be delighted to lunch with you on Tuesday. I expect to sleep Saturday night at Liverpool St., Sunday at G. Vize,1 15 Spencer Rd, Putney, Monday at Charing Cross Hotel. You can send Manilius to this infatuated philosopher, since he seems to want him. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 111 (nearly complete).

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S & CO Trinity College, Cambridge 23 July 1912. Dear Sirs, I suppose that what Mr Byrne really wants to do is to print one poem out of A Shropshire Lad with a Greek translation. This he may do: of course he must not print the whole book; nor more than one poem, unless he makes separate application for each. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 111.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 July 1912 My dear Richards, I remember the name of Graham Peel1 as a composer to whom I gave some permission. If he mentions the name of the author I don’t think he is 1 George Henry Vize (c.1845–1914). ‘Collector of antiquities and china, once champion heavy-weight boxer &c.’: AEH to GR, 6 June 1912. George and Kitty Vize were friends of AEH’s colleague at the Patent Office, John Maycock: see Naiditch (1995), 19–20. AEH kept a cutting of Vize’s poem London Wall from the Putney Weekly Press and South-Western Post, 24 June 1904: SJCO, Higham Collection. Vize was one of the best known all-round athletes of his time, winner of numerous swimming and rowing races, and once holder of the Queensberry heavyweight boxing championship. 1 In 1911 Gerald Graham Peel (1877–1937) published a setting of Bredon Hill (ASL XXI) under the title In Summertime on Bredon.

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11 August 1912

bound to mention the name of the book; and he probably altered the title because Bredon Hill has been set to music by so many composers2 and he wanted to differentiate, which I think is harmless. It was not Bourg but Bourges that I went to. I saw your case in the papers and wondered what exactly it was about. I don’t think any of my letters are very incriminating.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 111–12; Maas, 124.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College, Cambridge 11 Aug. 1912 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, It is a great pleasure to hear from you, and possibly I may soon have the still greater pleasure of seeing you. I know where Oakridge Lynch is, and this week I shall be staying at Woodchester, two miles on the other side of Stroud. If you could tell me the exact position of your abode, from Chelford station, or from the mouth of the tunnel, I could easily walk over on Thursday or Friday,—that is to say, unless my hosts have made other arrangements for me. My address will be c/ E. T. Wise Esq. Oakleigh Woodchester. I go there on Tuesday and return on Saturday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 27.

2 ‘Yet Peel’s ‘‘Bredon Hill’’ is only the fourth or fifth of those traceable, a number hardly warranting the ‘‘so many’’ ’: Banfield (1985), 236. 3 GR’s first publishing business had been sold by the Trustee H. A. Moncrieff to Alexander Moring of the De La More Press, who in due course came into possession of the firm’s correspondence. It included letters from a number of well-known authors, AEH among them, which Moring sold commercially to a bookseller. GR, alerted to this by Clement Shorter in the Sphere, began legal action against the bookseller, which came to nothing. However, he later recovered a number of letters, including letters from AEH, from the bookseller’s son: Richards, 112–13.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Oakleigh, Woodchester. Wednesday [13 Aug. 1912] I shall be delighted to come over to lunch on Friday. I will try to arrive a little before 1. I must be back here about 7, so unfortunately I cannot stay for the night. Yrs. A. E. H. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 28.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 7 Sept. 1912   ’ | 

My dear Richards, Your gift1 came just as I was starting, and prevented me from paying W. H. Smith & Son six shillings for some much less entertaining work to read on the journey. I read with great interest all through, though the Monte Carlo parts perhaps are not equal to the Parisian and American. These last seem to me particularly good. I have just seen a favourable review in the Telegraph. I hope you will not now take to writing poetry or editing Manilius. I am now going to Paris and shall be at the Continental probably till the 16th . Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Richards, 113; Maas, 125.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Hˆotel Continental, Paris 12 Sept. 1912 My dear Richards, The date at which I expect to be back is 3. 25 at Charing Cross on Wednesday the 18th . If you carry your kindness so far as to ask me to Cookham Dean that night, I should be very pleased to come; if not, I can easily go on to Cambridge and see my anointed sovereign.1 1

Of Richards’s novel Caviare, which was just appearing. King George V, who interrupted a Scottish holiday to watch large-scale military manoeuvres around Cambridge. He arrived on 17 Sept. and stayed for a few days at TCC: The Cambridge Review, 34. 838 (17 Oct. 1912), 4–5. 1

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1 October 1912

I don’t advise you to go any more to the Tour d’Argent.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 113 (nearly complete).

TO E DWA R D M A R S H Trinity College, Cambridge 1 Oct. 1912 Dear Mr Marsh, I well remember meeting you at Gosse’s, though I did not then connect you with the Master of Downing.1 The lady who sat next me at supper, on hearing your name, wondered if you were the author of The Beetle:2 I had not then read that book, so I did not know what a fearful suspicion this was. I now have a suspicion, less fearful though perhaps equally erroneous, that you may be the author of a little book3 Bowes and Bowes4 have just sent me, containing a beautiful poem on Good Friday; if so, I thank you for the gift. If you want to get poetry out of me,5 you must be either a relative or a duchess;6 and you are neither. As a brother and as a snob I am accessible from two quarters, but from no others. Besides, I do not really belong to your ‘new era’; and none even of my few unpublished poems have been written within the last two years. I shall be very much interested in your book. One of the names you mention is new to me, and there are others of whom I have only read a little. You do not mention Chesterton: his Ballad of the White

2

Eminent Parisian restaurant, ‘of which we were both fond’ (Richards, 113). Howard Marsh (1839–1915), father of polymath Edward Marsh (1872–1953), was Professor of Surgery at Cambridge and Master of Downing College. 2 Mystery novel (1897) by Richard Marsh (1857–1915). 3 XAPITE

I , by Elizabeth Bridges, published anonymously in 1911. 4 Cambridge booksellers and publishers, who published the book again in 1912. Good Friday was on p. 28: Where angel flowers up-torn | Lonely to die, | By angel hands are planted | The cooling love-enchanted | Streams anigh;  Where pure-joyed woodland creatures | Lustfully slain | To squandering slaughter driven, | Their fair strength meekly given | Receive again;  Thy delicate love rejected | Shall drink the dew, | Thy wistful comfort wasted | Shall there its power untested | Revive anew. 5 For the annual collection Georgian Poetry which Marsh edited, 1912–21. 6 See AEH to LH, 9 Aug. 1903, and to the Duchess of Sutherland, 11 Aug. 1903. AEH subsequently contributed poems (LP II, XXXVII, XXXVIII) to The Blunderbuss (3 Mar. 1917), The Times (31 Oct. 1917), and A Tribute to Thomas Hardy O.M. (2 June 1919): see Poems (1997), 37, 410, 412. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

Horse7 is absurd in its plan and its conception and often cheap and brassy in its ornament, but it contains quite a lot of really magnificent verses, which impressed me more than anything I have read for a long time. However, literary criticism is not what you were asking me for. I am yours truly A. E. Housman. Berg MS. Edward Marsh, Patron of the Arts: A Biography, by Christopher Hassall (1959), 194 (excerpt); Maas, 125–6.

TO MILDRED PLAT T Trinity College, Cambridge 10 Oct. 1912 Dear Mrs Platt, I shall be coming to town on the 17th to attend a meeting at University College, so I give you notice, as you kindly told me to do, in order that you may ask me to dinner if you feel inclined. The last winter was so mild that I had no excuse for drinking the sloe gin: it is therefore still maturing, and no doubt will become specially excellent. I gave some to a fellow of the College who has gout, and is consequently a connoisseur, and he admired it very much. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 126.

TO O L I V E B E N S O N Trinity College, Cambridge 15 Oct. 1912 Dear Miss Benson, You have my permission to publish your settings of the poems you speak of. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Miss Olive Benson. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Envelope addressed ‘Miss Olive Benson | North Augusta | S. C. | U. S. A.’, and postmarked 16 Oct. 1912.

7

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) contributed an extract from the poem.

299

28 November 1912

TO E DWA R D M A R S H [Trinity College | Cambridge] Yes

I have done as much for less deserving persons. A. E. H. 12. 11. 12. Berg MS: p.c. self-addressed ‘E. Marsh Esq. | 5. Raymond Buildings | Gray’s Inn | London W C’. The card bears Marsh’s instruction ‘Please scratch out the alternative rejected’, and AEH has cancelled ‘No’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 14 Nov. 1912 My dear Richards, Miss Fox may set the poem to music. The female novel which you gave me when I saw you last was very readable. I forget its name, but it contained an indiscreet portrait of Somerset Maugham.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 113–14 (nearly complete).

TO TH O M A S H A RDY Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Nov. 1912 Dear Mr Hardy, Let me say how sorry I am to see to-day the news of your bereavement.1 Several times since I was at Dorchester in 1900 I had met Mrs Hardy at the Gosses’ when she was visiting London, and though the last of these occasions was some years ago,2 I had not heard of any 1 Ada Leverson’s The Limit, published by GR in 1912: Richards, 114. GR takes the view that her character Hereford Vaughan had ‘very little likeness’ to Maugham. 1 Emma Lavinia, Hardy’s wife, had died the previous day, aged 72. They had been married over 38 years. 2 On 6 May 1909: The Book of Gosse, 263 sq. (CUL Add. MS 7034), as P. G. Naiditch testifies in HSJ 26 (2000), 107.

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failure of her health. I beg you to accept my sympathy and believe me always Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Dorset County Museum MS. Maas, 127.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 28 Nov. 1912 Dear Gow, I have taken tickets for Milestones1 for Tuesday Dec. 3. They are in the front row of the circle, which I hope suits you: it is my favourite part of a theatre. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 1 . Maas, 126.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1912 Dear Sirs, The permission asked by the Rev. H. S. Allen to print the lines from A Shropshire Lad must be refused.1 I return his letter. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman Messrs Grant Richards Ltd. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 114.

1 Arnold Bennett’s most successful play, written in collaboration with Edward Knoblock (author of Kismet), which was being performed at the New Theatre, Cambridge. It was first produced at the Royalty Theatre on 5 Mar. 1912. 1 ‘I have forgotten the reason, but it may well have been anticlericalism’: Richards, 114.

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26 December 1912

TO MILDRED PLAT T Trinity College, Cambridge 26 Dec. 1912 Dear Mrs Platt, I received yesterday your kind and beautiful present of the Dogana,1 in its sumptuous frame, which I suppose I must not admire unless I want to be suspected of not having taste enough to admire the picture properly, which I think I do. I am very grateful, and hope that heaven will reward you with a happy new year. I was much in need of something to divert my mind from the horrors of my situation, for Trinity College is a besieged city. A week ago there came a telegram to say that one of the junior Fellows, Pearse,2 whom Platt will know by name, had left his home, mad and armed, and would probably make his way here. All entrances to the College have therefore been closed, except the Great Gate, which is guarded by a double force of Porters. Cambridge was perplexed at first, but has now invented the explanation that it is the Master3 who has gone mad, and has made these arrangements in order that he may shoot at the Fellows from the Lodge as they come through the Great Gate. The Provost of King’s4 gives imitations of the Master thus engaged: ‘‘Ah, there is dear Dr Jackson!’’ bang!! What makes matters worse is that the College evidently sets no value on my life or even on that of the Archdeacon of Ely;5 for Whewell’s Court is left quite unprotected, and I have to look under the bed every night. My remembrances therefore to your husband and family: to-morrow I may be no more than a remembrance myself. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 127–8. 1

The often-portrayed Venetian counting-house. Percy James Pearse (b. 1884). Subsizar at TCC, 1903; Major Scholar, 1904; firsts in both parts of the Classical Tripos, 1906, 1907; BA, 1907; Fellow of TCC, 1909–15. 3 4 H. M. Butler. See List of Recipients. M. R. James. See List of Recipients. 5 The Revd William Cunningham (1849–1919), clergyman and economic historian. BA, TCC, 1872, Chaplain, 1880–91, Fellow, 1891; vicar of Great St Mary’s, Cambridge, 1887–1908; Professor of Economics, King’s College, London, 1891–7; Archdeacon of Ely, 1907–19; FBA, 1903. Author of The Growth of English Industry and Commerce (7 edns., 1882–1910). 2

1913 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 4 Jan. 1913 My dear Richards, If the Dly1 Sketch is an English paper, will you ask it what business it has to do this? I am assuming that copyright covers such cases.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 119 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Jan. 1913 My dear Richards, I am exceedingly sorry to hear of your illness. I remember your having some similar trouble, which you bore with great fortitude, once when we were in Paris together.1 One of my chief objections to the management of the universe is that we suffer so much more from our gentler and more amiable vices than from our darkest crimes. If the Daily Sketch will publish an expression of regret, that is all I want:2 no fee, on any account. What I object to is that when some people have asked leave to print my poems, and I have refused it, other people go and print them without asking. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. 1

i.e. ‘Daily’. AEH had discovered through his press-cutting agency that the newspaper had published ASL XVIII (Oh, when I was in love with you) on 2 Jan. 1913 without permission. ‘His assumption was correct, but nevertheless nothing much could be done … except to remonstrate with the editor and warn him not to do it again’: Richards, 119. 1 In 1907, when GR went to France ‘to convalesce after a sharp attack of influenza followed by a worse bout of shingles’ (Richards, 116). 2 It printed a brief apology on 25 January. 2

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12 February 1913

I shall be in London for a few hours on Tuesday, but only to keep a dinner engagement. I don’t know when I am likely to be up for any time. SIU MS VFM 1082. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 119–20 (nearly complete); Maas, 128.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 29 Jan. 1913 Dear Gow, I think this may answer your purpose, though the part about the planets is slovenly. The fisherman’s book, I find, is not much good as an exposition of astronomy. I especially warn you against spending 2s on a much-advertised work called Celestial Motions.1 Yours A. E. H. TCC. Add. MS c. 112 2 .

TO S T E P H E N G A S E L E E [Trinity College | Cambridge] What I should have said and thought I was saying is that the hiatus of monosyllables occurs only in the 2nd. syllable of the dactyl and in that place the hiatus of words rather than monosyllables does not occur,—the only exception being in proper names, Panopea˘e et, Enn˘ı imaginis. Hiatus like etesia˘e esse occurs even when there is no Greek word, ual˘e inquit, and probably Lucr. 6. 743 remig˘ı oblitae. Yrs A. E. Housman. 12 Feb. 1913 UCLA MS S/C 100/72: p.c. addressed ‘S. Gaselee Esq. | Magdalene College’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH. Naiditch (1996), item 36.

1

By William Thynne Lynn (1884, etc.).

304

Letters 1872–1926

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Feb. 1913 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, Bertrand Russell1 said to me yesterday ‘Have you seen anything of the Rothensteins lately’, and it went through my heart like a spear of ice that neither had I seen them nor had they heard from me, though you wrote to me at the beginning of the year. But if you ever have to examine for University Scholarships you will find as I do that all one’s leisure is fully occupied by wishing that one was dead; and I am only just at the end of this tribulation. I suppose I am right in directing this letter to your town mansion and not to your place in Gloucestershire. Iles2 is a regular Gloucestershire name. I have not been down there since I saw you last. I was telling Russell that I can remember when his father and mother used to live on the hill just opposite Woodchester. You and William ought to be in the country now to observe the progress of this extraordinary spring, or winter as it calls itself. I suppose you have seen Mrs Cornford’s new book.3 Her portrait in the frontispiece is pleasing and recognisable, but Cornford’s is almost a caricature.4 Best wishes to all of you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 29. Maas, 128–9.

TO L I LY T H I C K N E S S E [Trinity College | Cambridge] 8 March 1913 Dear Mrs Thicknesse, The chief excitements of the term here have been an agitation, by a highly undistinguished set of persons, to introduce conscription for undergraduates, as a last effort to frighten the Germans; and an exhibition 1 Bertrand [Arthur William] Russell (1872–1970). Mathematician, philosopher, and social reformer. Second son of Viscount Amberley and grandson of the first Earl Russell, whom he succeeded as Earl in 1931. Fellow of TCC, 1895; lecturer, 1910. Published The Problems of Philosophy, 1912, and the third and final vol. of his Principia Mathematica, 1913. 2 See AEH to Alice Rothenstein, 15 Aug. 1908. 3 Frances Cornford’s Death and the Princess (1912). 4 Mrs Bernard Darwin’s frontispiece illustration depicts the Princess with a large, horned, cloven-footed woodland god.

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22 April 1913

of post-impressionist undergraduate art, which is calculated to frighten the Germans a good deal more. My respects to both of you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Memoir, 204–5; Maas, 129.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 20 April 1913 My dear Richards, I return with thanks Frank Harris’s story,1 which I am glad to have read, though I think the conception is better than the execution. Thanks also for the book about wine. I forgot, when you were going off to Paris, to tell you to eat morilles,2 which are in season now. But perhaps you did so, or had done so already. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 120.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S & CO Trinity College, Cambridge 22 April 1913. Dear Sirs, Mr Cripper1 may print the five poems with his music. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082. LC-GR t.s. White (1950), 404.

1

The Irony of Chance in Unpath’d Waters, which GR had sent in proof: Richards, 120. ‘A sort of corrugated mushroom, and very, very good’: Richards, 120. 1 An error for [A. Redgrave] Cripps, whose ‘A Shropshire Lad’ Cycle of Five Songs was published in 1914. The settings were of XXIX, XV, XXII, XIII, and LVII. Cripps’s settings of a further nine poems were published in 1932. 2

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Letters 1872–1926

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 22 April 1913 Dear Gow, Will you dine with me in my rooms on May 10th at 8 o’ clock? I hope very much you may be able to come. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 3 .

TO PE RCY W. A M E S 13 May 1913. I am very grateful to those who have nominated me for a seat on your Academic Committee, among so many eminent men; and to yourself for your proposal to bring forward my name for election as Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; but I must nevertheless beg leave to decline both favours, which, however gratifying and honourable, are remote from my tastes and pursuits. BMC MS. Draft of reply written on t.s. letter from Percy W. Ames, Secretary to the Academic Committee of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom. Lilly MSS 3. 1. 10 (t.s. copy).

TO A . C . B E N S O N [Trinity College] 16 May 1913 [Dear Benson,] You write me a very kind letter, but your suasions fall upon the deaf ear of an egoistic hedonist. I suffer a good deal from life, and do not want to suffer more; and to join the Academic Committee or any similar body would be an addition to my discomforts, not overwhelming, but still appreciable. To analyse my feelings, which may be morbid, would only be a matter of curiosity; what concerns me is the feelings themselves, and there they are … For any practical purpose it would find me quite useless, and it can very well dispense with any lustre which might be shed upon it by my exiguous (though eximious) output. [Yours sincerely] A. E. Housman. TCC Adv. c. 20. 25: copy in E. F. Benson’s hand. Graves (1981), 170 (excerpt).

307

21 May 1913

TO JA M E S G. F R A Z E R In 1906 I was in the island of Capri on Sept. 8, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin. The anniversary was duly solemnised by fireworks at nine or ten in the evening, which I suppose were municipal; but just after sundown the boys outside the villages were making small bonfires of brushwood on waste bits of ground by the wayside. Very pretty it looked, with the flames blowing about in the twilight; what took my attention was the listlessness of the boys and their lack of interest in the proceeding. A single lad, the youngest, would be raking the fire together and keeping it alight, but the rest stood lounging about and looking in every other direction, with the air of discharging mechanically a traditional office from which all zest had evaporated. A. E. H. Here it is: not much, you see; but I cannot spin it out to more. 17 May 1913 TCC Add. MS b. 36 82(2) (t.s copy). Ackerman (1974), 357.

TO JA M E S G. F R A Z E R Trinity College 21 May 1913 Dear Frazer, The pious orgy at Naples on Sept. 8 went through the following stages when I witnessed it in 1897. It began at 8 in the evening with illumination of the fac¸ade of St Maria Piedigrotta and with the whole population walking about blowing penny trumpets. After four hours of this I went to bed at midnight, and was lulled to sleep by the barrel-organs, which supersede the trumpets about that hour. At four in the morning I was waked by detonations as if the British fleet was bombarding the city, caused, I was afterwards told, by dynamite rockets. The only step possible beyond this is assassination, which accordingly takes place about peep of day. I forget now the number of the slain, but I think the average is eight or ten, and I know that in honour of my presence they murdered a few more than usual. I enclose the extract from the Standard about Satan in Scotland. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Text based on TCC Add. MS b. 36 82(1) (t.s. copy). Ackerman (1974), 358.

308

Letters 1872–1926

TO W I L F R I D M E Y N E L L Trinity College, Cambridge 22 May 1913 Dear Mr Meynell, I must not altogether, as you suggest, put off thanking you for the three books you have been kind enough to send me; but it would be rather impertinent to do more than thank you. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. You may have heard that I had the pleasure of meeting your son1 the other day. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Wilfrid Meynell Esq. | 2A Granville Place | Portman Square | W.’

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College, Cambridge 22 May 1913 My dear Kate, I must return you your chart,1 which is a monument of industry and ingenuity, and I cannot add anything to it. My edition of Prince’s Worthies2 is 1810, the same as yours. The marginal note you speak of must mean ‘Sir W. Pole’s Description of Devon, chapter on Exmouth’. This book was in manuscript when Prince wrote, but has since been published.3 Neither this College nor the University Library has a copy, but I may be able to find one somewhere in Cambridge. I don’t know anything of the Clevedon lady,4 except that I have heard mamma speak of her. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 129–30.

1 Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell (1891–1975); later book designer, publisher, and founder of the Nonesuch Press (1923). 1 Of the Housman family tree. 2 Danmonii orientales illustres: or, the worthies of Devon … by John Prince, first published 1701. 3 In 1791, as Collections towards a description of the county of Devon Now first pr. From the autograph in the possession of Sir J.-W. De la Pole. 4 Mrs Gathorne-Hill (identified in KES’s note pencilled on the MS).

309

10 June 1913

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 4 June 1913 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, Alas, no, I cannot come to London on the 10th ; though I ought not to say alas, as the obstacle consists in my having been asked to dine at Jesus to meet Thomas Hardy, who is receiving an honorary degree.1 If my friends ask me to Woodchester, and you are in your country mansion at the time, I certainly will come and see you. Remember me to Wm. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 30. Maas, 130.

TO W I L F R I D M E Y N E L L Trinity College, Cambridge 10 June 1913. Dear Mr Meynell, This is indeed rather overwhelming, but I manage to gasp out my thanks. I am particularly glad to have the whole of Orison-tryst,1 whose first lines you repeated to me. I am sorry to hear from Cockerell this evening that you are not well. Yours sincerely and gratefully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘W. Meynell Esq. | 2A Granville Place | Portman Square | W.’

1 D.Litt. Hardy dined at Jesus College on the evening of 10 June, and Sydney Cockerell invited AEH along to meet him: P. G. Naiditch, ‘Thomas Hardy and A. E. Housman’, HSJ 26 (2000), 107. 1 Poem by Francis Thompson (1859–1907). Wilfrid Meynell, as his literary executor, in 1913 published The Collected Poetry of Francis Thompson in two limited edns., of 500 and 2,500 copies respectively.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO P RO F E S S O R H E N RY JACK S O N Trinity College 10 June 1913 My dear Jackson, I cannot express in words how little store I set by the enclosed composition,1 and how impossible it will be for you to injure my amour propre by any criticisms and corrections. I apprehend that it may be both too short and too stiff, apart from other demerits and defects; but now it is your turn. I am going abroad on Saturday, and expect to be away rather more than a week. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman, TCC Add. MS c. 32 53 . Maas, 130.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trin. Coll. Camb. 11 June 1913 I am going to Paris on Sunday for about a week, most likely to the Hotel Majestic, Avenue Kléber. Yrs A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. P.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 7 Carlton St. | Regent St. | S. W.’ Richards, 120 (nearly complete).

TO A . V. H O U G H TO N Trinity College | Cambridge 11 June 1913 Dear Sir, For twelve years or so I have been refusing to allow my poems to appear in anthologies, so I am afraid I must return a refusal to your request also. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman A. V. Houghton Esq. Bodleian MS Sidgwick & Jackson 285, fo. 24. 1 The draft of an address from the Fellows of Trinity College to congratulate the Master, the Revd H. M. Butler, on his eightieth birthday. See Selected Prose, 161–2, 200.

311

17 September 1913

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Aug. 1913 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, You were kind enough some months ago to ask me to come and stay with you either before or after I went to Woodchester, and I had been intending to try to manage things so; but I am going to Woodchester on the 13th for a week, and I have got other engagements both before and afterwards, so that I am afraid I shall have to confine myself to coming over to see you one day when I am there, if you will let me. Is Iles Farm still the correct address? I have not been away yet for any long time, though I spent a week in Paris in June. I expect at the end of the month to be going to the cathedral towns in Normandy which are not easily accessible from Paris,—Coutances, Bayeux, and so on. I sometimes meet friends of yours here,—the other day McEvoy the painter,1 who is depicting Prof. James Ward.2 My best respects to both of you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 31.

TO P RO F E S S O R D. A . S L AT E R      |  s   |  le 17 Sept. 1913 Dear Slater, I have been travelling about in Normandy beyond the reach of letters, and yours is one of a batch which has been forwarded here. So far as I remember, all I did at the British Museum MSS of the Metamorphoses was to consult them in the 15th book and the destitute parts of the 14th , at those places where Korn’s apparatus1 gave variants. My only reason for consulting them was that Postgate had sent me in proof his article on book XV,2 and I have no recollection of examining them in 1 Arthur Ambrose McEvoy (1878–1927). Entered Slade School of Fine Art, 1893. Later in his career, turned from landscapes and interiors to portrait painting, for which he became famous. 2 1843–1925. Philosopher and psychologist. Fellow of TCC, 1875; Professor of Mental Philosophy and Logic at Cambridge, 1897–1925; FBA, 1902. 1 The edn. of the Metamorphoses (1880) by [Carl Paul] O[tto] Korn (1858–1935). 2 ‘On Book XV of Ovid’s Metamorphoses’, JP 43 (1894), 144–56.

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the earlier books; nor do I know that anyone else has done so. As they are none of them eminent even among the poor MSS containing book XV, I should not expect them to be of any use beside the better MSS in the earlier books; but of course one never can tell. If you do as you suggest about the Tours MS of the Ibis I shall be very grateful for a sight of the photographs. It so happens that next term I am lecturing on book I of the Metamorphoses; so it would be no trouble to me to look through that part at any rate of your text and apparatus.3 Your proposal at XIV 6714 does not seem to me better than some others (I have seen tam digna somewhere, perhaps only in my own margin) nor very likely on general grounds. I am not at all sure that audacis wants changing: Ulysses was audax (though he had other characteristics more prominent and more often mentioned) and I believe I have noted down another place where he is called so. Further, a reading like timidi aut audacis, giving correct metre and grammar and a clear though foolish sense, suggests to me interpolation rather than a confusion of letters. I am returning to Cambridge at the end of the week. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Maas, 408.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 23 Sept. 1913 My dear Richards, Your new encroachment on literature reached me just as I was going abroad, and I found it excellently suited for reading while travelling. I am only just back, or I would have thanked you before. I have seen a review which says it is better than Caviar,1 and I hope the public will take that view, though I found Caviar the more continuously entertaining. I was chiefly in the west of Normandy, riding about in a motor car which I hired very cheap in Paris. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman, SIU MS VFM 1082. Richards, 120–1; Maas, 131. 3

Slater’s Oxford edn. of the Metamorphoses was never completed. Slater excluded this from his article ‘On three Passages of Ovid’, CR 27. 8 (Dec. 1913), 257–8, and later abandoned tam digna in his book Towards a Text of the Metamorphoses of Ovid (1927). 1 For ‘Caviare’. 4

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27 September 1913

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 24 Sept. 1913 My dear Richards, Thanks for the cheque, for which I enclose receipt. It is rather a weight off my mind, as I thought you might have been betting on horses whose names began with JE.1 Rothenstein told me that he had given permission to reproduce one of his drawings of me.2 There are two, one of which is much more repulsive than the other, because the artist touched it up with a lot of imaginary black strokes; and no doubt this is the one selected. It is no good my minding, so I do not mind: if I did mind, I daresay I should mind the letterpress even more. You will have had a note from me about Valentine which crossed yours. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 121; Maas, 131–2.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 27 Sept. 1913 My dear Richards, Mrs Marillier may publish her settings without paying a fee.1 If I remember right I have met H. C. Marillier2 at Laurence’s. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. No, I shall not be in Paris. I am now staying at home and being good. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 121 (excerpt).

1 Much of the plot of Caviare hinges on the fact that two horses have names that begin with these letters: Richards, 121. 2 In Holbrook Jackson’s The Eighteen-Nineties: A Review of art and Ideas at the Close of the Nineteenth Century, published by GR in 1913. 1 Settings of ASL II (Loveliest of trees) and XXXIV (The New Mistress) by Christabel Marillier (1883–1976) were published in 1920 and 1923 respectively. 2 Writer and tapestry expert Henry Currie Marillier (1865–1951).

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TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Oct. 1913 My dear Rothenstein, Full term begins on Friday, and this is to remind you that when you come here on your mission to our dusky brethren1 you are going to stay with me. I should like to know as far ahead as possible when you are coming, how long you can stay, and what your engagements are. I hired a motor in Paris and went for a tour in western Normandy in very good weather. I suppose you are now back in London having your children educated. My kind regards to Mrs Rothenstein. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 32. Maas, 132.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N [Trinity College | Cambridge] 10 Oct. 1913 My dear Laurence, An American ecclesiastic was here the other day, who asked to be presented to me, and from whom I gathered that his favourite work would be A Shropshire Lad, but for the existence of that fascinating story, The Were Wolf,1 which, again, would be his favourite work, but for the existence of the most brilliant political satire ever written, King John of Jingalo.2 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Memoir, 176; Maas, 132.

1 In 1910 Rothenstein proposed and co-founded the India Society, for the promotion and understanding of Indian art and literature. 1 By Clemence Housman. It originally appeared in Atalanta (Dec. 1890), 132–56, and was published in volume form by John Lane in 1896: Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV, HSJ 10 (1984), 39. 2 By LH (1912).

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12 October 1913

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Oct. 1913 My dear Mr Bynner, I was particularly glad to get your letter, because what delayed my acknowledgment of your book1 was the fact that I had not your address, except an old one at McClure’s. I thought the drama very vivid and telling, and I can praise it the more impartially because I am quite out of sympathy with its propaganda.2 I remember my promise, and when new poems are published you shall have them. Perhaps you are even entitled to have one which I wrote more than a year ago in an album,3 so I copy it here. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. The sigh that heaves the grasses Whence thou wilt never rise Is of the air that passes And knows not if it sighs. The diamond tears adorning Thy low mound on the lea, Those are the tears of morning, That weeps, but not for thee.4 Harvard MS Eng 1071/15. Envelope addressed ‘Witter Bynner Esq. | Windsor | Vermont | U. S. A.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 19.

1

Tiger (1913), repr. in A Book of Plays (1922). It is concerned with the ‘white slavery’ of prostitution. The patron of a brothel discovers one of the prostitutes to be his daughter and saves her from a life of vice. 3 Documentary evidence is lacking for this. In AEH’s Nbks, the first draft dates from Dec. 1895–7 June 1902, probably after 30 Oct. 1901; the second draft, c.1900–Sept. 1917, possibly c.1900–5, but not Oct. 1910–Oct. 1912. AEH gave the date ‘soon after 1900’ to Sydney Cockerell (TLS, 7 Nov. 1936; Richards, 437). AEH forgot that he had sent this unpublished poem to Bynner: see AEH to Harriet Monroe, 30 Nov. 1921. 4 First published as LP XXVII (1922). 2

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TO P RO F E S S O R D. A . S L AT E R Trinity College, Cambridge 23 Oct. 1913 Dear Slater, Ar. Thesm. 1070 τί ποτ’ ’Ανδρομέδα περίαλλα κακῶν | μέροσ ἐξέλαχον. In Latin I think the only piece of direct evidence is Germ. phaen. 201, where the variants -e, -ae, -a, -am, in a context which requires the nominative, certainly point to Andromeda; but the indirect evidence of the accusative Andromedan, attested by metre in Ouid. her. XVIII 151 and met. IV 757, is better. I am glad you will stay here. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Maas, 409.

TO TH O M A S H A RDY Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Nov. 1913 Dear Mr Hardy, I send you the first set of our Vice-Chancellor’s ghost stories,1 about which I was speaking.2 They are not much like any others that I know, and they are very satisfactorily appalling; and there is a lot of curious detail which yet is relevant to the main purpose. The most ingenious and inventive is perhaps Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad, Count Magnus the most blood-curdling. I hope you may find some pleasure in them, if read in broad daylight.3 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Dorset County Museum MS. 1 Ghost stories of an Antiquary (1904; repr. 1913) by M. R. James (1862–1936), Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, 1913–15. Naiditch (1995), 35 n., notes that the 1913 reprint contained both stories mentioned by AEH, and that, contrary to the supposition made in The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, ed. Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate, 4 (1984), 321, AEH need not also have sent More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911). For AEH’s interest in acquiring Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, see the letter to an unknown correspondent, 24 Oct. 1910. 2 During Hardy’s recent visit to Cambridge to receive an honorary fellowship of Magdalene College. AEH was among Hardy’s friends who attended the celebratory dinner: Florence Emily Hardy, The Life of Thomas Hardy 1840–1928 (rev. edn., 1972), 363. 3 Hardy to AEH, 15 Nov. 1913: ‘Two or three of them have been read aloud in this house [Max Gate], beginning with those you suggested, & I was agreeably sensible of their eeriness, even though the precaution was taken of reading them at a safe distance from bed-time. There is much invention shown in their construction, especially in those you mention’ (BMC MS; Purdy and Millgate, 4. 320).

317

11 December 1913

TO E D M U N D G O S S E Trinity College, Cambridge 20 Nov. 1913 My dear Gosse, My Oxford troubles are to be over on the morning of Dec. 10, and it will give me great pleasure to come to your dinner in the evening. I do not indulge the passion of hatred, and certainly none of your guests have ever tempted me to. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 70949, fo. 553. Envelope (fo. 554) addressed ‘Edmund Gosse Esq. C.B. | 17 Hanover Terrace | Regent’s Park | N. W.’

TO E D M U N D G O S S E Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1913 My dear Gosse, I must just write to say how much I enjoyed your dinner and the august and agreeable society which you had got together. Never before have I seen, and never do I expect to see again, a Prime Minister and a Poet Laureate composing a Missive to a Monarch.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Brotherton MS (Gosse Correspondence). Maas, 133. 1 Herbert Asquith and Robert Bridges were guests at Gosse’s dinner party. Their letter to the king was probably on the subject of home rule for Ireland. Asquith (1852–1928) had been MP, 1886–1918, 1920–4; Home Secretary, 1892–5; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1905–8. He was Prime Minister, 1908–16. For Bridges, see List of Recipients.

1914 TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College, Cambridge 15 Jan. 1914. Dear Sir, When the meaning of a poem is obscure, it is due to one of three causes. Either the author, through lack of skill, has failed to express his meaning; or he has concealed it intentionally; or he had no meaning either to conceal or to express. In none of these three cases does he like to be asked about it. In the first case it makes him feel humiliated; in the second it makes him feel embarrassed; in the third it makes him feel found out. The real meaning of a poem is what it means to the reader. I am yours very faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 24 Jan. 1914 My dear Richards, Mrs Kington David may have what she wants. Our special Guest Nights this term are Thursday Feb. 19 and Wednesday March 4. Will you come and stay the night here at either date? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 121 (nearly complete).

319

12 February 1914

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College, Cambridge 11 Feb. 1914 Dear Gow, In the cod. Lemouicensis1 and some other MSS, which have Seruius’ commentary without Seruius’ name, there is a quantity of additional matter, largely antiquarian and mythological, sometimes called scholia Danielis, because first edited by P. Daniel in 1600, sometimes Seruius auctus or plenior or the like. It is not by Seruius, but is at least as old, and more valuable. This is what Thilo prints in italics.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 1124 . Maas, 409.

TO W. A . M E R R I L L Trinity College, Cambridge 12 Feb. 1914 Dear Sir, The subject of armaret in Germ. frag. V 9 is the same as that of procederet, i.e. Eurus and Zephyrus.1 The sense is ‘and from what quarter Eurus and Zephyrus go forth over the waters and arm their brethren right and left to make war upon the sea’. The fratres circumpositi are those of the twelve winds which are immediately adjacent to Eurus and Zephyrus respectively; ἀπηλιώτησ and εὐρόνοτοσ to Eurus, ἀργέστησ and λίψ to Zephyrus. The great winds are figured as furnishing arms to their subordinates: see Sen. n. q. V 16 3 ‘quattuor … caeli partes in ternas diuidunt et singulis uentis binos subpraefectos dant.’ I have to thank you for sending me your paper on the archetype of Lucretius, in which the tabulated pagination is very serviceable. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Bancroft MS. 1 Leiden, Vissianus Latinus O 80, called Lemouicensis by Pierre Daniel, implying that it came from Saint-Martial de Limoges. 2 Georg Thilo (1831–93) in Servii grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina, rec. Georgius Thilo et Hermannus Hagen, 3 vols. (1878–87). AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2003), 146. 1 In a letter of 25 Jan. 1914 (SJCO Higham MS) Merrill had asked AEH the grammatical subject of armaret and how he would translate the whole line et circumpositos armaret in aequora fratres in Germanicus.

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TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College, Cambridge 24 Feb. 1914 Dear Sirs, Mr Robertson may have permission to set the poem Bredon Hill as he wishes. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 26 Feb. 1914 My dear Richards, Dinner is at 7. 45. By all means come by the train you speak of if you cannot come earlier. I suppose you could not come for lunch? because I have some rather particular hock. Drive to Whewell’s Court, Trinity, Sidney Street entrance.1 My rooms are over that gate.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 121–2.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 1 March 1914 My dear Richards, It is very good of you to arrange to come earlier, so much so that I could not possibly ask you to come earlier still; but how matters stand is this. Your 12. 20 St. Pancras train gets to Cambridge at 1. 31, not 1. 21 as you say, and lunch could hardly begin before 1. 45. I have asked A. C. Benson1 to meet you, and he is obliged to leave us at 2. 40, which is rather short time. If you could come by the 12 o’ clock, /reaching Cambridge 1 2 1

‘Apparently my first visit to him at Cambridge’: Richards, 121. On staircase K, up 44 stairs. See List of Recipients.

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8 March 1914

at 1. 18,/ we could sit down /nearly/ at 1. 30 and be more comfortable. But that train is not only earlier but starts from Liverpool Street; and I can’t expect /or wish/ you to sacrifice serious business for such a small difference. In any case, when you get to the station, take a taxi. They are not allowed /to stand/ in the station-yard, but a porter will call one, or you can walk across the yard to the rank in the road. My address, I forget if I told you, is Whewell’s Court, Trinity, Sidney Street entrance. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s Richards, 122.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College, Cambridge 8 March 1914. Dear Gow, I am sorry for your affliction, and that you could not come to The Alchemist,1 which however would have aggravated the symptoms, as laughing is bad for the mumps. Stuart2 went in your stead. It was very long, and there was a certain amount of repetition, but a great deal that was very amusing,—more amusing now than it can have been in Ben Jonson’s day. The acting too was very good on the whole. I did not think Dennis Robertson3 really satisfactory as Subtle, and both Birch4 as Face and Burnaby5 as Ananias (who was very comic) overacted now and then, and Abel Drugger’s voice, which was excellent, was better than his acting: the representative of Sir Epicure Mammon6 seemed to me to act most evenly 1 By Ben Jonson. Performed at Cambridge by the Marlowe Society, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 Mar. 1914. 2 Charles Erskine Stuart. Classical scholar. Admitted to TCC with a Major Scholarship, 1901; BA, 1905; MA, 1908; Fellow of TCC, 1907–17. 3 Dennis Holme Robertson (1890–1963). First class in Classical Tripos and Economics Tripos, Cambridge, 1910, 1912; Fellow of TCC, 1914–38; MC, 1917; University Lecturer, 1924; Girdlers’ Lecturer, 1928; Reader in Economics at Cambridge, 1930. 4 Francis Lyall Birch (1889–1956). Double first in History, Cambridge, 1912; Fellow of KCC, 1916–38; recruited as intelligence officer, 1916; Lecturer in History, Cambridge, 1921–8, resigning to become theatre producer and actor. 5 John Burnaby (1891–1971). First class in Classical Tripos; Craven scholarship, 1912. Fellow of TCC, 1915; Junior Dean, 1919; Steward and Praelector, 1921–30; Junior Bursar, 1921–31; Tutor, 1931–8. 6 Identified by Maas (133 n.) as C. E. Harman: Quiller-Couch’s review of the production in The Cambridge Review, 35. 878 (11 Mar. 1914), 367–8, notes the silence of the programme on the real names of the actors. Charles Eustace Harman (1894–1970) won a classical scholarship at KCC, 1913. Returning to Cambridge after the war, he gave a famous performance for the

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and to be most like a real person. The widow is a weak and silly element in the play, and was acted by a young man who succeeded in looking like an underbred young woman. I heard several ladies in the audience declaring that now they must read the drama, and I daresay I shall. Fletcher7 is leaving us and going to London to help Lloyd George8 manage the panel doctors. I hope you will soon be well; but you see the results of going to live among contagious boys. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 5 . Maas, 133–4.

TO F. J. H . J E N K I N S O N Trinity College 8 Mar. 1914 Dear Jenkinson, The MS1 called l by this collator is pretty clearly Vat. 5951, one of the two best; none of his MSS correspond to the other, Med. plut. 83, but seem to belong to the inferior class. His date, I should think, cannot be much earlier than 1800, as he seems not to use the long s except when t follows. He therefore is not, as I thought for the moment he might be, the collator and editor Targa (1769); and moreover he designates his MS by a different set of signs. I return the book with many thanks. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 4251 (B) 690. Maas, 409–10.

Marlowe Society as Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1. He achieved first class in the Classical Tripos in 1920, and took silk in 1935. 7 Walter Morley Fletcher (1873–1933). Fellow of TCC, 1897; Tutor, 1905; MD, 1908; Sc.D., 1914; FRS, 1915; Secretary to the Medical Research Committee under the National Insurance Act, 1914; KBE, 1918; CB, 1929. 8 David Lloyd George (1863–1945). MP, 1890. As Chancellor of the Exchequer he introduced a contributory health insurance scheme in 1911, which met with opposition from doctors who saw the creation of a public health service as a threat to private practice. 1 Of Celsus’ De Medicina.

323

9 May 1914

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 1 April 1914 My dear Richards, I have no particular objection to your doing as you propose about the Riccardi Press.1 I have to thank you for the article you sent me on Carcassonne,2 which was very well written. I am going to Paris on Sunday and thence to Marseilles on Tuesday: what next I don’t exactly know. I expect to be back here about the 27th . Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 122 (excerpt).

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 9 May 1914 Dear Cockerell, I am very much obliged for the two narratives,1 which I return. Both are delightfully entertaining, and Blunt’s very charming as well. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.). Maas, 135.

1 GR proposed to give Philip Lee Warner and the Riccardi Press permission to print a special, limited edn. of ASL, the kind of book to which AEH would normally have objected (Richards, 122). An edn. of 1000 paper copies and 12 vellum copies (10 for sale) was produced in 1914. Paper copies with board covers cost 7s. 6d., those with parchment 15s.; and the vellum copies cost £12 12s. 2 Capital nowadays of the Aude département of the Languedoc-Roussillon region in SW France. The Cité part of the town has famous medieval fortifications. 1 Accounts by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840–1922) and Lord Osborne Beauclerk (1877–1953), of a visit paid by six poets, including W. B. Yeats and Ezra Pound, to Blunt’s house, Newbuildings Place, Sussex, on 18 Jan. 1914. AEH visited Blunt on 25–6 Nov. 1911, when Blunt described him in his diary as having ‘no trace … of anything romantic, being a typical Cambridge Don, prim in his manner, silent and rather shy, conventional in dress and manner, learned, accurate, and well-informed’: My Diaries, being a Personal Narrative of Events 1888–1914, part 2, 1900–1914 (1920). On 3 Dec. 1911, Blunt wrote to Cockerell: ‘We all liked Housman when he was here a week ago, though anything less like a Shropshire Lad it would be impossible to conceive’: Maas, 135 n.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 9 May 1914 My dear Richards, I ought to write and give you some account of my doings in the south, about which you gave yourself so much trouble. I took the walk you mapped out from Cassis to La Ciotat on a very beautiful day, and followed your lines I think pretty well. I did not go to Ste Baume however, as it did not happen to square with my other plans. I ate much bouillabaisse, the best at Isnard’s, the next best in the suburb of L’Estaque; but in several places it was not so good as at Foyot’s in Paris. Brandade I did not think much of, and Aioli at Pascal’s was rather nasty, perhaps because lukewarm. The Gourmet’s Guide on Marseilles is full of blunders: the errors are as bloody as the Dwarf.1 I hired a motor with an amiable meridional chauffeur who knew the country, and went to Aix, Arles, Aigues-mortes, Montmajour (which is probably what you meant when you wrote Fontveille), Les Baux, St Remy, Beaucaire, Nimes, Pont du Gard, Avignon,2 Villeneuve les Avignon, Vauclure, Carpentras (where I did not see Dreyfus,3 nor much else), Vaison, Orange, and I think that is all. Weather good, with a few days of mistral; judas trees in very magnificent bloom. I was in Paris with the King,4 but he did me no harm except once keeping me waiting half-an-hour to cross the street. The College library wants as many editions as it can get of the Shropshire Lad, so will you send me one specimen of each of those you now have on sale. Yrs. sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR t.s. Richards, 123 (wrongly dated 2 May). I have corrected ‘doing’ to ‘doings’ and ‘county’ to ‘country’. Other errors are corrected in ink on the MS in an unidentified hand.

1 On the Guide, see AEH to GR, 20 Aug. 1911. Its author was known as ‘The Dwarf of Blood’ of the Sporting Times: Richards, 101–2 n. 2 For ‘Saint-Rémy’, ‘Nîmes’, and ‘Villeneuve-lès-Avignon’. 3 Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935), wrongfully convicted of treason in 1894, was Jewish, and lived at Carpentiers, a centre for French Judaism, for a time c.1900. 4 George V, on his first State visit to Europe.

325

31 May 1914

TO L. J. DOW NI NG Trinity College, Cambridge 18 May 1914 My dear Sir, You have my permission to publish your setting of my poem Think no more, lad. Pray accept my thanks for the songs you have been kind enough to send me. Yours very faithfully A. E. Housman. L. J. Downing Esq. Berg MS. Tipped-in in copy of ASL (1896) which bears the signature ‘W. A. Sim’ and, on the verso of the fly leaf, the inscription ‘A. E. Housman. | 17 July 1924’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 31 May 1914 My dear Richards, The errors in the Marseilles pages of the Gourmet’s Guide are not such as to lead anyone seriously astray in practice (except the statement that you get Bouillabaisse in perfection at La Reserve)1 , and some of them are only misprints. The really outrageous thing is the fairy-tale on p. 104 about a wine called Pouilly Suisse after the proprietor of a vineyard, both non-existent. The wine is Pouilly-Fuissé, i.e. Pouilly blent with Fuissé, or Fuissey as they sometimes spell it. You ought not to reprint my immortal poems, as you appear to have done in 1912, without asking me about corrections. The consequence is that two mistakes in punctuation have been carried on. I observe that the illustrated edition is now bound in black instead of white. It strikes me as ugly, but I don’t set up to be a judge, and I am indifferent to the fate of that edition, which was only printed to amuse you. I daresay black is appropriate to the funereal nature of the contents. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SIU VFM 1082. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 124; Maas, 135.

1

For ‘Réserve’.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO DR BA RNE S Trinity College 5 June 1914 Dear Dr Barnes, I am obliged to you for sending me your petition, but I am returning it without signature. I confess I am attached to the current forms of words, and also I am what you have often heard of but perhaps not often seen, a real conservative, who thinks change an evil in itself. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 6 June 1914 My dear Richards, I shall be paying one of my rare visits to London next Tuesday and lunching with a friend (G. H. Vize, collector of antiquities and china, once champion heavy-weight boxer etc.) at the Café Royal at 1. 30, and should be very pleased if you could join us. If you can, will you let me know by the first post on Tuesday: if you do not reply I will not expect you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 124.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 12 June 1914 My dear Richards, Mr Shortland may set Bredon Hill to music. I return both letters. Newnham Davis1 has got himself, or you have got him, into a great muddle. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 124–5 (excerpt). 1

See the note on AEH to GR, 20 Aug. 1911.

327

10 July 1914

TO F. B. S U G D E N A N D R . G. M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge 13 June 1914 My dear Sirs, For many years past I have been refusing to English anthologists permission to print poems of mine; but they are not copyright in America, so that I have no power over them and no right to object if they are printed there. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. F. B. Sugden and R. G. Martin, Esquires. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Woodchester, 28 June 1914 My dear Richards, These Riccardi people1 must needs annoy me when I am away on a week’s holiday. I have made in pencil corrections of all the errors I have found, some of which seem to be deliberate. I go back to Cambridge on Tuesday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 125; Maas, 135–6.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trin. Coll. Camb. 10 July 1914 My dear Richards, These1 seem to be right. Yours A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 125.

1 1

Philip Lee Warner and the Riccardi Press produced a limited edn. of ASL in 1914. Proofs sent by Philip Lee Warner.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 24 July 1914 My dear Kate, I return the two interesting letters of this extraordinary enthusiast Mr Carter. I am prepared to finance the impecunious clergyman to the extent of five pounds, which at his rates ought to cover a sufficient number of wills. I have been reading Laurence’s new novel,1 which I think is his best, though there is a lot of unnecessary disaster at the end. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 5 Sept. 1914 My dear Richards, I have corrected two misprints in the poem, and I have no objection to its being printed, as it was printed, I believe, in a similar connexion by Ross1 in a bibliography. Do not disturb Frank Harris in his beliefs, which are sincere and characteristic, that I am a professor of Greek and that there are 200 pages in A Shropshire Lad. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR t.s. Richards, 125 (wrongly dated 6 Sept.); Maas, 136.

1 1

The Royal Runaway and Jingalo in Revolution (1914). Probably the writer Robert Ross (1869–1918), Oscar Wilde’s friend and literary executor.

329

18 September 1914

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College, Cambridge. 10 Sept. 1914 Dear Sirs, Permission must not be given: it has already been refused in a precisely similar case; and for 10 or 12 years I have adhered to the rule of not allowing my verses to appear in anthologies. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards Ld. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 125 (incomplete).

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Sept. 1914 Dear Gow, I thought that aireur arathis looked like an Irish gloss (arathus being Irish for a plough), so I wrote to Quiggin,1 and here is his reply. If you are in a hurry you had better write to him direct. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS, Gow E 2/4.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD 20 Belmont | Bath 18 Sept. 1914 Dear Sirs, Mrs Phipps may have permission to set to music the poem she mentions. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards Ld. LC-GR t.s.

1 Edmund Crosby Quiggin (1875–1920). Celtic and linguistic scholar, and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. First teacher of Gaelic at Cambridge. Author of A Dialect of Donegal (1906) and Prolegomena to the Study of the Latter Irish Bards, 1200–1500.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 20 Belmont | Bath 2 Oct. 1914. My dear Richards, You say the weekend of the 16th , which is a Friday: if you mean the th 18 , I should be very pleased to come from the Saturday to Monday. I go back to Cambridge next Wednesday. Please remember me kindly to your uncle,1 who was good enough to call on me in Cambridge last June, when unfortunately I was out. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 125 (excerpt).

TO P RO F E S S O R G I L B E RT M U R R AY Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Oct. 1914 My dear Murray, I suppose I ought to have written, and I am sorry I gave you the trouble of telegraphing. My chief objection was not to the terms of the manifesto but to signing any manifesto at all.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 25. 68–9.

1

See AEH to GR, 27 June 1908, n. 3. There are two possible manifestos. The first is The Writers’ Manifesto, published by Murray as a letter in the Times, 18 Sept. 1914, and signed by writers in support of the war. Signatories included Granville Barker, Barrie, Bridges, Chesterton, Conan Doyle, Galsworthy, Hardy, Kipling, Masefield, Trevelyan, and Wells, though Yeats and Shaw did not sign: Duncan Wilson, Gilbert Murray OM 1866–1967 (1987), 219–20. The second was a manifesto addressed to Russian intellectuals. Murray elaborated on this in a pamphlet, Thoughts on the War, published in Oct., in which he wrote of the ‘presence in Russia, above all nations, of a vast untapped reservoir of spiritual power, of idealism, of striving for a nobler life’ (Wilson, 220). Kipling and Walter Raleigh refused to sign it, though Henry James did sign. 1

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24 November 1914

TO E D M U N D G O S S E Trinity College, Cambridge 2 Nov. 1914 My dear Gosse, Pyrenen is Milton’s reprehensible way of spelling Pirenen,1 the fountain at Corinth where Pegasus was drinking when Bellerophon caught him, and which some of the poets (Persius, prologue v. 4, Statius, Silvae 2. 7. 3 and Thebais 4. 60–1) confused with Hippocrene on Helicon, which sprang up under Pegasus’ hoof, and treated as a source of poetic inspiration. ‘Mr Chaucer was a great man,’ says Artemus Ward, ‘but he could not spell’.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO L I LY T H I C K N E S S E [Trinity College | Cambridge] 24 Nov. 1914 Dear Mrs Thicknesse, The thirst for blood is raging among the youth of England. More than half the undergraduates are away, but mostly not at the front, because they all want to be officers. I am going out when they make me a Field Marshal. Meanwhile I have three nephews1 being inoculated for typhoid and catching pneumonia on Salisbury Plain and performing other acts of war calculated to make the German Emperor realise that he is a very misguided man. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Memoir, 205; Maas, 136.

1 Milton, Elegia quinta: in adventum veris, 10: ‘Et mihi Pyrenen somnia nocte ferunt’ (‘and at night my dreams bring Pirene to me’). 2 ‘Some kind person has sent me Chawcer’s poems. Mr. C had talent, but he couldn’t spel’: ‘At the Tomb of Shakespeare’ in Artemus Ward in London; comprising the Letters to ‘Punch’, and other humorous papers, ed. E. P. Hingston (1870), 44. 1 Arthur Denis Symons (b. 1891), Clement Aubrey Symons (b. 1893), and Noel Victor Housman Symons (b. 1894).

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TO TH O M A S H A RDY Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Nov. 1914 My dear Mr Hardy, I am very grateful for the gift of your poems,1 which are, as always, fuller of matter and sincerity than anyone else’s. Some of them naturally I saw when they first appeared. If you care to know my favourites, they are In Death Divided (the second stanza of which is quite perfectly beautiful), At Castle Boterel, Regret Not Me, and Seen by the Waits. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Dorset County Museum MS.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College, Cambridge. 1 Dec. 1914 Dear Sirs, Miss Hacking may publish the two settings and give them the titles which she suggests. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. 1

Satires of Circumstance (1914).

1915 TO S T E P H E N G A S E L E E Trinity College 8 Jan. 1915 Dear Gaselee, We were enjoying ourselves so much that Amaryllis was left weeping on the doorstep. I think your second interpretation is right,—that what she now loves is something more valuable than any nuts, chestnuts or otherwise;1 but I think the right punctuation is that of Heinsius and Burman,2 who put no stop in the pentameter. If we had scholia on the poem they would say ‘castaneas nuces ἀπὸ κοινοῦ’. By writing ‘aut castaneas nuces, quas Amaryllis amabat’ Ovid would have affronted his most intelligent readers; by writing ‘aut /nuces/quas Amaryllis amabat (sed nunc eas non amat)’ he might have left his least intelligent readers in the dark: by mentioning the species casually in the second clause he avoids both. I hope you did not lose much at bridge. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Birkbeck College MS, of which TCC Add. MS Letters c. 1 188 is a photocopy. Maas, 410.

TO E D M U N D G O S S E Trinity College, Cambridge 27 Jan. 1915 My dear Gosse, You don’t realise the situation. It is not your hand that the Censor does not find clear; it is your vocabulary.1 One man of letters writing to 1 Ovid, Ars Amatoria, 2. 267–8: ‘aut quas Amaryllis amabat— | At nunc castaneas non amat illa nuces’ (‘or the nuts that Amaryllis loved—but she doesn’t love chestnuts now’), an allusion to Virgil, Eclogues, 2. 52: ‘castaneasque nuces mea quas Amaryllis amabat’ (‘chestnuts which my Amaryllis loved’). 2 Burman’s variorum edn. (Amsterdam, 1727) included notes by Heinsius, whose edn. had originally appeared in 1661. 1 A letter from Gosse to Compton Mackenzie in Capri was delayed by the Censor for a week before being sent on with a note telling Mackenzie to advise his correspondent to write ‘shortly and clearly’. Gosse’s letter of protest appeared in The Times, 27 Jan. 1915.

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another naturally writes in English, an ancient and a copious tongue. But nobody in the Censor’s office knows 500 words of English: 450 words of English, with 550 of slang, are amply sufficient to express all the ideas which circulate in that studious cloister’s pale.2 And if the Censor finds your letters long, it is not that they are long by measurement, but that they take a long time to read when most of the words have to be looked out in the dictionary. For instance, you may have used the word tendency. That is a word which nobody in the Censor’s office ever utters, ever hears, or ever sees: when they mean tendency they always say trend, and so do all the writers whom they have ever read. (What they say when they really mean trend I don’t know: perhaps they never do mean it). Again, writing to a novelist, you may possibly have made some allusion to ‘my uncle Toby’.3 Imagine the scene in the Censor’s office: the perusal of your letter suspended, and piles of other correspondence accumulating, while the Postal Directory is searched for Tobias Gosse, who is not to be found: then the Censor has to knit his brows over the problem whether perchance you have a maternal uncle christened Tobias or whether this is a code-word by which you and Compton Mackenzie4 have agreed to designate the German Emperor. And considering that one of you writes from Hanover Terrace,5 while the other resides in Capri, a place of which the Censor never heard except in connexion with Krupp,6 I think he treats you very handsomely in taking the more lenient and less probable view and allowing your letter to pass. To add that I wish to be remembered to Mrs Gosse is irrelevant, but sincere; and I am yours ever A. E. Housman. BL MS Ashley B. 903, fos. 39–40. Maas, 136–7.

2

Milton, Il Penseroso, 156: ‘the studious cloister’s pale’. As in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. 4 Prolific novelist (1883–1972). 5 Gosse had lived at 17 Hanover Terrace in Regents Park, London, since 1901. 6 Friedrich Alfred Krupp (1854–1902), head of the large German corporation manufacturing steel and armaments. In 1902 he was accused by a Naples newspaper and the German Socialist paper V¨orworts of homosexual practices in Capri. He did not try to clear his name, and died of a stroke soon afterwards. 3

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14 February 1915

TO C H A R L E S G A L LU P 30 Jan. 1915. My dear Sir, If you will accept my signature without a quotation, here it is. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Charles Gallup Esq. BMC MS.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College, Cambridge 11 Feb. 1915. Dear Sirs, I should be pleased to oblige Mr Thomas,1 whose book on Swinburne2 I thought very good; but I have been saying no to all anthologists for more than 12 years, and it is impossible to make an exception now. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 126.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 14 Feb. 1915 My dear Richards, 1. I have just had a bill from R. & C.1 Clark for binding 50 copies of Juvenal on 3 Dec. 1914. I daresay it is all right, but I had the impression that these items generally appeared as sets-off in your accounts with me. 2. My holidays begin on March 13, and I am beginning to consider what to do with them. What are your present ideas about the Riviera? My own notion is to spend about 3 weeks abroad, and it would suit me best if those 3 weeks were either at the beginning or the end of the vacation: i.e. roughly March 13 to April 3, or else April 5 to April 26; but these limits I

1 2 1

Edward Thomas. See AEH to GR, 29 June 1907. Algernon Charles Swinburne: A Critical Study (1912). For ‘R. & R.’

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mention as the extremes of earliness, lateness, and narrowness: I need not necessarily go so early nor so late, nor be abroad so short a time. You probably know that passports will be necessary, and that all old passports ceased to be valid on the 1st of this month. Would you come and spend a night here some time before the end of term? All our feasts and also our usual guest-nights are suppressed, and our meals are somewhat simplified; but on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have rather better dinners than on other days. I don’t ask you for a Sunday, because we have a Sabbatarian kitchen and I could not give you a proper lunch. The only Tuesday or Thursday ahead which would not suit me is the 25th inst. If you can select a date to come, come for lunch, and I will try to invite a kindred spirit. I have lately invested in some rather good Corton 1898. You seem to have changed your business address. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 126 (incomplete); Maas, 137–8.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 17 Feb. 1915 My dear Richards, I have not received the second letter which I understood you to say you had written; but I take it that you will be here to lunch at 2 o’ clock on Tuesday March 2. Come straight to my rooms, Whewell’s Court, Sidney Street Gate, and do not be surprised if a sentry tries to keep you out with a bayonet, as this is now a barracks, sparsely inhabited by four Fellows of Trinity. We do not dress for dinner. I enclose the bill from Clarks’. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 126–7 (incomplete).

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7 March 1915

TO M RS PE RK I NS Trinity College 1 March 1915 Dear Mrs Perkins, I am very sorry to be prevented from accepting your kind invitation to dine on Wednesday, but I have to attend a club-meeting that evening. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO S I R JA M E S G. F R A Z E R Trinity College | Cambridge 7 March 1915 My dear Frazer, I have had for some time your two volumes of Addison without acknowledging the gift as I ought to have done, for it has made me read some parts which I had not read before of an English Classic, and also a paper which I had no chance of reading before: though I do not believe it is by Steele or Budgell,1 nor Tickell2 neither. I am not brought round to any hearty liking for Addison, apart from the Coverley3 pages: he is a terribly industrious humourist, like Charles Lamb,4 and Fielding in the introductory chapter to the various books of Tom Jones;5 and his admired English has nothing like the vernacular raciness of the best of Cowper’s6 earlier letters, for instance. Indeed I really think the vogue of the Spectator impoverished the language of prose. But it is a comfort to have Addison alone, and to be rid of Steele. I am going in a few days to the Riviera, which Providence, for my benefit, has cleared of Germans. In its normal state I always refused to visit it. Whewell’s Court is now a barracks, and soldiers above my ceiling

1 Eustace Budgell (1686–1737), cousin of Joseph Addison (1672–1719), and contributor to The Spectator (1711–12) by Addison and Richard Steele (1672–1729). 2 Thomas Tickell (1685–1740), minor poet, and friend of Addison. 3 Sir Roger de Coverley, ‘a gentleman of Worcestershire, of ancient descent, a baronet’, who figures in a number of papers in The Spectator. 4 1775–1834, author of The Essays of Elia (1823). 5 Novel, published in 1749, by Henry Fielding (1707–54). 6 The poet William Cowper (1731–1800). His letters, published posthumously, have been much admired.

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practise step-dancing with a vigour which ought to be prophylactic against frost-bite. I hope you and Lady Frazer are still contented with your metropolitan hermitage. With kindest regards and thanks, I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS b. 3683 : t.s. copy, with ‘Budyell’ for ‘Budgell’ and ‘practice’ for ‘practise’. Ackerman (1974), 358–9.

TO J. CA M E RO N C. TAY LO R Trinity College | Cambridge 7 March 1915 Dear Sir, You have my permission to publish your settings of Nos. 13, 49, and 63 of A Shropshire Lad. In the 1904 edition there were several misprints, and one of them, if I remember right, was seeds (which ought to be seed) in 63. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘J. Cameron C. Taylor Esq. | Bromleigh | 47 Blythe Hill | Catford | S. E.’

TO L I LY T H I C K N E S S E [Trinity College | Cambridge] 7 March 1915 Dear Mrs Thicknesse, On the 16th I shall be beyond the Channel or beneath it: more probably the former, for steamers seem to ram submarines better than submarines torpedo steamers. Hitherto I have always refused to go to the Riviera, but now is my chance, when the worst classes who infest it are away. Here we have 1000 undergraduates and 20,000 soldiers, 500 of them billeted in the building in which I write these lines, and one of them doing a quick-step overhead. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Memoir, 205; Maas, 138.

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7 April 1915

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College, Cambridge | England 7 March 1915. Dear Mr Bynner, Please receive my best thanks for the royalist play1 from your republican pen which you have kindly sent me and I have read with pleasure and interest. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/16. Bynner/Haber (1957), 21.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 7 April 1915 My dear Richards, I found here your gift of Dreiser’s book,1 which I have been skimming, and I am glad to see that he recognises some of your many virtues. The mathematician2 whom you sat next to at our high table, upon hearing that I had been to the Riviera with you, said that he hoped you had not been running after women all the time. Whether this was an inference from your conversation or a generalisation from his own experience of travelling-companions I do not know. You crowned all your good actions by sending me that note about the permit from the Prefecture, as to which you were right when both Cook3 and the Consulate were wrong. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Pages 71–86 are missing in my copy. I am not starving for them, but you may like to drop on your binder. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 137; Maas, 138–9 (both incomplete). 1

The Little King (1914), repr. in A Book of Plays (1922). A Traveller at Forty (1913) by Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945). The book describes Dreiser’s first visit to Europe and contains a friendly account of GR, his family, and his friends. ‘Barfleur’ (as Dreiser calls him) is said to be ‘one of the most delightful persons in the world… a sort of modern Beau Brummel with literary, artistic and gormandizing tendencies’. 2 James Whitbread Lee Glaisher (1848–1928), Fellow of TCC, lecturer and assistant tutor, 1871–1928; FRS, 1875; President, London Mathematical Society, 1884–6; President, Royal Astronomical Society, 1886–8, 1901–3. 3 Thomas Cook & Sons, tour operators. 1

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 April 1915 My dear Richards, You should not let what the mathematician said worry you. When his mind is not occupied by mathematics or pottery1 it is apt to run on the relations of the sexes, and I seldom sit next him without that topic arising. He possesses all the editions of Fanny Hill,2 a book with which I daresay you never polluted your mind. The question he asked would probably have been asked about anyone else who had been travelling with me. You told me that Belfort Bax3 made some such enquiry about me.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR t.s. Richards, 137–8; Maas, 139.

TO C H A R L E S S AY L E [Trinity College 23 Apr. 1915] Martial 1. 21. 8. A. E. H. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3: p.c. addressed ‘C. Sayle Esq | 8 Trumpington Street’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH. Date as postmark.

1

Glaisher was a notable collector of ceramics. Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (first published in 1748–9) by John Cleland (1709–89). 3 [Ernest] Belfort Bax (1854–1926), barrister, author, and journalist. GR and AEH met him and his wife at the Café de Paris, Monte Carlo (Richards, 135). ‘Bax’s persistent curiosity, his old-fashioned scholarship and ponderous humour gave Housman pleasure; his wife’s Germanic domesticities and her fussy preoccupations with her lord’s comforts and dignities amused him’ (Richards, 130). 4 He had asked GR about AEH’s attitude to women: Richards, 138. 2

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13 July 1915

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 17 May 1915 Dear Sirs, Mr H. S. Goodhart-Rendel has my permission to publish, without payment of any fee, his settings of the three poems he mentions. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s.

TO D. S. MACCOLL Trinity College | Cambridge 7 July 1915 Dear MacColl, Many thanks indeed. It is, as you say, merry. We have here an American, a very British one, as one of our fellows,1 and he has a pince-nez on his nose; so I have sent it across to him, and await results. He may criticise the punctuation: I do not, because I surmise it to be artistic, as the illustrations certainly are. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Glasgow University MS (MacColl Collection H385).

TO J. P. P O S TG AT E Trinity College, Cambridge 13 July 1915 Dear Postgate, I think Luc. VIII 152 only means that they saw her every day, just as if she belonged to the place. In 308 there is not much difference between fata and dei: compare Ouid, trist. II 174 with Claud. III cons. Hon. 89. I don’t think you have asked me before about works on Latin prosody since L. Mueller:1 anyhow I know of none, and have not seen Plessis’ book.2 1

Gaillard Thomas Lapsley, who had a Ph.D. from Harvard: see List of Recipients. Lucian Mueller, De re metrica poetarum Latinorum praeter Plautum et Terentium libri septem (1894). AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2004), 154. 2 The edn. of Horace by Frédéric Edouard Plessis (b. 1851), published in various forms from 1911 onwards, which contained an account of metrics and prosody in the Odes and Epodes. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

The Alcaic stanza3 is one of the worst puzzles, and even Schroeder,4 who usually talks like the Pythia on her tripod,5 is evidently uncomfortable about it. We have not even a full and consistent theory, however stupid, from antiquity; for Hephaestion,6 who gives his view of the 4th verse, gives two incompatible views of the 1st and 2nd , and none of the third. I have no clear notion of the extent to which the Aeolic lyrists thought they might depart from homogeneity. The only point on which I have anything worth saying to say is that synaphea7 between the 3rd and 4th verses, which we already suspected to be the true rule from Horace’s occasional employment of it and from the absence of hiatus at that point in Alcaeus’ fragments, is now found in Oxyrh. papyr. X p. 74 last line. You will have read Innes in to-day’s Times.8 Colonel Dauber’s son was fined for having no light on his bicycle; so he has a quarrel with the town. The housebreaking, with its noise and dust, is opposite his lodgings; so he has a quarrel with the college. Add to this the opinion, much held by non-combatants in khaki, that working men should be allowed no choice except between enlistment and starvation, and you have the genesis of Colonel Dauber’s letter.9 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. With you and Duff both ill, I wonder how your examinations came off. I hope you will both soon be all right again. BMC MS.

3

One of the forms used by Horace. Otto Schr¨oder (1851–1937), Direktor des Kais.-Augusta-Gymnasiums, Berlin. 5 i.e. in the oracular manner of the priestess of Apollo at Delphi. 6 Of Alexandria, Greek metrist of the second century . 7 The linking of two verses into one: by prohibiting hiatus between them and permitting elision, by prohibiting brevis in longo at the last position in the first and allowing a single word to carry over into the next. 8 H. McLeod Innes of TCC wrote to the newspaper to defend the college’s rebuilding of two houses in Trinity-street. 9 Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Dauber, of 20 Trinity-street, wrote a letter published in The Times on 9 July 1915, 9, in which he complained about TCC demolishing two large four-storeyed buildings opposite his rooms. He argued that such work, which he characterized as ‘thoughtless dissipation of strength’, should be postponed so that men returning home after the war could be given employment; that the government should prohibit undertakings that were not essential to military success; and that men of military age and capacity should not be employed in such work. (He also objected to the addition of a new wing to the public library.) In reply, Innes maintained that the college had made an irreversible commitment to the work during a time of high unemployment, and pointed out that three-fourths of the workmen were over 40 and only two of them under the age of 36. 4

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28 July 1915

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 July 1915 My dear Richards, I am sorry I cannot avail myself of your kind and attractive invitation, as early in August I am going to stay with my sister and brother-in-law at Dulverton, and must first finish the text and notes of my 3rd book of Manilius, which, though it will not sell so well as your novel,1 is really a much more classy work. The printers, if they have not all gone to the wars, may just as well be printing this while I am on my holiday, and I should be grateful if you would begin to make arrangements. The preface is already written in the rough, and will be ready for them when they are ready for it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 138; Maas, 139.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College, Cambridge 17 July 1915 Dear Sirs, Mr Leslie Brooke1 must be informed that for 12 years back I have adhered to the rule of not allowing poems of mine to be printed in selections. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 July 1915 My dear Richards, Many thanks for the novel.1 I remember exactly where I left off, and can start from that point, so you see that the pen and ink of genius have burnt themselves into my brain. 1 1 1

His third, Bittersweet (1915). [Leonard] Leslie Brooke (1862–1940), children’s author and anthologist. See AEH to GR, 15 July 1915.

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Letters 1872–1926

About the Manilius, it is not the preface but the text and notes that I shall have ready first. I will send them to your office, as you tell me, in about 10 days, with directions to the printers. But who are the printers? If Maclehose,2 as last time, don’t trouble to reply, but enjoy your holiday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Aug. 1915 Dear Sirs, In accordance with the directions of Mr Grant Richards I am sending you to-day by Parcel Post, Registered, the manuscript of the Text and Notes of my edition of Manilius, Book III, and I shall be obliged if you will acknowledge its receipt. I understand from Mr Richards that the printing is to be put in hand at once. A copy of the edition of Book II should be sent to the printers as a model; and I shall also be obliged if you will convey to them the directions which I enclose on a separate sheet. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards Ltd. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Sept. 1915 My dear Richards, I have now been back nearly a week, and you probably longer. I am writing now because Walter Raleigh1 has asked if he may print some poems

2

For ‘MacLehose’. 1861–1922. First Professor of English Literature at Oxford, 1904–22, after holding chairs at Liverpool and Glasgow. 1

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3 October 1915

from A Shropshire Lad in one of the Times Broadsheets for the trenches,2 and I have said he may; so don’t immediately send him a lawyer’s letter when you see them. There is someone in your office who sends me proofs addressed to S. E. Homeman. I don’t mind opprobrious names,3 but I am apprehensive that the missives may go astray. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 138; Maas, 140.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge Sept. 20, 1915 My dear Richards, I have just sent you in a separate cover, registered, the Preface to Manilius III, which perhaps you will acknowledge receipt of, if it arrives. This completes the book, except the index and a few trifles which cannot be added till the rest is in print. The three figures to be inserted in the preface are to be executed just in the same way as those in Book II. I have drawn them exactly to scale. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 138–9 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Oct. 1915 My dear Richards, I congratulate you very heartily and send you every wish for your happiness;1 and perhaps you will also convey my respects to Mrs Richards and, I am inclined to add, my congratulations too because, whatever 2 Broadsheet No. 38 printed ASL IV (Reveille), XXII (The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread), XXXI (On Wenlock Edge), XXXV (On the idle hill of summer), LIX (The Isle of Portland), and LXII (Terence, this is stupid stuff ). There is a copy in Lilly. 3 ‘Mr Pecksniff called him opprobrious names’: Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. 9. 1 On 2 July 1915, GR had married for the second time, but had just told AEH about it: Richards, 139. His new wife was Maria Magdalena Csan´ady, a Hungarian widow eighteen years younger than he with a daughter.

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your other faults may be, there can be few ladies who have a more good-tempered husband. It would give me great pleasure to come and see you on the last week-end of the month. The third volume of Manilius will probably not be more than 34 of the second in size. I enclose a cheque for £50, which ought to keep the printer quiet. I see in the paper that you are having some bother over Hugh Lane’s will,2 which certainly seems to be ungrammatical.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 139; Maas, 140 (both incomplete).

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Oct. 1915 My dear Kate, I have been scanning the casualty lists in these last days, and when I saw your card this morning I feared what the news must be.1 Well, my dear, it is little I or anyone else can do to comfort you, or think of anything to say that you will not have thought of. But I remember your telling me at the beginning of the war that he had almost a hope and expectation of dying in battle, and we must be glad that it was a victorious battle in which he died. I do not know that I can do better than send you some verses that I wrote many years ago;2 because the essential business of poetry, as it has 2 Sir Hugh Percy Lane (1875–1915) went down in the Lusitania, leaving Richards as one of his two executors. In 1913 he bequeathed his collection of modern paintings to the National Gallery, London, but in Feb. 1915, three months before his death, he added a codicil to his will, unfortunately unwitnessed, leaving the paintings to the City of Dublin. The pictures were later shared between the two cities. 3 AEH seems to be referring to the syntax of ‘My Sargent portrait, the modern pictures now being shown in Belfast, and any modern pictures of merit (John’s drawings, etc.) that I possess to the Dublin Gallery of modern Art, other than the group of pictures lent by me to the London National Gallery, which I bequeath to found a collection of modern Continental art in London.’ Lane’s public bequests were printed in The Times, 3 Oct. 1915, 12. 1 KES’s third son, Lieut. Clement Aubrey Symons (b. 3 Sept. 1893), 10th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment, was killed in action near the village of Hulluch in France on 25 Sept. 1915. 2 Illic Jacet (later LP IV). Two drafts had been written between Dec. 1895 and its first publication on 24 Feb. 1900 in The Academy. KES had it reprinted in the 1915 issue of the magazine of her son’s school, The Edwardian, King Edward’s School, Bath, under the heading ‘Illic Jacet. | IN MEMORIAM. | C. A. S.’ For full bibliographical information, see Poems (1997), 374–5.

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16 October 1915

been said,3 is to harmonise the sadness of the universe, and it is somehow more sustaining and more healing than prose. Do assure Edward4 of my feeling for you all, and also, though I do not know her, the poor young girl.5 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. I send back the copy of his letter, because others will want to see it. I do not know where Jerry6 is, but never mind that at present. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 20 Belmont | Bath’. Richards, 37 (excerpt); Maas, 140–1.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Oct. 1915 My dear Richards, I do rather think that the birthday etc. might go off better if no irrelevant visitor were there to spoil the fun; and so, in spite of my affection for children, I should like to postpone my visit. Probably any week-end in November that suited you would suit me. As to the blind people, they may have what they want. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 139–40; Maas, 141.

3 Sir Leslie Stephen, A History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876), 2. 352: ‘Nothing is less poetical than optimism; for the essence of a poet’s function is to harmonise the sadness of the universe’. The passage appears on p. 44 of AEH’s ‘Nbk X’ (BMC). 4 5 KES’s husband. Clement’s fiancée. 6 Her youngest son Noel Victor Housman Symons (1894–1986), known as ‘Jerry’. He enlisted in Aug. 1914 in the 1st Wessex Field Corps of the Royal Engineers, saw active service in France by Dec., and was awarded the Mons Medal for bravery. He was transferred to the Worcestershires, fought at Ypres, and was awarded the Military Cross. For further information, see the tribute by Jo Hunt in HSJ 12 (1986), 1–8.

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TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Oct. 1915 Dear Sirs, Permission must be refused1 in this case. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 140.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 26 Oct. 1915 My dear Richards, The 5. 50 train at Paddington on Nov. 5 will suit me quite well. I shall be glad to meet your uncle1 again. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 140 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Oct. 1915. My dear Richards, I enclose, corrected, the proofs of the text and notes of Manilius III. They may now be combined and put into pages; and I enclose some directions to the printers about carrying this out. Please acknowledge receipt. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 140.

1 ‘Some permission to use A Shropshire Lad must have been asked by the Women’s Employment Publishing Company’: Richards, 140. 1 Herbert Richards.

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11 December 1915

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Nov. 1915 My dear Richards, I enclose the following portions of Manilius III. 1. Corrected proof of Preface, which can now be put into pages. 2. Revise of text and notes, which only requires two corrections. 3. MS page to face p. 1. 4. MS page to face p. 68. All that I shall have to add is the Index, which will be two or three pages. As the bulk of the volume can now be precisely ascertained, they had better begin making the cover, which will be just the same as that of Book II (price and all), except that SECVNDVS will be TERTIVS, and the date MDCCCCXVI, and that the label on the back will have III instead of II. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 140–1.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1915 My dear Richards, I enclose the MS of the Index to Manilius III, which completes the book, and I also return the paged proofs with some further corrections. By the way, in the process of putting into pages, two errors were introduced which were not in the slips, on pp. 25 and 57. I hope that these are the only two, and that the future will not produce others. What has your friend Tod Sloan1 been up to? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 141.

1 ‘An amusing, rather vainglorious chap, he was a friend of mine on the principle that an author should always be the friend of his publisher. I had encouraged, and assisted, him to write his reminiscences. No one questions that he was a great jockey’: Richards, 141.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Dec. 1915 My dear Richards, It will not be necessary for me to see again the proofs of Manilius III down to p. 64; but the printers and their proof-readers must not make any alteration, even the slightest, on their own responsibility without asking me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s.

TO W. F OW L E R C A RT E R Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Dec. 1915. Dear Sir, I have received safely and read with great interest your researches into the history of the Holden family,1 and I have much pleasure in enclosing a cheque for £5. I very much admire the industry and ingenuity with which these obscure individuals have bee[n] tracked out. I am [a]fraid I do not myself take so much interest in my ancestors as some of my family do, and as to the printing which you are good enough to propose I must consult my sister, who just at present is immersed in other things. With many thanks for your labours and their result I remain Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Birmingham City Archives MS. The missing letters in ‘been’ and ‘afraid’ are the result of holes being punched in the MS.

1

Ancestors of AEH’s father Edward. See Jo Hunt’s chart in Pugh, Appendix I.

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22 December 1915

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Dec. 1915 My dear Richards, I enclose the last pages of Manilius III with two corrections, and the book may now be printed and published without any more tinkering from me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. The compliments of the season. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 141; Maas, 141.

1916 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Jan. 1916 My dear Richards, I write about Manilius III, and shall probably write again, not out of impatience, but because, when book II was publishing, you and the printers went to sleep in each other’s arms for a whole month1 and then wrote to ask me for corrections though I had said there would be none. I sent all that I had to send before Christmas. I hope that, as I suggested, the binding is being got ready, so that the rest of the book will not have to wait for it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 142; Maas, 142.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Feb. 1916 Dear Sirs, The cover and label, which I return, are correct, and I have corrected the two errors queried in the proofs, which I also return. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards Ltd LC-GR t.s. Richards, 142 (excerpt).

1 Richards, 142, comments: ‘no printer has a great number of compositors and readers competent both to handle efficiently and expeditiously such a manuscript’.

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10 February 1916

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Feb. 1916 My dear Richards, When you say you ‘would like to’ go to France with me, is that a mere sigh or a serious wish? Because I should be both agreeable to it and desirous of it; only I understood that the difficulties now put in the way of getting a passport were almost insuperable. In any case I should not make the venture without a courier such as you to protect me. Can I induce you to come and stay with me a night or two some time this term? Oldmeadow1 is going to be dining in hall on Sunday the 20th with the Roman Catholic Monsignore,2 if that will attract you, and possibly, though I am not sure, I might get him to dine with me on the Saturday. But any date that would suit you would probably suit me. I have not been able to see the Studio3 yet. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR t.s. Richards, 142–3; Maas, 142.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Feb. 1916 My dear Richards, I am writing to tell you, directly on hearing it myself, that cerebro-spinal meningitis exists among the soldiers quartered in this college, who are supposed to have brought it with them from Ashford. I am not going to stir, and I believe that infection is conveyed only by close association; but consider whether this will make you change your mind about coming here on the 19th , and let me know as soon as is convenient to you.

1

See the notes on the letter of 8 July 1909. Identified by Maas (142) as The Revd Christopher Scott, Provost of Northampton and Rector of the Church of the English Martyrs, Cambridge, since 1890. 3 The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine & Applied Art, 66. 274 (15 Jan. 1916), 277, contained a review of the New English Art Club exhibition in which Hester Frood’s Countess Weir was praised as ‘an admirable water-colour’ worthy of being ‘specially mentioned’. 2

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Mrs Richards is exceedingly kind, but I should not think of going abroad with the two of you, even if dates suited. I hope it will set both of you up. Your sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 143 (incomplete); Maas, 142 (incomplete and dated c.10 February).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Feb. 1916 My dear Richards, You must come in May, when the soldiers may be gone and in any case the place will be looking better. I ought to be in London for business this next Thursday, and I may as well try to combine pleasure with it; so will you assist me by coming to lunch at the Café Royal at 1. 15? I hope to be there by that time, though trains are not punctual. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 143.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trin. Coll. Camb. 15. 2. 16 My dear Richards, Yes, Mr Farrar may have what he wants. Yours A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Feb. 1916 Dear Sirs, I return the printers’ query, with the answer added. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards Ltd LC-GR3 t.s.

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25 February 1916

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Feb. 1916 My dear Richards, I am very sorry indeed to see in the paper to-day the sudden death of your uncle,1 —though I suppose it was not altogether sudden, as it took place in the Acland Home. When I saw him last, at your house, he seemed full of sturdiness. There are too few severe and thorough scholars of his sort. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 143 (wrongly dated as 18 February); Maas, 143.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Feb. 1916. Dear Gow, The -it of the perf. was originally long in the 4th as in the other conjugations, and remains so in Plautus; but by Virgil’s time it had become short in the regular verbs, as is shown by audiit˘ and ambiit˘ in the 5th foot at Aen. VII 516 and X 2431 : its lengthening is artificial in Ouid. met. XII 392.2 On the other hand in eo and peto it is never shown by the metre to be short and often shown to be long, for it occurs where artificial lengthening is not allowed, as in Ouid. met. II 567.3 The source of all wisdom on this subject is Lachmann’s note on Lucr. III 1042:4 the only material addition that I find in my margin is Stat. Theb. XII 396 to cupiit¯ unam (so the best MS is now reported: cupiens cett.),5 which may seem to show natural

1 The Times, 10: ‘Mr. Herbert Paul Richards, Senior Fellow, Sub-Warden, and Librarian of Wadham College, died suddenly yesterday at the Acland Home, Oxford. He had been much affected by the fate of a nephew, a pupil of his own at Wadham, who had won a high place in the Civil Service, but volunteered early in the war and fell fighting in Flanders.’ 1 Draft: ‘foot of the hexamater at A. 7. 516 and 10. 243’ (TCC MS with Adv. c. 20. 15). 2 Gow had enquired about the length of the last syllable of the third person singular perfect indicative ending in -iit for -ivit: Gow to AEH, 23 Feb. 1916 . 3 Draft: ‘ its lengthening is artificial in Ou. met. 12 392. On the other hand in eo and peto it is never short, and it is long where artificial lengthening is not allowed, as in Ou. met. II 567.’ Gow: ‘My impression was that it was naturally short except in eo and peto’. 4 5 In his edn. of 1850. Draft: ‘(best MS cupiens cett.)’.

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length, as Statius does not elsewhere allow artificial lengthening except at the caesura6 in the 3rd foot. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 6 . Maas, 410–11 (wrongly dated).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 2 March 1916. My dear Richards, W. A. Merrill published in 1907 an edition of Lucretius, containing nothing original, but collecting the work of others with that bibliographical fulness in which Americans excel. He has since changed his opinions on the text and developed originality as a reactionary, and his obtuseness enables him to stick to the reading of the manuscripts in many places where the critics whom he formerly followed abandoned them. I have a very low opinion of his intelligence, and he is bumptious into the bargain. I hope, if you do succeed in getting abroad with Mrs Richards, I shall hear of your success. I return Merrill’s letter. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Probably you will have seen a notice of your uncle in last week’s Oxford Magazine,1 written I suppose by the Warden2 or someone else at Wadham. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 146; Maas, 143 (both nearly complete).

6

Draft: ‘the regular caesura’. The Oxford Magazine, 34. 13 (25 Feb. 1916): ‘The late Mr. H. P. Richards will be missed in many places, but in no place more than his favourite haunt of an afternoon—the Coffee Room at the Union Society. He arrived almost always at the same hour, and would then read The Times methodically through from cover to cover, always folding the page into double columns. He was there as usual on the afternoon before his death … The Union has lost in him a constant and generous friend.’ 2 The Warden from 1913 to 1927 was Joseph Wells (1855–1929), previously Fellow of Wadham. 1

357

18 March 1916

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 18 March 1916 My dear Richards, The verses are the last lines of The Choice, by John Pomfret, b. 1667, d. 1702;1 which is said both by Johnson2 and by Southey3 to be the most popular poem in the language. Perhaps in your uncle’s youth it was not yet quite forgotten.4 Your uncle or his source has left out the fatal verses which interfered with the author’s advancement in the Church and incidentally led to his catching smallpox and dying.5 And, after all, the poor man had a wife.6 I take occasion to remark that on Lady Day7 it will be three months since I sent the final corrections of Manilius III. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 147 (incomplete). The letter is accompanied by a sheet on which AEH supplies four lines missing from Herbert Richards’s quotation from Pomfret: ‘And as I near approached the verge of life, | Some kind relation (for I’d have no wife) | Should take upon him all my worldly care, | Whilst I did for a better state prepare. | Then I’d not be etc.’

1 ‘Whate’er Assistance I had Pow’r to bring … All Men would wish to live and die like me’, quoted in Richards, 146–7. It dates from 1700 and is modelled on Horace, Satires, 2. 6, which describes the pleasures of a quiet country estate. 2 ‘Perhaps no composition in our language has been oftener perused’: ‘John Pomfret’, The Lives of the English Poets. 3 ‘Why is Pomfret the most popular of the English Poets? The fact is certain, and the solution would be useful’: Specimens of the Later English Poets, with preliminary notices by Robert Southey (1807), 1. 91. 4 The unattributed passage of verse was found among Herbert Richards’s papers, and the Revd John Richards, who had been AEH’s contemporary and acquaintance at Oxford, had sent it to GR in order that he might find out its author. AEH replied immediately: Richards, 146–7. 5 Pomfret ‘might have risen in the Church’, but his application to Dr Compton, Bishop of London, for institution to a valuable living, was obstructed by ‘a malicious interpretation of some passage in his Choice; from which it was inferred, that he considered happiness as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of a wife.’ The delay ‘constrained his attendance in London, where he caught the smallpox, and died’ (Johnson). 6 Pomfret was indeed a married man. In The Choice, however, he chooses to have no wife, but rather ‘Near some obliging modest fair to live’ so that her ‘conversation’ can ‘impart | Fresh vital heat to the transported heart’ and ‘new joys inspire’. 7 25 March.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 March 1916 My dear Richards, I am assuming that you either were not on the Sussex, or are one of the rescued.1 I enclose a list of the papers and persons to whom I wish copies of Manilius III to be sent. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 147.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 29 March 1916 My dear Richards, There are corrections to be made on pp. 18, 27, 35, 49, 95. The sinking of the Sussex is no deterrent to me; quite the reverse. I argue thus: only a certain number of steamers are destined to sink; one of that number has sunk already without me on board; and that diminishes by one the number of my chances of destruction. But women cannot reason, so I suppose your designs are knocked on the head.1 I have pretty well made up my mind to go at least as far as Paris, probably about April 20th . Yours sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR t.s. Richards, 148; Maas, 143 (both incomplete, and in Maas dated c.30 March).

1 The SS Sussex was torpedoed by a German submarine off the French coast on 24 Mar. 1916. ‘There had been talk of my wife and myself crossing at about that time’: Richards, 147. 1 By Mrs Richards.

359

6 April 1916

TO P RO F E S S O R A RT H U R P L AT T Trinity College | Cambridge 6 April 1916. Dear Platt,1 If you prefer Aeschylus to Manilius you are no true scholar; you must be deeply tainted with literature, as indeed I always suspected that you were. The Bible is supposed to be full of types, and perhaps St Paul—ce type là—prefigures Don Quixote.2 The resemblances you mention had not struck me, but they will bear thinking on. I wonder if St Paul’s experiences in the third heaven3 are susceptible of the same explanation as Don Quixote’s in the moon.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 207; Maas, 144.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 6 April 1916 My dear Richards, Many thanks for your letter and your wish to preserve my life; but I have just applied for leave to go through Folkestone and Dieppe by the 7. 0 p.m. from Charing Cross on Wednesday the 19th . After all, a quick death is better than a slow journey; and as I am only an author and not a publisher I am comparatively well prepared to meet my God. But I shall be sorry if my choice of the shorter route spoils any chance I may have had of crossing in your company. I shall pretty certainly be in London the Monday before I go, and may perhaps see you then. I shall be interested to read my new volume of poems, but you don’t tell me who the publisher is.1 By the way, when are you going to bring out 1 On grounds that they were ‘too Rabelaisian’, Mrs Platt destroyed all other letters from AEH to Platt after her husband’s death. 2 Platt read a paper on Cervantes to the University College Literary Society in 1916; repr. in Nine Essays by Arthur Platt, with a preface by A. E. Housman (1927), 116–38. 3 2 Corinthians 12: 2–4: ‘I knew a man in Christ … caught up to the third heaven. … And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.’ 4 Don Quixote was blindfolded whilst supposedly riding the famous horse Clavile˜no through the heavens: Don Quixote, part 2, ch. 41. 1 GR had passed on a fresh rumour that there was to be a successor to ASL: Richards, 148.

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Letters 1872–1926

my edition of Catullus? Clement Shorter announced it on your behalf ten years ago.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 148; Maas, 144.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 9 April 1916 My dear Richards, Last year you proved so much better informed than Cooks and Consulates that I am prepared to accept whatever you say; but the Military Permit Office has just written to me: ‘I am unable to state definitely by which route you will be allowed to proceed, as alterations are at present taking place’. Many thanks for your invitation to Bigfrith, but I think I had better hold myself free from engagements, as I have several things to do before I go. I don’t know if you sent copies of Manilius III to the list of persons and papers I gave you; but, if so, some of them at any rate have not reached their destination. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 148–9.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 April 1916 My dear Richards, Not on account of mines or torpedoes, which I despise as much as ever, but because the Folkestone route is closed and the voyage by Southampton–Havre, without the solace and protection of your company, is a long and weary subtraction from the short holiday I meant to take, I am not going to France. 2 According to Richards, 148 n., AEH mistakes Shorter for W. Robertson Nicoll, editor of The British Weekly: see the letter to GR of 3 Aug. 1905. Clement K. Shorter (1857–1926) was author of various biographical works, and editor of English Illustrated Magazine, 1890, the Illustrated London News, 1891, the Sphere, 1900, and the Tatler, 1901.

361

15 May 1916

Many thanks for the present of Valpy’s Manilius1 from you and your relatives.2 I had the edition already, but not so neat a copy. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR t.s. (with ‘torpedos’ corrected to ‘torpedoes’). Richards, 149; Maas, 145.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 4 May 1916 Dear Mackail, Many thanks for your notes.1 What I say at 113 is that political oratory (rostris) has no business in the middle of forensic matters. As to numerosis in 172, although I think pro spatio magna can mean ‘of a length proportioned to the distance’, I do not think that magnus could mean ‘great or small’ without help, nor numerosus ‘many or few’; and if it could, what a thing to think of saying! longa dies in 482 is the long day of midsummer. At 325 as a parallel to gradus perhaps you would prefer Soph. Ai. 7–8 εὖ δέ σ’ ἐκφέρει … βάσις. It is not for equality but for sense that I adopt the future in 361, as in 333. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.1. Hawkins (1958), 187; Maas, 411.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 May 1916 My dear Richards, Will you come here for some week-end this term, which ends June 12? As I have to lecture on Mondays, I shall not be absent any week-end, and all would suit me alike. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 149.

1 1

2 1819. From the library of Herbert Richards: Richards, 149. On AEH’s edn. of Manilius III, of which AEH had sent him a copy.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 12 June 1916 My dear Richards, The first observation I have to make is that you have not answered my last letter. Your secretary wrote to me on May 17 that she had sent it after you to the continent, and added ‘it will be some days before you can hear from him’. And so it was. I asked you to come here for a week-end during the May term. The term is now over, but there will still be a certain number of people here, and if you like to come I shall be pleased to have you. I don’t know when you go to Cornwall, but I don’t think you will carry me off there before the end of July, because this is my chief time for work. I shall be interested to hear of your experiences of travel, because toward the end of August I think of trying to get to France, if not Italy. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 149–50; Maas, 145.

TO MILDRED PLAT T Trinity College | Cambridge 14 June 1916 Dear Mrs Platt, It is very good of you to ask me to the rites of Bona Dea1 (as you have married a walking dictionary you can soon find out all about her); and, to be strictly honest, it would be possible for me to come to London on the 19th. But it would not be convenient, and also I should have to cut a meeting and deprive the Vice-Chancellor of my valuable advice; so laziness and conscientiousness combined enable me to master my passion for tea and ladies, and I hope you will not be vindictively wrathful if I say no.

1 Roman fertility goddess whom AEH is identifying with Minerva. Annual rites in her honour held on 19 June at her temple on the Aventine were attended exclusively by women.

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29 June 1916

Ladies in Cambridge are getting into closer touch with war: they are to be allowed to paint shells. I greatly fear that patriotism together with feminine unscrupulousness will lead them to poison the paint. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 145–6.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 June 1916 My dear Richards, I ought of course to have answered your letter before now. Your invitation1 is very attractive, and I should like to come, so far as I can judge at present. I have never been into Cornwall except just across the Tamar. From what I hear, it seems as if the advance on our front were to begin to-morrow. Civilians are not to cross to France for the next three weeks or so, and all vessels crossing for some time back have been filled with big guns, even to the exclusion, except at fixed dates, of officers on leave. Yours sincerely, A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 150; Maas, 146.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N 29 June 1916 I shall be glad to see you any time next month if you will let me have a couple of days’ notice. Yrs. A. E. H. Trin. Coll. Camb. Harvard bMS 1148 (740) 33: p.c. addressed ‘W. Rothenstein Esq. | Far Oakridge | Stroud’ and redirected to c/o Prof Turner, Huntercombe Road, Blackhall, Oxford.

1 To spend a week or two at the Richards’ cottage at Ruan Minor, a village near The Lizard in Cornwall: Richards, 150.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N ‘An evening train’ is reprehensibly vague: shall you be in time for dinner in Hall at 7. 45? I hope so. We don’t dress, as you probably remember. Yours A. E. Housman. 2 July 1916 Trinity College, Cambridge Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 34: p.c. addressed ‘W. Rothenstein Esq. | Far Oakridge | Stroud’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 6 July 1916 My dear Richards, I should think the 4th would be better than the 5th of August for travelling, with the double Bank Holiday looming ahead; so if you will make arrangements on that hypothesis it will be very nice of you. As to how long I should stay, which we have not fixed, the first and great point of course is that my stay falls entirely within your own, and I am not going to be left unprotected among your huge family in a remote corner of England.1 Thanks for the newspaper extracts. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 150; Maas, 146.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 10 July 1916 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, It is extremely kind of you to ask me to Oakridge, and of course it is attractive; but after Cornwall I shall probably be going to my sister in Somerset, and not long after, if possible, to France, so my holidays will be pretty well filled up. 1 ‘My wife, my aunt Mrs. Grant Allen, and five children, a nurse and maids, all, with the exception of my aunt, crowded into a small and ancient cottage, which, however, had many rooms’: Richards, 151.

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23 July 1916

Your William has behaved quite nicely here, and I have just sent him off all safe and sound, so any breakages will have been caused by the journey and I shall not be responsible. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 35. Maas, 147.

TO T H E R E V D H E N RY M O N TAG U BU T L E R Trinity College 23 July 1916 My dear Master, I have just heard with great sorrow of your son Gordon’s death. His ability I knew from what I had seen of his work, and his modesty and amiable nature from what I had seen of himself. I beg that you and Mrs Butler will accept my sincere sympathy: consolation I do not offer, for you will find that in the life he lived and the cause for which he died. οὐ γὰρ ἀθανάτους σφῷν παῖδας ηὔχεσθον γενέσθαι, ἀλλ’ ἀγαθοὺς καὶ εὐκλεεῖς.1 I am my dear Master Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS (JRMB M3/1/544).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 July 1916 My dear Richards, Many thanks for your letter and its directions, which I will follow on Aug. 4. My idea is to stay about a week, if that will suit you. I am glad to see, from a fly leaf I received the other day, that they are getting up a memorial to your uncle at Wadham.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 150. 1 A modified version of Plato, Menexenus, 247d5: ‘For you two prayed not that your children become immortal but brave and glorious’. 1 Herbert Richards, formerly Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. The memorial was a small drawing: Richards, 150.

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TO M A RG A R E T, LA DY RA M S AY Trinity College | Cambridge 27 July 1916 Dear Lady Ramsay, I have heard with great regret of the death of your husband,1 from whom I always received the utmost kindness and friendliness throughout the many years which we passed as colleagues in London and during which I had the pleasure of watching the growth of his reputation and influence. I had been told indeed of his serious illness, but the loss to science and to his friends, though not unexpected, is none the less grievous; and I beg you to accept my sincere sympathy with you and your family in your bereavement. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS: Sir William Ramsay: Letters and Papers, 16. 213. Maas, 147.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS What is the address to which my letters should be forwarded when I am with you? I hope you are both enjoying Dartmoor. A. E. H. Trin. Coll. Camb. 28 July 1916 LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | The Duchy Hotel | Princetown | Devon’. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Sept. 1916 My dear Richards, I was very much distressed, and not on your account only, to see poor Gerard’s death in the Times.1 He was a nice boy, and it was sad that he had not the health and strength of other boys.2 I hope you and

1

See Lady Ramsay in List of Recipients. The Richards’ eldest son was killed at the age of sixteen by the collapse of a sand-cave on the beach at Poldu: Richards, 151, 153. His death was announced in The Times, 13 Sept. 1916, 1. 2 ‘Housman was under some misapprehension in thinking that the boy lacked health and strength’: Richards, 154. 1

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16 October 1916

Mrs Richards are well, and not more overcome by sorrow for his loss than must needs be. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 153, 324 (excerpt); Maas, 147.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Oct. 1916 My dear Richards, My young friend who was at Oundle1 is now lost to my sight in the R.A.M.C.2 and I have not heard from him for six months; and as he left school six or seven years ago, his information might not be up to date. Thanks for the copy of A Shropshire Lad; but I wonder why the printer, when directed to remove a comma from the end of a verse on p. 49, turned it upside down and added it at the beginning. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 154 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Oct. 1916 My dear Richards, I shall be delighted to see you both at lunch on the 31st .1 Let me know whether it shall be 1. 45 or 2 o’ clock. Thanks for the note from the printers. If they are guiltless, their predecessors seem to have been extraordinarily wicked. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 154.

1

2 Oundle School, Northamptonshire, founded in 1556. Royal Army Medical Corps. GR and his wife were to be in Cambridge at the start of a bookselling tour through England and Scotland: Richards, 154. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Oct. 1916 My dear Richards, I am grateful though ashamed to receive your present of a new stick. The old one perished nobly in the destruction of a venomous serpent,1 and I only hope the new one may make as good an end. 1. 45 on Tuesday the 31st let it be. My kind regards to Mrs Richards and the family. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 154; Maas, 148.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College, Cambridge 30 Oct. 1916. Dear Gow, 1. For -cque see Madvig Cic. de fin. V 401 and Haupt opusc. III p. 5082 = Herm. V p. 38. The only classical example is Ouid fast. IV 848 ‘sic’ que, where sic is said by one person and que by another. Where tuncque occurs, as at Manil. III 481, it should be tumque; hancque etc. don’t occur except in inferior MSS. 2. Adjectives are allowed, though rarely, at the end of pentameters, as in her. X 138 grauis, amor. II 6 58 pias, trist. IV 3 42 piae, and I don’t think it makes any difference whether they are predicates. In fast. I and II, omitting numerals, 2 are predicates (I 168, 230), 4 are not (I 222, II 56, 114, 546). 3. In Ibis 223 I suppose in aduerso culmine means ‘on a house-top (or other eminence) opposite’. Ibis was born out of doors, as you see from what follows. 4. uirides campos or the like is quite common, niueos campos or the like very rare, but not unexampled, e.g. amor. I. 9. 19 graues urbes, art. II 594 insidias illas, fast. II 300 graues imbres, ex Pont. I 4 56 dis ueris. But an exception is

1 On a walk with Richards and his children in Cornwall, AEH had broken his stick in killing an adder: Richards, 153. 1 2 1839. 1875–6.

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6 November 1916

made for possessive pronouns, and nostris oculis, suos annos etc. are pretty frequent. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 1127 . Maas, 411–12.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 6 November 1916 My dear Richards,] They can make their record if they like:1 all I want is not to have to write letters. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 154.

TO J. P. P O S TG AT E Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Nov. 1916 Dear Postgate, The paper, as you will see, deals more with method than with prosody.1 About conubium I agree with L. Mueller and Munro at Lucr. III 776. I should not read conubia in Verg. Aen. VII 555, as it has very weak authority and, being the commoner word in Virgil, might come to the pen of the scribe when it should not.

1 GR had received a request from a music publisher to make ‘a gramophone record of a song’ with words from ASL: Richards, 154. ‘In March 1917 Gervase Elwes made a recording of On Wenlock Edge … though ‘‘song’’ in the singular could indicate Graham Peel’s ‘‘In summertime on Bredon’’, which was also recorded by Elwes’: Banfield (1985), 236. 1 See Naiditch (2005), 50–1 (‘A. E. Housman’s ‘‘Prosody and Method’’ ’). Naiditch comments that identifying the paper AEH mentions to Postgate is ‘surprisingly difficult: it may be the lost lecture on Stat. silu. II 773 sq. (Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 115, Oct. 26, 1916, p. 16 = Cl.Pap. p. 1264)’ or ‘The Thyestes of Varius, published CQ 11. 1, Jan. 1917, pp. 42–48 (Cl. Pap. pp. 941–949)’ (51 n. 1).

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Letters 1872–1926

Thanks for the reference to Sommer’s works.2 I have not yet gone through the process which since August is required for getting books from Germany. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 7 Nov. 1916 My dear Richards, I hope you and Mrs Richards enjoyed your tour,—or are enjoying it, as I don’t know if you are back yet. But what I am writing about is this. A friend of mine (and acquaintance of yours) went to Bowes and Bowes to-day and asked for a 6d. copy of A Shropshire Lad. They brought it, but charged him 1/- for it, saying that it had gone up to this owing to the war. I said I thought probably they were out of 6d. copies and offered him a 1/- one instead, but he sticks to his story.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 154–5; Maas, 148.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Dec. 1916 My dear Richards, It would have given me great pleasure to come and see you and Mrs Richards, but I am engaged to spend the week-end in London, if the Government allows me to travel at all.1 2 Ferdinand Sommer’s Handbuch der lateinischen Laut- und Formenlehre: eine Einf¨uhrung in das Sprachwissenschaftliche Studium des Lateins (Heidelberg 1914). AEH acquired a copy: Naiditch (2004), 152. 1 Without consulting AEH, GR had doubled the price to meet rising costs: Richards, 155. 1 There were no travel restrictions in force, probably a reflection of the uncertainty following the government reconstruction announced in the previous day’s Times. Asquith resigned as Prime Minister on 5 Dec. and Lloyd George succeeded him on 6 Dec. and formed a coalition government.

5 December 1916

371

Your Hunhunter at Clare,2 from your account, must have troubles enough without adding me; and I for the last three weeks have been having a series of three colds on the top of one another. But if you like to let me know his name and rank, perhaps I may try to make his acquaintance when I am better. I do not make any particular complaint about your doubling the price of my book, but of course it diminishes the sale and therefore diminishes my chances of the advertisement to which I am always looking forward: a soldier is to receive a bullet in the breast, and it is to be turned aside from his heart by a copy of A Shropshire Lad which he is carrying there. Hitherto it is only the Bible that has performed this trick. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 155; Maas, 148–9. 2 Captain Desmond Young, author (with Justin McKenna) of The Hun Hunters, recently published by GR.

1917 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Jan. 1917 My dear Richards, Will you tell the lady that I do not give permission to print my poems in anthologies, but remind her that in America I neither possess nor claim any control in the matter. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 156.

TO M E S S R S C O N S TA B L E & CO Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Jan. 1917 Dear Sirs, I make no objection to the quotation of my poem in L. of C.,1 if you will have the enclosed corrections made. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Constable & Co. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Jan. 1917 My dear Richards, Thanks for cheque, for which I enclose receipt. There must also be some account to be regulated between us about Manilius III. I sent you £50 on account, but the production probably cost 1

L[ines] of C[ommunication] (1917). See AEH to GR, 21 Aug. 1920, and n. 1.

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10 February 1917

more. But I see you say you have only got out accounts to the end of 1915. When I last saw you, you made a light and easily-forgotten promise to let me know the average sale of A Shropshire Lad of late years. When I was in London on New Year’s Day, I was not my own master. I was discharging an important mission, testing wines in company with other members of the Wine Committee of this College. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 156.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S & CO Trinity College, Cambridge 24 Jan. 1917 Dear Sirs, 1. Mr A. Marleyn may have permission to publish his setting of Bredon Hill. 2. Mr Goodhart-Rendel may have permission to publish his setting of The Recruit. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards & Co. LC-GR t.s.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Feb. 1917 My dear Laurence, Thanks for your Return of Alcestis,1 which as a whole I do not very much admire, in spite of a good many good lines. On the other hand the last work of yours that I read, The Royal Runaway,2 I thought even better than John of Jingalo,3 at least till the revolution came, which I did not much believe in.

1 2 3

First published in LH’s trilogy The Wheel (1919). The Royal Runaway and Jingalo in Revolution: A Sequel to John of Jingalo (1914). John of Jingalo: The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties (1912).

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Letters 1872–1926

I was at Eton last Sunday and came across two boys, the sons of suffragists named Harben living somewhere near, to whom on one occasion in a closed carriage you recited reams of poetry which they supposed to be your own; but the only fragment which they could repeat was mine. It says a great deal for your conversational ascendancy that the incident took place, for in any other company those two boys would do the talking and not the listening. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 176; Maas, 149.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Feb. 1917 My dear Richards, It is one of several proofs that I am suffering from confinement in these islands mentally as well as physically, that though I have turned over a good many pages and thought about the matter from time to time, I have not got hold of any sentence that will hit off your uncle.1 Many thanks for the Nevinson,2 though I will not pretend that I am sufficiently educated to appreciate it properly. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s.; Richards, 156–7.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 March 1917 My dear Richards, Yes, I have read Haynes’ book,1 and thought it very well written and full of good sense.

1 ‘I asked Housman if he could think of some phrase from a Greek or Latin author to put on Herbert Richards’s tombstone, a few words which would indicate something of his character’: Richards, 156. 2 ‘The large coloured plate, ‘‘Reliefs at Dawn’’, by C. R. W. Nevinson which … I had reproduced’: Richards, 157. 1 E. S. P. Haynes, The Decline of Liberty in England (1917), published by GR.

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9 April 1917

I forget if I ever thanked you for sending me the Nevinson; if not, I do so now. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s.; Richards, 157 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 18 March 1917 My dear Richards, I should be very pleased to come to you for this next week-end, Friday the 23rd . Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. (with ‘shall’ for ‘should’).

TO E D M U N D G O S S E Trinity College, Cambridge 9 April 1917 My dear Gosse, Naturally I have been reading your life of Swinburne,1 and naturally also I have been enjoying it. It is a great comfort to have it done by some one who knows chalk from cheese: only I am surprised that you think so much of the second series of Poems and Ballads,2 apart from Ave atque Vale. And by the by it rejoices me to find that the only two things I ever admired in his later volumes,—Ave atque Vale itself and the prologue to Tristram,—are both of them early. I offer you the following as a heading for chapter VIII:3 1

The Life of Algernon Charles Swinburne (1917). Published in 1878, and praised by Gosse (239–40) as a ‘serene volume’ that ‘exhibits his purely lyrical genius in its most amiable and melodious form’. 3 ‘Gosse’s chapter deals with the rehabilitation of Swinburne by Watts, relating specifically how under Watts’s influence Swinburne became ‘‘little more than the beautiful ghost of what he had been in earlier years’’ (p. 268); and the chapter ends with Swinburne’s death on April 10, 1909. Hence Housman’s fantasy of Watts as Coleridge’s LIFE-IN-DEATH winning Swinburne as the mariner from DEATH in the game of dice. A further prompt may have been a quotation from Swinburne on p. 227 of Gosse’s biography: ‘‘I am still engaged on the period where the influence of rhyme and the influence of Marlowe were fighting, or throwing dice, for the (dramatic) soul of Shakespeare’’ ’: Archie Burnett, ‘Poetical Emendations and Improvisations by A. E. Housman’, Victorian Poetry, 36. 3 (Fall 1998), 291. 2

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Letters 1872–1926

The naked hulk alongside came, And the twain were casting dice; ‘The game is done! I’ve won, I’ve won!’ Quoth Watts, and whistles thrice.4 It is above my usual standard; and I have composed part of another stanza, equally fine: Is that a Death, and are there two? Is Death that Dunton’s mate?5 Now, in prospect of a second edition, I make these remarks. Pp. 45–7. Swinburne put it out of the power of the judges to award him the Newdigate, by breaking the rules of the competition. In his time, and for years afterwards, the prescribed metre was the heroic couplet.6 P. 79. Not A Winter’s Tale but The Merry Wives, revived by Phelps at the Gaiety; and the date would be 1874, for I heard it7 sung in January 1875. P. 100. His pocket was either metaphorical or very large, for Atalanta was written in a ledger, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum.8 P. 155. I have seen Cleopatra in a magazine of the sixties, Cornhill I think, with an illustration.9 P. 168. Ave atque Vale had been published, I think, in the Fortnightly in 1875.10 P. 200. Whose is the verse in inverted commas, slightly reminiscent of Wordsworth?11 4 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834 text), 195–8, with ‘she’ replaced by ‘Watts’. ‘Whistles’ refers discreetly to the attack which Swinburne, influenced by Watts, made on his former friend, the painter James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) in The Fortnightly Review ( June 1888). 5 With ‘Dunton’s’ for the source’s ‘woman’s’. Watts changed his name to Watts-Dunton in 1896. 6 Swinburne’s entry for the Newdigate Prize Poem at Oxford in Mar. 1858 on the subject ‘The Discovery of the North-West Passage’ was written in a more adventurous metre. Gosse (45) thought it had been denied the prize because it dealt exclusively with the fate of Franklin and his companions. The prize was won by Francis Law Latham of Brasenose College. 7 Swinburne’s song Love laid his sleepless head, later published in Poems and Ballads: Second Series (1878). Gosse (79) thought it had been written ‘about 1876’. 8 Gosse: ‘Swinburne proceeded, with the beginning of Atalanta in his pocket, to … the Isle of Wight.’ 9 Gosse (98): ‘Swinburne wrote some verses called Cleopatra to a drawing by Frederick Sandys which appeared as a wood-cut in the Cornhill Magazine in September 1866’. Gosse (155): ‘He published, in a very small edition, in paper covers, Cleopatra, which was new’. 10 ‘A Vision of Spring in Winter’, The Fortnightly Review, 100 (1 Apr. 1875), 505–7. 11 Gosse has ‘The ‘‘marvellous boy, that perished in his prime’’ ’ for Wordsworth’s ‘the marvellous Boy, | The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride’ (Resolution and Independence, 7. 1–2).

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13 April 1917

P. 229. What you say about the Persae is quite wickedly false:12 ‘here lies our good Edmund’ in fact.13 But what ought to turn the pudic snows of your countenance to scarlet is the bottom of p. 125, where you have taken Swinburne’s heavy-handed irony for seriousness. That view of Mary is the view he imputes to his enemies her defenders.14 Perhaps we should both blush if you unfolded the awful inner meaning of ‘a way which those who knew him will easily imagine for themselves’ on p. 82.15 You may possibly be able to say, from your own knowledge or Mr T. J. Wise’s,16 whether Swinburne is the author of two poems signed Etonensis17 in a volume entitled The Whippingham Papers,18 sold in Paris to Anglo-Saxons. Lord Redesdale misdates Swinburne’s death on p. 317.19 My kind regards to Mrs Gosse. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL MS Ashley B. 903, fos. 41–3. Maas, 149–51.

TO E D M U N D G O S S E Trinity College, Cambridge 13 April 1917 My dear Gosse, If you are going to indulge in depression of spirits because I manage to find half a dozen mistakes in 350 pages, you will cut yourself off from my valued corrections in the future. As for my finding ‘little to like’, you 12 Gosse makes reference to ‘the odes in praise of Athenian liberty which break up the scenes of the Persae’. See AEH to Gosse, 13 Apr. 1917. 13 An application to Edmund Gosse of Goldsmith’s mock-epitaph on Edmund Burke: ‘Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, | We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much’: Retaliation, 29–30. 14 ‘ … the qualities [in Mary Stuart] which he [Swinburne] summed up at last (in 1882) as her ‘‘easiness, gullibility, incurable innocence and invincible ignorance of evil, incapacity to suspect or resent anything, readiness to believe and forgive all things’’ ’: Gosse, 125–6. 15 A jocular reference to Swinburne’s passion for flagellation. 16 Thomas James Wise (1859–1937), book-collector, bibliographer, and forger; formed the Ashley Library, which was sold to the British Museum after his death. 17 Arthur’s Flogging and Reginald’s Flogging by ‘Etonensis’, attributed to Swinburne. 18 The Whippingham Papers: A Collection of Contributions in Prose and Verse, chiefly by the author of the ‘Romance of Chastisement’ (1888). 19 A letter from Redesdale, printed as an appendix, has 1910 instead of 1909.

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know perfectly well that you write delightfully and that your taste and knowledge made you just the man for the work; and you do not need to hear it from me, especially when all the world is saying it. For my own part I always feel impertinent and embarrassed when I praise people: this is a defect of character, I know; and I suffer for it, like Cordelia.1 The chief fault of your book is one which I did not mention, that there is too little of it. There are not, and could not be, any odes in praise of Athenian liberty in the Persae, for all the odes are sung by Persian elders. You probably had in your mind a celebrated passage of dialogue, where Atossa enquires who is lord and governor of the Athenians, and is answered that they are no man’s servants or subjects.2 There is an ode in praise of Athens (though not of its liberty) in Euripides’ Medea,3 but I suppose Swinburne would not deign to recite him. I am sending The Whippingham Papers by parcel post. The two poems have some affinity to passages in Love’s Cross Currents and The Sisters;4 the verse seems to me good enough for Swinburne, and in the second poem the stanza is like him; and the names Reggie and Algernon are observable.5 You will see that on p. iii the poet is said to be the author of another work, The Romance of Chastisement,6 which I have not come across: my library is sadly incomplete, and not at all worth leaving to the British Museum when I die. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL MS Ashley B. 4395, fos. 55–6. Maas, 151–2.

1 Who in King Lear was dispossessed and banished by Lear when she could not bring herself first to declare and then to overstate her love for him. 2 3 The Persae, 241–2. Lines 843–7. 4 Respectively an epistolary novel (1905) of thirty letters with a prologue of five chapters, serialized pseudonymously under the name ‘Mrs Horace Manners’ in The Tatler between 25 Aug. and 29 Dec. 1877 as A Year’s Letters, and a tragedy (1892) by Swinburne. A Year’s Letters was published in the United States in 1901. 5 Reggie Fane and Algernon are school friends in Reginald’s Flogging. 6 Published in 1870 and subtitled Revelations of the School and Bedroom. By an Expert. The anonymous author was St George Henry Stock.

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2 June 1917

TO J O H N D R I N K WAT E R Trinity College | Cambridge 14 April 1917 Dear Mr Drinkwater, I am much obliged by the gift of your book,1 which I value both for itself and for your kindness in sending it. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Marquette University MS (Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, series 5, box 4).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS I ought before now to have thanked you and Mrs Richards for the photographs.1 I think I can just make out myself in the marine landscape with figures. Yrs. A. E. H. 27 May 1917. Trin. Coll. Camb. LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Bigfrith | Cookham Dean | Berkshire’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 157 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College Cambridge] Yes. A. E. H. 2 June 1917 BMC MS: AEH’s note on letter from Richards of 1 June 1917 asking ‘Shall I give this man the usual permission?’ LC-GR t.s.

1

Tides: A Book of Poems (1917). The inscribed copy is at BMC. ‘Some photographs of himself that my wife had taken’: Richards, 157. One of them is reproduced in Richards opposite p. 152 (Richards, 161 n.). See AEH to GR, 11 Oct. 1918. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 20 June 1917 My dear Richards, Vaughan Williams did have an interview with me six years or more ago, and induced me by appeals ad misericordiam1 to let him print words on the programme of a concert for which he had already made arrangements; but the permission applied to that concert only. I knew what the results would be, and told him so. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 157–8; Maas, 152.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Aug. 1917 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, It is very good of you to write and enquire after me, and if I were to be in Gloucestershire I would certainly come and see you, but that is not likely to happen at present, and before long I am hoping to get to France, where I have not been for two years and a half, much to the detriment of my health and spirits. I hope that you and William and all the family are as flourishing as is consistent with being fed on war-bread. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 36. Maas, 152.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Aug. 1917 My dear Richards, Symondsbury1 was the village I spoke of, but I have never been inside it, and have only seen the beauty of its knolls and trees from the top of a neighbouring hill. It is two miles from the sea, and not in sight of it, as the 1

‘To pity’. Dorset village. ‘Housman’s uncle, J. B. Housman, held his first curacy at Symondsbury, and married one of the rector’s daughters’: Richards, 158 n. 1

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14 October 1917

high hill and cliff of Eype, which you see from Lyme, intervene. When you do get to the beach, I expect it is chiefly pebbles. I know nothing about lodgings, and I don’t think there can be much of an inn. Abbotsbury2 is not a bad place for downs and open country, but as for bathing—! it is on the Chesil Bank, where death is certain owing to the currents and desirable owing to the stones. The War Office does not view with favour my proposed escape to France, so I shall start at the beginning of next month on a tour to Rochester, Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester and Salisbury. When I am turning home I will write to you, and if you then wish me to come to Bigfrith I shall be very pleased. I hope you are all well. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 158 (nearly complete); Maas, 152–3.

TO M A RT I N S E C K E R Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Oct. 1917 Dear Mr Secker, Richards tells me to send you this,1 which I do with much pleasure. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Tipped-in in Martin Secker’s presentation copy of Grant Richards, Housman 1897–1936 (1941).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Oct. 1917 My dear Richards, I have sent the book to Secker, and called on Mr Withers,1 who seems an agreeable man.

2

Dorset village. A signed copy of ASL: Richards, 158. 1 Dr Percy Withers: see List of Recipients. Withers, an admirer of ASL, going to Cambridge on war work, had asked GR for a letter of introduction to AEH: Richards, 158. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

The young friend who was educated at Oundle has been staying with me, and says it is probably the best equipped school in England for engineering.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 158 (excerpt).

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Nov. 1917 Dear Sirs, I do not allow my verses to be printed on concert programmes. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s.

TO S. M . E L L I S Trinity College, Cambridge 7 Nov. 1917 Dear Sir, It is more than twenty years since I was last photographed,1 so that the portrait, even if I had no objection to sending it, would not be very like. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman Yale MS. Envelope addressed to ‘S. M. Ellis Esq. | 16 Defoe Avenue | Kew | Surrey’.

2 Frederick William Sanderson (1857–1922) as headmaster (1892–1922) introduced an elaborate building programme and established eminent departments of science and engineering. 1 In 1894: Naiditch (2005), 13.

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18 November 1917

TO F. J. H . J E N K I N S O N Trinity College 7 Nov. 1917 My dear Jenkinson, I am not quite sure if you are the right person to write to, nor who is chairman of the Library Extension Subsyndicate; but anyhow I shall probably not be coming to the meeting to-morrow, as I am nursing a cold. Yours A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 4251/691. Maas, 153.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Nov. 1917 My dear Richards, Thanks for both your notes. Ehrmanns1 sent me their lists, and I ordered three sorts (including some dry Tokay,2 as I remembered a very agreeable wine you used to have); and for two of the three they sent me what I had not ordered. Yrs A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 159 (incomplete).

TO W I L BU R C RO S S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 18 Nov. 1917 Dear Sir, I am obliged by your letter,1 but I neither have any poem which I wish to publish nor am likely to write one at any early date.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Yale MS. Maas, 153. 1

2 Wine merchants. Hungarian white wine, normally intensely sweet. Of 29 Oct. 1917 (Yale MS). 2 Cross (editor of The Yale Review): ‘I am most anxious to have something from you for a coming number. Have you not a war poem which you would care to send me?’ 1

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TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1917 Dear Mackail, I am very glad to have your paper on Horace.1 I thought your chapter on him in your Latin Literature2 one of the best, and this is a worthy continuation. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.2. Maas, 153–4.

TO C H A R L E S S AY L E Trinity College 14 Dec. 1917 My dear Sayle, It was in a review by Parry of Hodgkin’s life in a recent number of the Cambridge Review.1 Mrs Creighton, poor thing, had printed Juveni patiem,2 which has to be emended Inveni portum, and is the opening of an epigram quoted at the end of Gil Blas,3 book IX. But in this form I don’t think it is classical, and some attribute it to Ianus Pannonius saec. XV. The Greek original is anth. Pal. IX 49: the ancient Latin version, found more than once in inscriptions (C. I. L. VI 11743, anth. epigr. Buech. 1498, carm.

1 Read to the Classical Association during the war. Repr. as ‘Poetry and Life: The Odes of Horace’ as part of the Proceedings of the Fourteenth General Meeting, Friday, 5 Jan. 1917, in Proceedings of the Classical Association, 14 ( Jan. 1917), 87–101, and as ch. 8 (‘The Odes of Horace’) of Mackail’s Classical Studies (1925), 139–58. 2 Published in 1895. ‘Horace’: part 2, ch. 1 (pp. 106–19). 1 Reginald St John Parry reviewed Louise Creighton’s Life and Letters of Thomas Hodgkin (1917) in the Cambridge Review, 39. 965 (6 Dec. 1917), 176–7. He acknowledged AEH for supplying the reference to Gil Blas. 2 On p. 202. 3 Picaresque novel (1715–35) by Alain-René Lesage (1668–1747). ‘Inveni portum: Spes et Fortuna, valete. | Sat me lusistis. Ludite nunc alios’ (‘I have found the haven: Hope and Fortune, farewell. You have trifled enough with me. Trifle with others now’).

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14 Dec. 1917

Lat. epigr. Engstroem 324), is evasi, effugi. Spes et Fortuna valete. nil mihi vobiscum est, ludificate alios.4 There is also a translation by Grotius.5 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Maas, 412. 4 ‘I have come through, escaped. Hope and Fortune, farewell. I have no more to do with you; trifle with others.’ 5 In Anthologia Graeca cum versione Latina Hugonis Grotii (1795).

1918 TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College 18 Jan. 1918. I will walk with you to the Navarros’1 door on Sunday: I shall not cross the threshold myself, but I am not going to keep you out of Paradise. Yrs. A. E. Housman. SCO MS: p.c. addressed ‘Dr Withers | 35 Trumpington Street’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH. Maas, 154.

TO H . F. NE WA LL Trinity College 7 Feb. 1918 My dear Newall, I told you a lie across the table last night, for the Burman who collected the anthology was the nephew of Bentley’s Burman.1 They were both christened Pieter. The ancient Copernicus whose name I could not remember was Aristarchus of Samos, 3rd cent. B.C. The Farnese globe,2 judging from the places in which it puts the equinoctial points, is near the same date. circle is one of those English words (like salt) on which you men of science have laid hands and wrested /them/ out of their original meanings. The 1 José María de Navarro (d. 1979). Admitted to TCC, 1915; Senior Scholar, 1920, the year when he took a starred first in the English Tripos. Fellow of TCC, 1923–9 (the first Catholic to attain such a distinction), and University Lecturer in Archaeology, 1926–56. 1 Dutch philologist Pieter Burman I (1668–1741) supported Richard Bentley (1662–1742) in his controversy with Swiss Arminian and biblical scholar Jean Le Clerc (1657–1736), and published Bentley’s Emendationes in Menandri et Philemonis reliquias, ex nupera editione Joannis Clerici under Bentley’s pseudonym ‘Phileleutherus Lipsiensis’ in 1710. (Bentley had written an appendix of critical notes to an edn. of Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations by Cambridge scholar John Davies in 1709, and Le Clerc had disparaged the notes in a review called Bibliothèque Choisie. In annoyance, Bentley produced 323 emendations to Le Clerc’s subsequent edn. of the fragments of Menander and Philemon, restoring them metrically and demonstrating Le Clerc’s incompetence.) Pieter Burman I’s nephew, Pieter Burman II, lived from 1714 to 1778. 2 The oldest celestial globe in existence; now in the Muzeo Nazionale Archeologico.

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10 March 1918

Latins called the zodiac and even the milky way a circulus; and Gray calls the hoop which he trundled at Eton a circle,3 though it must have had three dimensions. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS. Maas, 412–13.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Feb. 1918 My dear Richards, Bon voyage, and also thanks for Noel,1 though I have only found time to read a few pages yet. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 160 (excerpt).

TO M A RY W I TH E RS Trinity College 10 March 1918 Dear Mrs Withers, Porters so seldom bring one things on Sundays that I am even more overwhelmed than I otherwise should be by your kindness in enriching me with blackberry jelly from your end of the town, where the grocers still have jams. I have been enjoined this evening not to write you a charming letter, so I will put a firm constraint on myself and abstain from doing so; but I am tempted to be very charming indeed. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 154.

3

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 29: ‘To chase the rolling circle’s speed’. Gilbert Cannan’s Noel: An Epic in Seven Cantos (1918), published in 1917 with the subtitle An Epic in Ten Cantos. Both versions were published by GR. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 April 1918 My dear Richards, Messrs Winthrop Rogers Ld.1 may publish the two songs as they wish. It was kind of you to write to me from Nice: I did not answer, because I had nothing particular to say. I hope Mrs Richards is now well, and that you both enjoyed your outing as much as circumstance permitted. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 160 (excerpt).

TO S T E P H E N G A S E L E E Trinity College | Cambridge 7 May 1918 Dear Gaselee, I shall be delighted to dine with you on Whit-Sunday. I was just on the point of writing to you about translations of Petronius, which I happen to be wanting to consult, and cannot find many within my reach. Burnaby, Wilson & Co.,1 Lowe,2 Ryan,3 Heseltine,4 Friedlaender,5 and the French of 16946 are all I can get at either in the University or the College library or on my own shelves, for the University copy of Bohn7 is out, as I suppose it always is. Jackson8 possesses a copy, and also one of Addison,9 but cannot lay hands on either. No doubt you have quite a number, and perhaps sometime you would let me have a look at them. It is only one passage that I am concerned with.10

1

London music publishers. The second English translation, by William Burnaby, Mr Wilson, Mr Blount, Mr Thomas Brown, Captain Ayloff, et al. (1708). 2 W. D. Lowe, 1905. 3 Petronius ( Trimalchio’s Banquet), with introduction by Michael J. Ryan (1905). AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2003), 137. 4 Michael Heseltine’s Loeb edn., 1912. 5 Ludwig Friedländer, 1891. 6 By Franc¸ois Nodot. 7 Ed. W. K. Kelly, 1848. 8 Henry Jackson. See List of Recipients. 9 Joseph Addison, 1736. 10 41.6–8. Cf. CR 32 (1918), 164 (Classical Papers, 962–3). 1

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6 June 1918

Perhaps you know that we have in the College library a MS translation, 18th century apparently, based on Burnaby11 and not so good in diction, but more understanding and helpful in the passage I consulted it for. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL MS CCC.12.34.

TO J O H N D R I N K WAT E R Trinity College 10 May 1918 Dear Mr Drinkwater, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch tells me that you are to be here for a day or two, and I hope that if you have time you will come and see me on Saturday or Sunday. I am pretty sure to be in from 11 to 1 and from 4 to 7, and if you came at 4. 30 or thereabouts I could offer you such tea as the times admit. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Marquette University MS (Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, series 5, box 4).

TO H E N RY B ROA D B E N T I overlooked the passage in the Anthology, but it was afterwards adduced by an Austrian scholar, K. Prinz. There is a παρὰ τὴν ἱστορίαν in Cic. ad Att. XIII 10 1. A. E. H. Trin. Coll. Camb. 4 June 1918. TCC Add. MS c. 1128 : p.c. addressed ‘H. Broadbent Esq. | Willowbrook End | Eton | Bucks.’

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 6 June 1918 My dear Richards, The working classes at any rate can well afford to pay 1/6, though I don’t know if 5000 of them will want to.1 11

The first English translation, by William Burnaby, 1694. He had been warned by GR that the price of ASL must be increased to 1/6 owing to the cost of labour and material: Richards, 160. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

I am not likely to come to town, so far as I can see. P. Withers, who is back again here, was asking after you the other day. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 160 (incomplete and dated as 4 June).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 June 1918 My dear Richards, I suppose I must follow the example of the anonymous great poet (very likely Alfred Noyes)1 and relax the rule, in order that the poem may be read by blind soldiers.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 160.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 6 July 1918 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, It is probable,—do not be agitated,—that I shall be coming to Woodchester or Amberley towards the end of August; and then you may be sure that I shall walk over to see you. Thank you all the same for your kindness in asking me to Oakridge, and also for amiable messages which I have received from our friend Dr Withers. I have been glad to see in the papers and hear privately of the success of W’s exhibition in London.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 37. Maas, 155.

1

1880–1958. Poet, novelist, and playwright, who gradually became blind, 1945–58. AEH is allowing one poem from ASL to be printed in a Braille anthology: Richards, 160. 1 ‘Of drawings of the fighting in Flanders. The exhibition, at the Goupil Gallery, was opened by H. A. L. Fisher, the President of the Board of Education, on 25 April 1918’: Maas, 155. 2

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22 August 1918

TO M . R . JA M E S Trinity College 31 July 1918 My dear James, Though I am sorry on account of Cambridge and myself, I hope and believe that your choice is for your own happiness and I wish you prosperity and contentment in all your doings.1 You will be now in a snowstorm of congratulations or expostulations, so do not take any notice of this. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add MS 7481/H128.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Aug. 1918 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, Alas, my plans for coming to Gloucestershire are upset. At the hotel at Amberley, where I had meant to stay, they are full till the end of September, which is too late. For me the cloud has a silver lining, as I escape the horrors which now encompass travelling: for you, of course, the gloom is unmitigated. I have met M. André Gide,1 who had a letter2 from W., and I shall see him again if he does not shortly go off to France, as he threatens. I wish W. good luck on the lines of communication.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 38. Maas, 155–6.

1 James was leaving Cambridge, where he was Provost of King’s College, upon his election as Provost of Eton. 1 The French novelist, essayist, critic, and playwright (1869–1951) was in Cambridge from 27 June to the end of September 1918. In the preface to his edition of Anthologie de la Poésie Fran¸caise (Éditions Gallimard, 1949; repr. 1983), 7–8, Gide recalls meeting AEH at a ceremonial lunch in Cambridge in 1917 (in fact, 1918): AEH provocatively alleged that though between Villon and Baudelaire there was much French verse that had spirit, eloquence, virulence, and pathos, there was none that was poetry. 2 Of introduction. 3 After visiting Belgium (1916) and France (1917, 1918) as official war artist, Rothenstein ended up lecturing to Australian Education Officers at Cheshunt College, Cambridge, on town-planning, the museum of the future, and the decoration of buildings.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 9 Sept. 1918 Dear Cockerell, I return with many thanks Ben Jonson’s1 book, done up safely I hope, and the poems of Charlotte Mew,2 which have much that is good in them, only, as female poets are apt to be, , she is too literary, and puts in ornament which does not suit the supposed speakers. I think the short piece on p. 273 is the best. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. MS inspected at Sotheby’s, 4 Nov. 2001. Excerpt quoted in Sotheby’s catalogue, The Library of Frederick B. Adams, Jr, Part 1: English & American Literature (6 Nov. 2001), 34.

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N [Trinity College | Cambridge] I tried uolumina in I 416, but as it appeared to involve mauling the rest of the verse I judged that it was wrong: Garrod had the same notion and did maul the rest of the verse to carry it out.1 I cannot make out how your reading of I 311 would continue; and remember that niue is merely an insertion of mine. I am writing in the country without books. A. E. Housman. 18 Sept. 1918 Texas MS.

TO M A RT I N S E C K E R Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Sept. 1918. Dear Mr Secker, Many thanks to you for sending me the anonymous book on Women,1 which is acute and entertaining to read and flatters some of my own 1 Poet and dramatist (1572–1637). Cockerell previously owned a book bearing Jonson’s signature, but gave it to Swinburne (d. 1909) and received a MS of Swinburne’s in return: Cockerell by Wilfrid Blunt (1965), 101. 2 3 The Farmer’s Bride (1916). À Quoi Bon Dire. 1 Manilius, 1. 416: squamea dispositis imitatur tergora flammis. Garrod proposed squamea dispositis imitate uolumina flammis in a review of AEH’s and Breiter’s edns. in CQ 2. 2 (1908), 129. In his apparatus to book 1 (1903), AEH recorded: ‘tergora Bentleius; lumina libri ridicule’. 1 Women, by the novelist Frank Swinnerton (1884–1982), published by Secker.

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23 October 1918

prejudices; though it contains so many general propositions that it must contain a good deal which is not quite true. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 156.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Oct. 1918 My dear Richards, I shall be very pleased to come to you1 on the 25th , when your woodlands ought to be looking very well. I was in Gloucestershire most of September, and saw the Rothensteins. From the fragments of your autobiography which I see in the weekly press I gather that you too have had a holiday or holidays.2 My kind regards to Mrs Richards, who owes me a photograph of young pigs.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 160–1; Maas, 156.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 23 Oct. 1918 My dear Richards, I shall be delighted to lunch with you on Friday. I ought to arrive in town about 11. 30: I will then go and deposit my bag at Paddington, and come on to you some time before 1.

1

To Bigfrith, Cookham Dean, Richards’s house. A reference to GR’s regular advertisements in the TLS, in some of which he announced his whereabouts and activities. In no. 863 (1 Aug. 1918), 359, he describes two ‘wonderful inns’ he has found in Wales (the George near Bangor and the St David’s Hotel at Hariech); in no. 868 (5 Sept. 1918), 415, he states that he writes ‘within the sound of sea waves’. 3 ‘Housman had on his Cornish holiday been photographed with a litter of young pigs by my wife in the neighbourhood of Zennor’: Richards, 161 n. See AEH to GR, 27 May 1917. 2

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Letters 1872–1926

I shall be interested to meet Squire,1 some of whose poems I have read, and whose paper2 I take in. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 161 (excerpt).

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Nov. 1918 Dear Mrs Richards, I am very sorry to hear of Grant’s relapse.1 I had gathered from the weekly bulletin in the Times Supplement that he was all right again;2 and I hope now it will not be long before he is well. . I have escaped hitherto, and I have not heard that Mr Squire has been attacked; and I hope that you will not catch it from the patient. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 161 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Nov. 1918 My dear Richards, Yours is a terrible long illness, but I am glad that you seem to be fairly comfortable. I have sent to your office a list of 8 mistakes in the 8vo edition, probably all taken over from 1916. The smaller editions (except the cursed ‘Lesser Classics’)1 have a purer text, with only one error I think; but this reappears in the last issue (for which by the way I ought to have begun by thanking you): p. 5 (only the 5 is invisible), last line but two, there should be a colon after town.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR t.s. Richards, 161; Maas, 157. 1

J. C. Squire: see List of Recipients. The New Statesman, of which Squire was literary editor from its foundation in 1913 till 1919. 1 GR had gone down with influenza a month before during AEH’s visit to Bigfrith, and the illness had developed into pleurisy and then pneumonia: Richards, 161. 2 In his personal advertisement in the TLS 876 (31 Oct. 1918), 523, he announced ‘I write this in bed’. In the absence of any more announcements of illness, AEH had surmised his recovery. 1 2 1904. At the end of l. 26 of The Recruit (ASL III). 2

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29 December 1918

TO E D M U N D G O S S E Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Dec. 1918 My dear Gosse, I send these notes on Swinburne’s letters1 in hopes that they may be of use for the next edition. Vol. I p. 162. Read ‘as Knox’. 171. a and w should be the Greek letters alpha and omega. 209. ‘no person, may worship’ would be a less puzzling punctuation: whether Swinburne’s, I don’t know. 212. ‘as to his dealings of my own’: his wants altering or removing. 260. The Last Oracle appeared in Belgravia, and as early as 1876 if the date of letter CXXXV is right.2 282. Read ‘m’est parvenu’. Vol. II p. 25. Veuillot’s name is misprinted. 36. Read ‘En plein été’ and ‘Ton adorable’. 120. Read ‘stray squibs’. 126. Read ‘damning blot’. 145. The League cannot have been the Primrose League.3 Swinburne’s verses were against the House of Lords, which was withstanding Gladstone’s attempt to lower the franchise without a redistribution of seats. 183. Read ‘such pleasure’. 186. Read ‘Sandys’ ’. 214. Read ‘Etonie’. An explanation of Vol. I letter CV would be welcome, if it could be given without causing pain in Buckingham Palace. Does it refer to the French play about Queen Victoria’s foster-sister, of which I have heard fragments from you and others?4 1

Ed. Gosse and T. J. Wise (1918). Swinburne’s The Last Oracle (A.D. 361) appeared in Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine, 29 (May 1876), 329–32. 3 Victorian Conservative organization, founded in 1883, to enable the Conservatives to adapt to the extension of democracy. 4 It does. The Daily News had compared the potential illegitimate son of George IV to ‘La Princess KITTY in an unacted French melodrama by a living English poet’. This is La Soeur de La Reine, Swinburne’s private pastiche of Hugo’s L’Homme Qui Rit, which presents Queen Victoria as a nymphomaniac with a twin sister, Kitty, who has been brought up as a prostitute in order to keep her safe from the throne. Swinburne to Thomas Purnell, 20 Feb. 1875: ‘The return of Dr. Kenealy for Stoke has at last given me courage to make public as much as I dare 2

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Letters 1872–1926

Thank you for collecting and editing the letters, and best wishes for the New Year to you and Mrs Gosse. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS Y.10.143. Maas, 157–8.

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Dec. 1918 My dear Bridges, I must send you my thanks for the poems of G. M. Hopkins.1 I value the book as your gift, and also for some good condensed lines and an engaging attitude of mind which now and again shines through. But the faults which you very fairly and judicially set forth thrust themselves more upon my notice; and also another. Sprung Rhythm,2 as he calls it in his sober and sensible preface, is just as easy to write as other forms of verse; and many a humble scribbler of words for music-hall songs has written it well. But he does not: he does not make it audible; he puts light syllables in the stress and heavy syllables in the slack, and has to be helped out with typographical signs explaining that things are to be understood as being what in fact they are not.3 Also the English language is a thing which I respect very much, and I resent even the violence Keats did to it; and here is a lesser than Keats doing much more. Moreover his early poems are the promise of something better, if less original; and originality is not of the case of that Royal Claimant yesterday mentioned in the Daily News. I have every reason to believe … that the rightful Queen of England is at this moment a prisoner in Newgate.’ The surviving fragments of Swinburne’s play (acts  and ) were first published in New Writings by Swinburne: or miscellanea nova et curiosa, being a Medley of Poems, Critical Essays, Hoaxes and Burlesques, ed. Cecil Y. Lang (1964), 103–18. 1 Ed. Bridges (1918). Hopkins died in 1889, and Bridges’ edn. of 750 copies brought his poetry to prominence. AEH rendered Bridges’ dedication to Hopkins’s mother into Latin. Bridges to AEH, 25 May 1918 (Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 97): ‘What I want is something of this sort | To Kate | this late (public) recognition of the genius | of her beloved son the poet | on her 98th year | a tribute of long friendship | dedicates R B | which I don’t offer ‘‘for translation’’, but that you may see the conditions.’ Randall McLeod notes that the dedication appeared again at the front of the 2nd edn., that it was placed well into the vol. in the 3rd and 4th , and that it does not appear thereafter: ‘Gerard Hopkins and the Shapes of his Sonnets’, Voice, Text, Hypertext: Emerging Practices in Textual Studies, ed. Raimonda Modiano, Leroy F. Searle, and Peter Shillingsburg (2004), 291. 2 Accentual metre, with feet made up of a stressed syllable and a varying number of unstressed ones, which Hopkins revived. 3 Hopkins frequently marked heavy stresses with diacritics.

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397

nearly so good as goodness, even when it is good. His manner strikes me as deliberately adopted to compensate by strangeness for the lack of pure merit, like the manner which Carlyle took up after he was thirty. Well, the paper warns me I must not run on, and perhaps you will not think this is a very grateful letter. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 101–2. Maas, 158–9.

1919 TO H . A . H O L LO N D [Trinity College 1919] Dear Hollond, I am very much obliged to you for taking the trouble to write to me about the Russell business.1 Russell is a great loss to the College, not merely for his eminence and celebrity, but as an agreeable and even charming person to meet; on the question of conscription I agreed with him at the time,2 though I now see I was wrong, and I did not feel sure that the action of the Council was wise, though his behaviour was that of a bad citizen. So far therefore I am nearly neutral: what prevents me from signing your letter is Russell’s taking his name off the books of the College. After that piece of petulance he ought not even to want to come back. I cannot imagine myself doing so; and my standard of conduct is so very low that I feel I have a right to condemn those who do not come up to it. I am writing this, not to argufy, but only in acknowledgement of your civility in writing to me. I hope I shall not be able to discover ‘conscious effort’ in the amiability of yourself or Hardy3 when I happen to sit next to you in the future. I am afraid however that if Russell did return he would meet with rudeness from some Fellows of the College, as I know he did before he left. This ought not to be, but the world is as God made it. 1 In 1916, following Russell’s conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act, the Council of TCC deprived him of the lectureship in Logic and the Principles of Mathematics to which he had been appointed in 1910. Twenty-two Fellows of TCC expressed dissatisfaction with the action at the time, and in 1919 Hollond drafted a letter to the Master of TCC, which twenty-eight Fellows signed and another five supported, requesting Russell’s reinstatement, which followed. 2 Hardy (55 n.): ‘Housman’s attitude to the war had been ‘‘orthodox’’ throughout. He may have thought at one time that conscription was not necessary on military grounds, but that question was quite irrelevant to the controversy, and I do not know that Russell had ever expressed an opinion about it.’ 3 G[odfrey] H[arold] Hardy (1877–1947), Fellow of TCC since 1900; FRS, 1910; Cayley Lecturer in Mathematics, Cambridge, 1914; Savilian Professor of Geometry, Oxford, 1920; Sadleirian Professor of Pure Mathematics, Cambridge, 1931–42.

399

20 January 1919

Your party has a clear majority, and you ought, quite apart from this question, to vote yourself on to the Council as opportunities arise.4 There is not nearly enough young blood in it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in G. H. Hardy, Bertrand Russell and Trinity (1942), 54–5. Repr. in T. E. B. Howarth, Cambridge Between Two Wars (1978) with ‘on’ for ‘in’ at the close.

TO E D M U N D G O S S E Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Jan. 1919 My dear Gosse, I return with gratitude a memoir1 which I have read with a great deal of pleasure, not only for the interest of the facts, which are pretty much what I had surmised, but also, if it is not impertinent to say so, for the wholesome air of good sense with which you have surrounded them, and the ease with which you have done it. The Menken interlude2 I partly knew through Bywater. If that lady had left an account of her various and eminent partners, it would be better reading than Infelicia,3 though I am afraid her tolerance of Swinburne shows that she did not properly appreciate the Benicia Boy.4 4 The Council had five ex officio members and eight elective members. There were already two Russell supporters on the Council who had signed Hollond’s letter, and two new members were to be elected every year. By filling vacancies with Russell supporters, a majority would eventually be secured. 1 Gosse’s account, omitted from the 1917 biography, of Swinburne’s addiction to flagellation and alcohol. Other recipients of the privately circulated typescript were Max Beerbohm, A. C. Bradley, Walter Raleigh, and William Michael Rossetti. It was first printed as an appendix to The Swinburne Letters, ed. Cecil Lang, 6 (1962), 233–48. 2 Adah Isaacs Menken (1835–68), a much-married American circus performer, was given ten pounds by D. G. Rossetti to seduce Swinburne (and seduce him away from flagellation). Repeated attempts over a six-week period proved unsuccessful. She returned the money, saying that she had not been able to bring Swinburne ‘up to scratch’ or to make him understand that ‘biting’s no use’: Jean Overton Fuller, Swinburne: A Critical Biography (1968), 163. Menken was a long-time close associate of Georges Sand. 3 A volume of her poems (1868). Most of them are concerned with painful, unrequited love for men. 4 The professional name of the Irish-American John Carmel Heenan (1833–73), a blacksmith from Benicia, California, who became a prize-fighter in New York. He was American heavyweight champion (i.e. of the US and Canada) under bareknuckle rules in 1860. He married Menken in 1859 but stayed with her for only a few months. It transpired later that she was not divorced from her first husband, Alexander Isaac Menken. Heenan was a gambler and a drinker, and Menken claimed he was violent and inattentive: see The Naked Lady: or Storm over Adah by Bernard Falk (1934).

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Letters 1872–1926

The Eton anecdote on p. 19 is perplexing,5 because Etonians tell me that the only person privileged to flog is the headmaster.6 It is curious that though Sade is the author who most inflamed Swinburne, and though Swinburne’s writings are full of sadism properly so called, his own propensities were those of Rousseau and Sacher-Masoch.7 It is true that these are cheaper to indulge, but that does not seem to have been the reason. Was Charenton8 published? From the Letters (which are not in my hands at this moment) it seemed that Lord Houghton9 had mentioned it in his review of Atalanta in Calydon,10 which however is not the case. Judging from dates, drink had a great deal to do with his best poetry, though the poetry declined before the drinking stopped. The history of the Mohammedan world confirms Horace’s opinion of the connexion between the two;11 and if American poetry were worth anything I should weep, as now I do not, at the sight of America going bone-dry.12 Can you tell me anything about Quagg and Grace Walkers13 mentioned in connexion with Sala14 on p. 16 of vol. I of the Letters? If, as I gather, they occur in some book which appealed to Swinburne’s sense of humour, 5 Swinburne’s account, from a letter of c.10 Feb. 1863, of being allowed by his tutor (probably James Leigh Joynes) to bathe his face in eau-de-cologne before being beaten with the birch: ‘he meant to stimulate and excite the senses by that preliminary pleasure so as to inflict the acuter pain afterwards on their awakened and intensified susceptibility.’ 6 They are right. 7 i.e. he derived sexual pleasure from receiving pain (masochism) rather than from inflicting it (sadism). 8 Charenton en 1810, a poem in French alexandrines by Swinburne which he dated ‘Dimanche, 27 Octobre, 1861’. In it the Marquis de Sade appears to the author, a young man of twenty-four. Charenton was the asylum in which the Marquis died. The poem was first published by James Pope-Hennessy in Monckton Milnes, the Flight of Youth 1851–1855 (1951), 257–9. Gosse had mistakenly printed ‘Charenton’ instead of ‘Antitheism’ in letter XVI. 9 Richard Monckton Milnes (1809–85), politician and writer; created first Baron Houghton, 1863. His library at Fryston, Yorkshire, contained a large collection of erotica and scatological literature, and he introduced Swinburne to the works of the Marquis de Sade. 10 In the Edinburgh Review, 249 ( July 1865), 202–16. 11 Epistles, 1. 19. 2–3: ‘nulla placere diu nec vivere carmina possunt, quae scribuntur aquae potoribus’ (‘no poems can please long, nor live, which are written by water-drinkers’). 12 The Prohibition Amendment was ratified in the United States on 29 Jan. 1919 and went into effect one year later. On 28 Oct. 1919 the National Prohibition Act (or ‘Volstead Act’) was enacted, providing enforcement guidelines for of the manufacture and sale of alcohol for popular consumption. 13 In Colonel Quagg’s Conversion, a story in Household Words, 249 (30 Dec. 1854), 459–65, which Swinburne mentions several times in his letters, the blacksmith Colonel Goliah Washington Quagg flogs with an oiled leather strap any member of a Massachusetts sect called the GraceWalking Brethren who happens to pass his smithy. He is then soundly beaten by the bare fists of Brother Zephaniah Stockdolloger, a former prize-fighter, and subsequently joins the sect. 14 Popular journalist George Augustus Sala (1828–96). Swinburne ‘spoke with high regard of G. A. Sala’s talents as a writer’: Lord Ronald Carver, My Reminiscences (1883), 2. 290. ‘For

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it might be worth looking up. If on the other hand they belong to the ‘Mysteries of Verbena Lodge’,15 mysteries let them remain. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL MS Ashley 5753, fos. 72–3. Maas, 159–60.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Jan. 1919 My dear Richards, I shall be in London, fulfilling various engagements, on Thursday, and could call on you about 12 if you would like me to. But I have nothing particular to say to you, and I don’t wish to interfere with your serious pursuits. The paper I got from Bedford Square1 is a very daunting document, and I don’t see how I can come to France with you in March. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 162.

TO S T E P H E N G A S E L E E Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Jan. 1919 Dear Gaselee, I shall be very pleased to dine with you in Hall on Sunday, though it would only show a proper abhorrence of perfidy if I refused to see any more of you, as you have not kept the promise you made more than once of letting me know when you were here and coming to dine with me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/72. Sala’s work he always professed a tremendous admiration’: Clara Watts-Dunton, The Home Life of Swinburne (1922), 130. 15 According to Gosse’s memoir, the ‘mysterious house in St John’s Wood where two goldenhaired and rouge-cheeked ladies received, in luxuriously furnished rooms, gentlemen whom they consented to chastise for large sums’. Swinburne became a regular visitor in the mid-1860s, and stopped going in 1869. 1 The French Consulate General.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 8 February 1919 My dear Richards, Have you] ever heard of Mitchell Kennerley?1 I gather he is an American publisher who publishes A Shropshire Lad. If so, I should rather like a copy of his edition, if you can get hold of one for me. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Text based on that in Richards, 162.

TO M A RG U E R I T E W I L K I N S O N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 8 Feb. 1919 Dear Mrs Wilkinson, For many years past I have been refusing to English anthologists permission to include poems from A Shropshire Lad in their collections, and telling them that this is my rule. I therefore cannot break the rule now in favour of your book,1 if, as I understand you to say, it will be published in England as well as America. If it appeared in America alone, it would be different, as my book is not copyright in the United States, and I neither have nor wish to have any say in the matter. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Northwestern University (Charles Deering McCormick Library) MS.

1 ‘He was the American publisher to whom I had sold several hundred copies of one of my early printings of the book, a publisher who had, at the beginning of his career, worked in John Lane’s office in London, an Englishman, a friend of mine, the first publisher in New York to put money into John Masefield and D. H. Lawrence, and who made a small fortune out of Victoria Cross’: Richards, 162. 1 No such book seems to have been published.

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5 March 1919

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Feb. 1919 My dear Richards,] I am much obliged by your letter of the 11th which gives me all the information I require. I do not want a copy of Mr Mitchell Kennerley’s edition. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Text based on that in Richards, 163.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 1 March 1919 My dear Richards, It is exceedingly good of you to interest yourself in my behalf and write to me in such detail, but I don’t much think I shall take advantage of it at present, or before June, as I hear appalling accounts of the prices of everything in Paris, and even accommodation seems to be scarce. I hope you and Mrs Richards are having good weather at Nice and enjoying yourselves as much as I did when I was there with you. Please remember me to Belfort Bax. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 163; Maas, 160.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 March 1919 My dear Withers, The vaunt of Archimedes, ‘give me where to stand, and I move the world’ is quoted by the geometer Pappus (VIII 1060) as δός μοι ποῦ στῶ καὶ κινῶ τὴν γῆν, by the Aristotelian commentator Simplicius (Physic. VII 250a ) as δός μοι πᾶ βῶ καὶ κινῶ τὰν γᾶν, which, being Doric, is more likely to be what Archimedes said: the only difference in sense is that στῶ means ‘stand’ and βῶ ‘set foot’.

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I cannot call to mind at this moment a verse to suit your purpose, but if any occurs to me I will let you know. I am a very bad correspondent, or I should have thanked you before now for your letter of a fortnight ago. I hope you and Mrs Withers are both well and enjoying your home. Cambridge already has half its regular number of undergraduates, and Whewell’s Court and various other places are filled up with young naval officers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 413.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 14 March 1919 Dear Sirs, The same answer should be made to Mrs Hillman as to the other American lady about whom I wrote yesterday. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards Ltd. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 8 April 1919 My dear Richards, I shall be delighted to come to Bigfrith on the 25th and also to have the pleasure of entertaining you at lunch on that day. I hope you and Mrs Richards are very much set up by Geneva &c. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s.

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28 April 1919

TO J. S. P H I L L I M O R E Trinity College | Cambridge 17 April 1919 Dear Phillimore, pediculosi got into the text in the 16th century and stuck there more than 300 years, the creature being notoriously hard to dislodge: Schneidewin1 added non uis IX 7 4 and XI 108 4 salue to prevent it from feeling lonely, but these soon dropped off. The vocative is longer postponed after the first address in III 46 and several other epigrams. I must thank you for sending me a copy lately of your civilities to the worthy Hartman.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N [Trinity College | Cambridge 17 April 1919] The only example of excetra I have noted which is not in the dictionaries or in Goetz’s thes. gloss. emend. is Ampelius lib. memor. 2. 4 ‘‘hydram Lernaeam quam nos excetram (Salmasius, exertam MS) dicimus’’. A. E. Housman. Trin. Coll. Camb. 17 April 1919 St Andrews MS 23591: p.c. addressed ‘Professor Darcy1 W. Thompson | The University | Dundee’ and redirected to 44 South Street, St Andrews.

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 28 April 1919 Dear Mrs Richards, As I did not catch my first train at Liverpool Street, the daffodil was rather languid when it reached Cambridge, but is now reviving in water. In the crowd at Praed Street I was not able to take a proper farewell of 1 2 1

F. G. Schneidewin in his 1842 edn. of Martial. Professor Jacobus Johannes Hartman of Leiden (1851–1924). For ‘D’Arcy’.

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Grant when I got into the train, so please make my apologies to him; and remember that I shall hope to see both of you here in the last week of May or the first of June. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Richards, 163 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 May 1919 My dear Richards, I think that in writing to Mrs Richards I mentioned the first week of June as one in which you might find it pleasant to be here. I must now warn you against it, for there will not be a bed to be had in the place. The rowing authorities have stupidly put the races earlier than usual, at a time in the term when men have not finished their examinations and begun to go down; so there is much trouble ahead for this already congested town and university. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 163; Maas, 161.

TO C H A R L E S S AY L E [Trinity College] Corp. inscr. Lat. VI 11743 = Buech. carm. epigr. 1498. Mélanges d’hist. et d’archéol. de l’école Francaise de Rome 1905 p. 72 = Engstroem carm. Lat. epigr. 324. A. E. H. 7 May 1919. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3: p.c. addressed ‘C. E. Sayle Esq. | University Library’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH.

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15 May 1919

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 May 1919 My dear Richards, The dinner of the inter-University club ‘‘The Arcades’’1 is to take place at Oxford on the 31st , so I shall then be there, but I hope you will not be much put out by coming here on the 24th instead. I hope you will both lunch in my rooms on the Saturday and Sunday, and of course I should like you to dine in hall on Saturday, if Mrs Richards will not cry her eyes out at being deserted. I do not admire that demoralising animal the horse as much as you do, so I shall let you do your gloating at Newmarket2 alone. Will you let me know exactly what time to expect you on Saturday? Perhaps I could get Quiller-Couch to meet you at lunch. The best inn here on the whole is the University Arms, and the most pleasantly situated: its drawback is that it is more than half-a-mile from the College, nearly half-way to the station. The Bull is nearly central and stands on the best street in the town,3 but it is dingy, and the food not very good, at least when I tried it last. The best for food is the Lion, which also is central, but stands on a narrow and busy street. A smaller inn, the Blue Boar, close to Trinity, is well spoken of. The place is looking beautiful at present, and I hope this weather will hold. I am reading Wilfrid Blunt4 with a good deal of interest. With kind regards to Mrs Richards I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 164 (almost complete); Maas, 161.

1

Dining club, founded in 1919. See Naiditch (1988), 59 n. 22–4, for further information. GR (164) thinks he suggested that AEH should meet him overnight at Newmarket racecourse, where he had secured, through William Allison, a Balliol man and ‘The Special Commissioner’ of The Sportsman, the privilege of seeing the horses at exercise in the morning: Richards, 164. 3 Trumpington Street leading on to King’s Parade. 4 Blunt’s My Diaries: Being A Personal Narrative of Events 1888–1914 (1919). In an entry recording a visit from AEH in 1911, Blunt expresses admiration for ASL, and a liking for AEH in spite of his prim donnishness, silences, and apparent lack of strong opinions. The index gives Laurence Housman as author of ASL. 2

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TO S I E G F R I E D S A S S O O N Trinity College | Cambridge 23 May 1919 Dear Sir, I shall be happy to take part in the tribute to Mr Hardy.1 I am yours very faithfully A. E. Housman. Huntington MS HM 39057.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 23 May 1919 Dear Mackail, I cannot help being touched and flattered by your anxiety to make me publish, and I am grateful to you for sending me Mrs Meynell’s volume,1 though I had already seen it. But my unwillingness remains, because it is not due to any doubt of the possibility of deluding the public, by printing and binding and so on, into the belief that it is getting its money’s worth, but to my own notions of what is proper. However, I shall be contributing a new piece shortly to a MS anthology which is being got up,2 and in due season I will send you this drop of water to moisten your parched tongue.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Fitzwilliam MS Autogr. 3/1-1946. Maas, 162.

1 A Tribute to Thomas Hardy O.M., to which AEH contributed Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough (LP XXXVIII). 1 A Father of Women and Other Poems (1917). 2 See the previous letter. 3 Luke 16: 24 (the rich man in hell): ‘send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame’.

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14 July 1919

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 6 June 1919. My dear Richards, Mr Armstrong1 may have what he wants. It is extremely good of you to have taken so much trouble to get me The Young Visiters,2 which I have begun to read, and have come to a delicious passage about a Sinister Son of Queen Victoria’s.3 Also I am glad to have Oldmeadow’s article, which I had missed. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. On the 11th I am going away, probably for a month. I shall not try to get abroad till late in August. LC-GR MS. Richards, 165 (incomplete).

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Lansdown Grove Hotel | Bath 18 June 1919 Dear Sirs, Mr Sheridan can publish the songs as he desires. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO H E N RY JACK S O N [Trinity College 14 July 1919] The present year, in which your eightieth birthday has been followed by your retirement from the office of Vice-Master, affords the Fellows of your College a suitable opportunity of expressing in symbol their affection for yourself and their sense of the services to the foundation which received you more than sixty years ago.

1 Thomas H. W. Armstrong included a setting of ASL XL (Into my heart an air that kills) in his Five Short Songs (1920). 2 The Young Visiters; or, Mr Salteena’s Plan (1919), by the nine-year-old Daisy Ashford. 3 The Prince of Wales, whom Mr Salteena meets in ch. 6.

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We therefore ask you to accept from us,1 as some token of these feelings, a copy of a vessel from which your most industrious predecessor in the Chair of Greek2 is thought to have derived a solace not unknown or unwelcome to its present occupant; and we trust that the figure of Porson’s tobacco-jar may often meet your eyes, and bring us before your mind, in moments tranquillised by its contents. Our tribute carries with it the personal affection of friends and the gratitude of a community. From the day when first you were elected a Fellow of the College, no measure has been undertaken for the promotion of its welfare or the increase of its efficiency which has not been furthered by your zeal or due to your initiative. In Trinity, in Cambridge, in the whole academic world and far beyond it, you have earned a name on the lips of men and a place in their hearts to which few or none in the present or the past can make pretension. And this eminence you owe not only or chiefly to the fame of your learning and the influence of your teaching, nor even to that abounding and proverbial hospitality which for many a long year has made your rooms the hearthstone of the Society3 and a guesthouse in Cambridge for pilgrims from the ends of the earth, but to the broad and true humanity of your nature, endearing you alike to old and young, responsive to all varieties of character or pursuit, and remote from nothing that concerns mankind.4 The College which you have served and adorned so long, proud as it is of your intellect and attainments, and grateful for your devotion, is happy above all that in possessing you it possesses one of the great English worthies. TCC Add. MS c. 32.49–54. The address and date, the salutation ‘Dear Jackson’, and the subscription ‘We are | Your affectionate friends’ are in another hand. Privately printed by CUP (1919), then in R. St John Parry, Henry Jackson (1926), 115. Maas, 162–3.

1 AEH prepared the letter for signature by the Master and Fellows of TCC. See AEH to R. St John Parry, 3 Jan. 1920, on the pains it cost him. 2 Richard Porson (1759–1808). Educated at TCC, 1778–81; MA, 1785; Regius Professor of Greek, 1792–1808. Publications include edns. of Euripides’ Hecuba (1797, 1802), Orestes (1798), Phoenissae (1799), and Medea (1801), his second edn. of Hecuba being famous for a supplement to the preface in which he outlines rules of iambic and trochaic verse. AEH held Porson in very high regard as a scholar: see his review of Bywater’s Four centuries of Greek Learning in England (1920) in CR 34 (1920), 110, repr. in Selected Prose, 120–3, and in Classical Papers, 1004–6. 3 Of the Masters and Fellows of TCC. 4 Terence, Heauton Timorumenos, 77: Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto (‘I am a man, I count nothing human foreign to me’).

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21 July 1919

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 15 July 1919 Dear Mrs Richards, On returning here after a month’s holiday I found awaiting me the screens which you have been kind enough to make for my reading-lamp and candles. They beautify my surroundings very much, and I am very grateful to you for your skill and amiability. I hope you and Grant are well. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Richards, 165; Maas, 163 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 21 July 1919 My dear Richards … ] I am afraid we are not likely to travel together nor even to meet. I took a month’s change at midsummer, which I was much in need of, and now I have settled down to work: and also I rather think that August heat in France might put my health out of order again. So I am thinking of starting on Aug. 28 or perhaps Sept. 2. As it appears that a military permit is still required for Paris I should be glad if you could tell me whether your friend is still in power and prepared to make things easy for me. Moreover I am not clear whether, after leaving Paris for the South, one can re-enter it without further trouble. Most likely I shall not stay long at Brive or any other place, but motor about. After my sacrifices for my country during the war1 I am beginning to spend money on myself instead of saving it up for the Welsh miners.2 Please keep me informed of your plans, and let me know when you come back, as I ought to have the text and notes of Manilius IV ready before I go, and they may as well be printing while I am away. I hope you will all enjoy yourselves. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 165. Maas, 163–4. 1 LH, Memoir, 106: ‘At the beginning of the War he sent the Chancellor a donation of several hundred pounds’. 2 Who were threatening a strike in protest at new income tax regulations.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 23 July 1919 My dear Richards,] Thanks for your note. As the post now goes to Germany, will you please send copies of my Manilius book III to the six addresses enclosed? Though I observe that one is in Austria, which probably is still out of bounds. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 166.

TO J. C. S QU I RE Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Aug. 1919. Dear Mr Squire, I wish well to your enterprise,1 and I am sensible of the compliment you pay me, but all the same I am keeping my few poems in the desk for the present, and I don’t think I am likely to publish anything in periodicals unless I should happen to be inspired by current events. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Aug. 1919 My dear Richards, You are my guardian angel. I enclose my passport, which I only received yesterday, together with /two/ extra photographs (as Cook1 says that is the proper number) and postal order for 8/-, in order that you may try to get me the French visa. The day I intend to cross 1 In 1919 Squire founded, and began work as editor of, the monthly literary periodical The London Mercury. 1 Thomas Cook & Sons, tour operators.

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25 August 1919

is Sept. 2. I am glad you are back safe and I hope you enjoyed yourself all right. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 166.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 24 August 1919 My dear Richards,] Your office has very kindly and dexterously secured me the French visa, but unluckily it is for Boulogne, whereas I am going by Dieppe. I ought to have mentioned this particular, but I did not think of it. I do not know if the Consulate is like Pontius Pilate and refuses to alter what it has written;1 but in the hope that this is not so I am again enclosing the passport, if I can ask you to try to get it amended. As this is Sunday and there are no postal orders about, I enclose a 10/- note, in case it is wanted. I shall have to come to town some day this week; and if there is any day (other than Saturday) on which you could lunch with me at the Café Royal, I wish you would let me know what day it is, and would also engage a table there in my name. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 166; Maas, 164.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Aug. 1919 My dear Richards, Not knowing you were in Cornwall, I wrote to you yesterday to ask you to lunch with me in town some day this week; but that must be for another time. There was nothing in my former letter that it was necessary for you to see. I said that you were my guardian angel, which I may now repeat. Your 1

John 19: 22: ‘Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.’

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information will be useful to me whether I am obliged to go by Boulogne, or whether I go by Dieppe as I had intended. The passport has been visé for the former route, and I don’t know if that can be altered, though I have sent it back to you at your office on the chance. I have engaged a room at the Terminus Hotel St Lazare. The text and notes of Manilius IV will be ready for printing by the end of this week. Shall I send them to your office? I hope you and your family have enjoyed and are enjoying yourselves. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 166–7.

TO S I R CH A RLE S WA LS TO N Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Aug. 1919 My dear Walston, I am afraid I shall not be able even to look at your poems before I go, as I am occupied not only with preparing for the journey but with finishing a book which I want to send to the printers before leaving England. I will therefore leave them for you at our Porter’s Lodge, unless you think they will be safe in my desk till I come back,—before the end of September. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Aug. 1919 My dear Richards, I have sent Manilius IV to your Office. I leave here on Monday morning, and down to the next Sunday I expect to be at Hotel1 Terminus St Lazare; after that, letters addressed to me at Cambridge will be forwarded from time to time. I am going by Dieppe because the hotel is at the Paris station of that line. Besides, I crossed with you from Folkestone to Dieppe without 1

For ‘Hˆotel’.

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14 September 1919

discomfort,—though that may have been due to your magic presence. The visa has been put right. It would certainly be very agreeable to stay a couple of nights at Bigfrith on my way home, if nothing intervenes. I expect to come back about the 25th . Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. This vol. of Manilius, apart from the rise in prices, is likely to be more expensive than I or II (let alone III, which was short), because it contains a larger proportion of notes, which I suppose are the most expensive part. LC-GR MS. Richards, 167; Maas, 164–5.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Brive 14 September 1919 My dear Richards,] If you do not intervene to prevent it, what will happen is this. On Wednesday the 24th I shall arrive at Bigfrith some time in the afternoon, in a motor which will deposit me with a small bag, containing little except a clean shirt, and will take my larger luggage on to Cambridge, and there you will have me for two nights. I am returning to Paris, Hˆotel Terminus St Lazare, on Thursday the 18th . There I shall be till Tuesday the 23rd , when I shall cross, and sleep at Newhaven. I should like to hear from you as soon as I reach Paris, because I shall have to write to Cambridge about the motor. The passage of the Channel was as good as could be. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 167; Maas, 165.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Hˆotel Terminus 19 Sept. 1919 My dear Richards, This is a great pleasure, apart from its unexpectedness.1 It will be no good looking for me here this evening, and I am also engaged to-morrow evening and Monday evening: otherwise I have no tie. Usually I leave the hotel not long after 9

/a/.m., and tomorrow I will look you up at the Normandy soon after that time, unless I hear from you to the contrary. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 168; Maas, 165.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Sept. 1919 My dear Richards, I enclose cheque for £100. Whether I shall post this letter to-day is uncertain, as I had better wait to see what effect the strike has on the post.1 My New Statesman arrived this morning as usual. I began to read Antonio2 in the train and found it quite interesting. I hope neither you nor Mrs Richards are suffering much from the cold you caught from me, which lies heavy on my conscience, as I do not like to return evil for so much kindness. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 168 (incomplete); Maas, 165–6.

1 1 2

GR unexpectedly had business in Paris: Richards, 167–8. A railway strike from 26 Sept. to 5 Oct. caused the suspension of the parcel post. Novel by Ernest Oldmeadow, 1914. It deals with Portugal and the wine trade.

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8 October 1919

TO JAC QU E L I N E T. T ROT T E R Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Sept. 1919 Dear Madam, I have been abroad all the month and unable to answer your letter before. I now return the copy of the poem,1 corrected, and I am happy to allow you to reprint it.2 No other permission is required. The poem appeared in the Times of October 31, 1917, the third anniversary of the battle of Ypres.3 I am yours truly A. E. Housman. Miss Trotter. The King’s School Canterbury MS.

TO E L I Z A B E T H O P P E N H E I M Trinity College 8 Oct. 1919 Dear Mrs Oppenheim, I have heard with great regret of the illness and death of Professor Oppenheim,1 and I beg you to accept my sincere sympathy both with you and with your daughter in your great loss. I am afraid this is one of the calamities which we owe to the war, which from the very first was a great grief and shock to your husband, as I could easily see when he spoke to me about it.2 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Copy of the MS kindly provided for inspection by Charles Cox Rare Books, 12 Jan. 2006.

1

Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries (later LP XXXVII). In her anthology Valour and Vision: Poems of the War 1914–1918 (1920), where it was printed correctly. 3 Below a leading article entitled ‘The Anniversary of Ypres’. 1 See List of Recipients. He died the day before at home in Cambridge. 2 Professor Oppenheim was German, but he had resided in England since 1895, taken British citizenship in 1900, married an English wife, and supported the British war effort. In The Times, 19 May 1915, he denounced the German attack on Belgium as ‘the greatest international crime since Napoleon I’. 2

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Oct 1919 My dear Richards,] I have not finished Proust’s book,1 but I have read enough to form the opinion that an English translation would not sell,2 and, apart from that, could not be really satisfactory, as the merit of the French is in great part a matter of diction and vocabulary. Moreover, the 2nd section of the book, in which I am now rather stuck, is not at all equal to the first. The 2nd volume, I am told, is not good. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Text based on that in Richards, 168; Maas, 166.

TO TH O M A S H A RDY Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Oct. 1919 Dear Mr Hardy, As you deny us the light of your countenance, your handwriting is more welcome than ever; and it is kind of you to let me know that you liked my poem.1 It is one which has not been published, as I thought was only proper. I was glad to hear a good account of you not long ago from S. C. Cockerell. Your College,2 as perhaps you know, is lamenting not only your absence but that of its Master,3 who has been kept away more than two years by obstinate depression of spirits, and is a great loss to Cambridge.

1 A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust (1871–1922). It was published in seven sections, 1913–27. Section 1, Du Cˆoté De Chez Swann (Swann’s Way) was reissued in one vol. (1917), then in two (1919); section 2, A L’ombre Des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs (Within A Budding Grove), was published in one vol. in 1918. There was an English translation by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff and Stephen Hudson, Remembrance Of Things Past, 1922–31. 2 GR’s view (Richards, 168) that ‘experience would … lead the one or two publishers who tried translations of Proust on the English public … to endorse Housman’s opinion’ is puzzling in view of the success of the Scott-Moncrieff/Hudson translation published by Chatto and Windus. 1 See AEH to Sassoon, 23 May 1919, and note. 2 Magdalene College, Cambridge, to which Hardy was admitted as Honorary Fellow in Nov. 1913 following Cambridge’s award of the Honorary D.Litt. in June 1913. AEH was present as a guest when Hardy was admitted as Honorary Fellow. 3 A. C. Benson. See List of Recipients.

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27 October 1919

Please give my kind regards to Mrs Hardy, whom I had the pleasure of meeting once at C. W. Moule’s,4 and believe me always sincerely yours A. E. Housman. Dorset County Museum MS.

TO M . R . JA M E S Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Oct. 1919 My dear James, I am no good for any of your enquiries. As to Menestrates, I can only wonder whether he had got hold of some MS (of Ovid?) in which this appeared as a corruption of Menoetiades,1 who is the only eminent person with a similar name whom I can think of. I don’t know what the Rifle Brigade have done with their number, which used to be the 96th , if I remember.2 I suppose the traitor Haldane3 took it away, to enfeeble the spirit of the British Army. Legio Principis Consortis propria4 is a possibility, but you had better try it on an individual before you fling it at the brigade. I am delighted to hear what the Latin for a rifle is:5 the Latin for gunpowder I learnt from Newton’s Principia,6 and now what I chiefly want to know is the Latin for a Tank. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7481/H129. 4 Charles Walter Moule (1834–1921), Tutor at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 1879–92, and Librarian, 1895–1913, was one of Hardy’s oldest friends. 1 i.e. ‘son of Menoetius’, Patroclus, mentioned in Ovid, Heroides, 1. 17. James was evidently wondering, even five years after publishing his edn., about the Menestrates paired with Hannibal as a great man of old by Walter Map, De nugis curialium, Distinctio 5, ch. 1. In the re-edition by C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford 1983), xxxv f., the name is taken to be fictitious. 2 It was the 95th Regiment of Foot that became in 1916 the Rifle Brigade, and the change had nothing to do with Haldane. 3 Richard Burdon, first Viscount Haldane (1856–1928). As Secretary for War (1905–12) in Asquith’s Liberal government he introduced reforms of the army, among which were the formation of the militia into a special reserve, the creation of the Officers’ Training Corps, and the improvement of medical and nursing services under the Territorial system. After being created viscount (1911) and becoming Lord Chancellor (1912), he returned to the War Office in 1914, but public suspicions over his liking for Germany and German philosophy eventually led to his dismissal in 1915. 4 ‘The Prince Consort’s Own Brigade’. In 1862, the year after the death of Albert, the Prince Consort, the Rifle Brigade became ‘The Prince Consort’s Own Rifle Brigade’. Albert had been Colonel-in-Chief of the Rifle Brigade since 1852. 5 scopletum striatum. 6 pulvis tormentarius. In Defintions, V, in the 1713 edn. of Principia Mathematica, Newton speaks of a lead weight ‘vi pulveris tormentarii projectus’. AEH makes reference to the Principia in the Cambridge Inaugural Lecture of 1911: Ricks (1988), 304.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Oct. 1919 My dear Richards, I do not feel very like coming to Newmarket,1 and I ought to attend a meeting on Thursday afternoon for which 4. 18 would be too late. Moreover I do not think I gave the ‘promise’ you speak of, unless I was more drunk than I remember being. As you are returning the same day, I suppose it is no use offering you any hospitality, and I am afraid I could not find you a bed in College at short notice in our present state of over-population; but if you stayed the night in the town I should be very glad to have you as my guest at dinner. In any case I hope that Newmarket will yield what you want from it.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 169.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Nov. 1919 My dear Richards, If you give me Simon’s book1 it will be very good of you. I enclose the poem.2 The poems were not supposed to be addressed to Hardy, only specimens of our stuff, published or unpublished. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 169; Mass, 166.

1 2 1 2

‘To a race-meeting’: Richards, 169. ‘I myself was going with a view to getting material for a novel, Double Life’: Richards, 169. André Simon, Wine and Spirits: The Connoisseur’s Textbook (1919). See AEH to Sassoon, 23 May 1919, and note.

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30 November 1919

TO H . W. G A RRO D Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Nov. 1919 Dear Mr Garrod, I am grateful for the gift of your interesting and spirited book of poems,1 and I am glad that the locust and the rest of the Lord’s great army have not eaten all the last four years.2 I hope too that you will not perish untimely by the fury of undergraduates.3 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘H. W. Garrod Esq. C.B.E. | Merton College | Oxford’. Maas, 167.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 30 November 1919 My dear Richards,] I had thought of 6/- net as the price for Manilius IV. Of course the increase in the cost of production is greater than that, but I have always sold at less than cost price, so it does not make the difference between profit and loss. This reminds me that it is just 3 months since I sent you the manuscript, and I wonder when the printers are going to start upon it. Thanks for the book on wines:1 but mortal passions have invaded the sacred precincts of the cellar to such an extent that he knows of no German or Hungarian wine2 and does know of stuff from Australia and California. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 169–70, Maas, 167. 1 Worms and Epitaphs (1919). The Epilogue (pp. 53–5), praises ASL: ‘No one else of modern men | Moved us much, save now and then | We met a wandering Shropshire Lad | Three parts melancholy mad: | But ah! how sweet of what he sang | Here and there the music rang!’ 2 Joel 2: 25: ‘And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you’. 3 Intruders, a poem in the book, expresses resentment at current undergraduates taking the places of those killed in the war: ‘I hate your steps upon the stair, | Your vacant voices on the air. | Who asked you to come back at all, | Or why should bayonet and ball | Be kind to skins like yours, and then | Put out the lives of better men?’ 1 See AEH to GR, 7 Nov. 1919, and note. 2 Richards, 170 n., blames the publisher (Gerald Duckworth) rather than the author (André Simon) for the omissions.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO J. S. P H I L L I M O R E Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Nov. 1919 Dear Phillimore, I am very much in your debt for the gift of your address,1 and am glad that I did not miss it by not hearing it delivered. It contains a great deal of truth well and tellingly said, together with some things which I do not assent to. Your strictures on German scholarship2 have /something of/ the intemperate zeal of the convert, like attacks on the Church of Rome by runaway monks. I should say that for the last 100 years /individual/ German scholars have been the superiors in genius // as well as learning // of all scholars outside Germany except Madvig and Cobet;3 and that the /herd or group/ vices of the German school which you particularly reprehend took their rise from Sedan,4 // and may be expected to decline after this second and greater Jena:5 though indeed they have already been declining since the /early years/ of the century. There are some of your examples which do not at all convince me: for instance on p. 19 the required jingle is not procured unless the locative Romai was a trisyllable.6 I thought pp. 7–8 very good and salutary.7 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 1129 : ink, corrected in ink and pencil. Gow, 31 n. (excerpt); Maas, 167–8. 1 ‘The Revival of Criticism’, delivered to the Classical Association at Oxford, 17 May 1919, and published in 1919 by B. H. Blackwell. AEH is praised three times in it (6, 27, 31). 2 In particular, the ‘effort to disestablish chance, reducing everything to mechanics’, ‘fatuity’, and reading only themselves and shamelessly appropriating the ideas of others without acknowledgement (5, 6). 3 Dutch editor and grammarian (1813–89). 4 The Battle of Sedan, fought on 1 Sept. 1870, resulted in victory for King William I of Prussia over the French, and led to the end of the French Empire and the establishment of the Third Republic. Phillimore claimed (4) that ‘Every sort of prestige radiates from victory; the battle of Sedan sold the Teubners’. 5 i.e. the First World War. Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Prussians in the Battle of Jena, 14 Oct. 1806. 6 In Fato fiunt Metelli consules Romai, proposed by Phillimore as a replacement for Fato Metelli Romae fiunt consules, on grounds that ‘It carries away a senarius and substitutes a Saturnian; it gives a verse which jingles exactly with the retort (surely a point in parody) and offers a characteristic alliteration and grouping of words.’ The point is that ai is an archaic spelling for classical ae, but in the dative and the locative still represents a diphthong, whereas in the genitive the old writers know a disyllabic form (still occasionally used by Virgil) in which a and i are two separate long vowels. 7 On a ‘disintegration of criticism … during the last century’.

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4 December 1919

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 2 December 1919 My dear Richards,] No; Manilius I, II, III and Juvenal should be sold at the old price.1 If it is now possible to improve the binding of Manil. III and make it correspond with I and II, that should be done. The blind may have A Shropshire Lad in Braille. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 170.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Dec. 1919 My dear Laurence, I have not thanked you as I should for the trilogy1 you sent me on Nov. 17, but I have not been able to read it through at leisure till lately. You do not need to be told that there is a good deal to admire in it; and there are passages, such as the last four lines,2 which I like very much. But as to the style in general I cannot do better than copy out a couple of sentences from a review of mine:3 ‘‘In the sixties it seemed indeed as if there had arisen a band of writers to launch poetry on a new career; but time showed that they were cruising in a backwater, not finding a channel for the main stream, and in twenty years all heart had gone out of the enterprise. The fashions of that interlude are already so antique that Mr Gilbert Murray can adopt them for his rendering of Euripides; and there they now receive academic approbation, which is the second death.’’4 As to the moral rules incumbent on gods and men, they alter as time goes on, but do not improve, though each age in succession thinks its own rules right. My own sense of 1 ‘In answer to a suggestion of mine that his earlier Latin books should have a shilling or so added to their price so that all would cost the same’: Richards, 170. 1 The Wheel: A Dramatic Trilogy (1919). 2 ‘Yonder, to cover mine eyes, | Grass grows, and the green leaves wave: | And the gold of the sun lies there, | All bright and at rest.’ 3 Of vols. XIII and XIV of The Cambridge History of English Literature in The Cambridge Review, 38. 954 (23 May 1917), 358–60. Selected Prose, 114–20; Ricks (1988), 319–24. 4 Murray’s translations were done in 1902, 1905, 1906, 1910, 1913, and 1915, and enjoyed considerable theatrical success. ‘The second death’: Rev. 2: 11, 20: 6, 14, 21: 8.

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Letters 1872–1926

propriety however is not so much offended by anything you have taken from the ancient story as by your scuttling Alcestis at Scapa Flow on p. 74.5 I hear from Kate that you are leaving for America on the 30th , and I wish you a pleasant and prosperous tour. If they pay you in dollars you ought to come back rich. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 176–7; Maas, 168.

? TO LO U I S U N T E R M E Y E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 8 Dec. 1919 My dear Sir, I take it very kindly of you that you should write to me about my books, especially as there are not very many who find pleasure, as you do, both in my poems and in my editions of the classics. If you are good enough to send me the work on Horace of which you speak,1 I shall be glad and grateful. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.). Maas, 169.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 10 December 1919 My dear Richards,] I suppose I ought to congratulate you on having at last sold off your pet edition.1 So far as I remember, the text was correct.2 [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 170. 5 In Part 3. On 21 June 1919, the German high seas fleet had been scuttled at the naval base of Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. 1 Ably identified by Maas, 169 n., as Untermeyer’s Including Horace (1919), which in turn prompted his identification of the probable recipient of the letter. 1 Of ASL (1908), with illustrations by William Hyde. 2 In fact, in a copy now in Lilly (PR 4809.H15 S5 1908), which bears AEH’s signature on the title-page, he removed a comma after ‘stay’ in ASL XIX 10.

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21 December 1919

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 16 December 1919 My dear Richards,] This is molestation and persecution. You sent me the proofs to correct when the edition was preparing,1 and when you do that there are practically no errors. I am too full at this moment of more interesting work to waste my time trying to find mistakes where none are likely to be. Besides, I have a copy of the edition, probably more than one. If you do not like illustrations, why did you print this edition? It was all your doing, none of mine; and I thought the public quite right in not buying it. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 170; Maas, 169.

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Dec. 1919 Dear Mrs Richards, Many thanks for your gift of walnuts and deliciously scented apples. I am glad to see that your garden has prospered and that the children of the neighbourhood have not taken all the fruit. We are looking forward to the winter without much fear, as the Government has just allowed the Colleges quite a good coal ration. Tell Grant that I am eating and drinking a great deal, as there are many Feasts of one sort and another. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Richards, 170–1; Maas, 169 (both nearly complete; neither with the exact date). 1 GR was reprinting the 1908 illustrated edn. of ASL, originally issued in 2,000 copies. ‘It had been designed as a gift-book edition and appeared just in time for the Christmas season. But it had little success as a gift-book’: Richards, 84–5. For AEH’s correction of the proofs, see the letter to GR, 27 June 1908; for his dislike of the edn., see the letter to GR, 8 Nov. 1908.

1920 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 2 January 1920 My dear Richards,] The instalment of Manilius which I received yesterday consisted of 8 slips; but with them came not only the corresponding 46 pages of MS, but also 10 more pages of MS with no slips to correspond. So now I expect there will be a long pause, and when the printers are asked about it they will say they are held up by having unfortunately mislaid pp. 47–56 of the author’s MS. Or possibly there are 2 slips more which they have omitted to send. As to your note about the binding, that does not matter very much, but I hope the sort of paper on which the book is printed is still to be had. A happy new year to you and all your family. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 172.

TO R E G I NA L D S T J O H N PA R RY Trinity College 3 Jan. 1920 My dear Parry, I must begin with grateful acknowledgement to you and my other friends, because I could not read your letter without feelings which had some pure pleasure in them; but this was swallowed up in surprise, and surprise itself was engulfed in horror. Not if the stipend were £150,000 instead of £150 would I be Public Orator.1 I could not discharge the duties of the office without abandoning 1 Naiditch (2005), 25–6, stresses that, contrary to common belief, AEH declined to stand for the post: he did not decline it. See AEH to Cornford, 3 May 1920. Sir John Sandys (1844–1922), Greek scholar and Fellow of St John’s College, held the post from 1876 until his retirement in 1919, delivering in that time some 700 speeches presenting eminent men for honorary degrees at Cambridge. His successor was T. R. Glover (see List of Recipients), who served until 1939.

427

10 January 1920

all other duties and bidding farewell to such peace of mind as I possess. You none of you have any notion what a slow and barren mind I have, nor what a trouble composition is to me (in prose, I mean: poetry is either easy or impossible). When the job is done, it may have a certain amount of form and finish and perhaps a false air of ease; but there is an awful history behind it. The letter to Jackson last year2 laid waste three whole mornings: the first, I sat staring in front of me and wishing for death; the second, I wrote down disjointed phrases and sentences which looked loathsome; the third, after a night in which I suppose my subliminal self had been busy, I had some relief in fitting them together and finding they could be improved into something respectable. I can stand this once in a way; but to be doing it often, and have it always hanging over one, and in connexion with subjects much less congenial than Jackson, I could not bear. The University has been very good to me, and has given me a post in which I have duties which are not disagreeable, and opportunity for studies which I enjoy, and in which I can hope to do the University credit; and I should not really be doing it a good turn if I sacrificed that work, as I must, to the performance, even if more efficient than mine would be, of the duties of the Orator. Do not think this an unkind reply to a kind letter. I have also written to Jackson, as an interview would be useless, and distressing to both of us. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11210 . Memoir, 109–10; Maas, 170.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Jan. 1920 Dear Sirs, Messrs Boosey are at liberty to publish Mr Manson’s settings of ‘‘the three poems they mention’’.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards Ld. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. 2

14 July 1919. Settings of When I came last to Ludlow, Loveliest of trees, and Think no more, lad by Willie [Braithwaite] Manson (1896–1916) were published in 1920, though they had first been performed on 26 July 1917 at London’s Steinway Hall. See Peter Downes, ‘Willie B. Manson and A Shropshire Lad’, HSJ 30 (2004), 135–41. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Jan. 1920 My dear Withers, I was very glad to hear from you at Christmas, and had intended to reply at the New Year, but I suppose the free luncheon of boar’s head &c. which prevails in this College from Yule to Epiphany made me sleepy. Perhaps the new University Commission1 will put a stop to it. I was in the Cotswolds for a fortnight at midsummer, but no nearer to you than Stroud. September I spent in France, partly in Paris but mostly at Brive in the Limousin, a very beautiful neighbourhood, with some nice though not large Romanesque churches about. I found a proprietor of a garage who was a great connoisseur of the local scenery and delighted to take me by the best routes to the best spots; and the weather was just right for motoring and too hot for anything else. I am glad to hear we may expect to see you here again some day. At present in term-time the place is very crowded, and in college the undergraduates are packed two or even three in a box. Last year I think I wrote two poems,2 which is more than the average, but not much towards a new volume. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. I hope you will both enjoy yourselves in Italy; but as there is said to be no coal in that country you had better not start too soon. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 47 (excerpt); Maas, 170–1.

1 Set up in 1919 to investigate the organization of the universities and their allocation of public funds. The report (1922) brought no substantial change. 2 Drafts of Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries, written in Sept. 1917 and published in The Times on 31 Oct. 1917, are recorded by LH as being on pp. 92–3 of Nbk C (Memoir, 269) and Oh, were he and I together (AP II) on pp. 94–5. ( The MS of pages 93 and 94 was sold at Sotheby’s, London, on 27 May 2004: see Archie Burnett, ‘Fastidious Housman’, TLS, 25 June 2004, 13. AEH told Cockerell that LP XV (Eight O’ Clock) dated from 1921 (TLS, 7 Nov. 1936; Richards, 437), and substantial evidence of the drafts LH records on Nbk C 96–9 does survive, though there are some problems with his pagination or his record of contents. AEH’s statements to Withers and to Cockerell are therefore at odds with each other, and as the first date written by him in Nbk D is ‘30 March 1922’ on p. 15, it is not possible to identify the ‘two poems’ he thought he had written in 1919.

429

1 February 1920

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Jan. 1920 My dear Richards, The translation1 is literal, as he claims for it, except where it is a mistranslation, as it now and then is; and it is not affected or pretentious. But it is a very commonplace affair, and both the diction and the verse are poor. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 172; Maas, 171.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 22 Jan. 1920 My dear Sir, Let me thank you very sincerely for your second gift, which also contains interesting matter, though, as you say, it is a slighter work than Miss Goad’s.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Yale MS.

TO H E N RY F E S T I N G J O N E S Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Feb. 1920 Dear Mr Festing Jones, I shall be delighted if you will dine with me in Hall on Sunday the 15th . On Sundays we have more company than on other days, and generally a better dinner. We dine at 8 and do not dress. It would be well if you would come about 10 minutes before the time to my rooms, which are distant from the Hall: they are over the Sidney Street entrance of Whewell’s Court. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Wellesley MS. Tipped-in on inner lining leaf of front cover of complimentary copy of the first edition of LP (1922) sent by AEH to Henry Festing Jones. 1

Unpublished, of poems from ASL into French: Richards, 172. Horace in the Literature of the Eighteenth Century by Caroline [Mabel] Goad, Yale Studies in English, 58 (1918), which is 646 pages long. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Feb. 1920 Dear Gow, Some scholars are under the impression that Lachmann investigated the frequency of elisions in which the elided syllable ends in m and is immediately preceded by a long vowel or diphthong, such as Verg. Aen. V 328 Ledaeam Hermionen. He did not; but one might think he ought to have done so in his note on Lucr. III 374, because one would hardly suppose these elisions to be less harsh than those which he there discusses. I have sometimes thought of seeing about it, and perhaps it might be worth your while. Or you might take I. Hilberg’s Gesetze des Wortstellung im Pentamenter des Ovid 1 and try how far they apply to the pentameters of other poets, if true. Or the employment, in Attic tragedy for instance, of forms mostly used for metrical convenience, in places where metre does not require them: e.g. λαός in Eur. frag. 21 1 (Nauck ed. 22 ). Elmsley3 would have to be consulted. The seal looks like Boreas flying off with Orithyia; but what is she doing with a lyre? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 11 . Maas, 413–14.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Feb. 1920 Dear Gow, I have filled in the form and will give it to Deighton and Bell.1 As to the spondee in the 4th foot, I examined the usage of Propertius in Journ. Phil. vol. XXI pp. 150 sq., and Meineke has some remarks on Horace’s in his 2nd edition2 (I have not got the 1st ) pp. XXIII sq. I do not think a full collection would lead to anything definite: it is quite clear that 1

Leipzig, 1894. AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2003), 132. AEH owned a copy of Euripidis tragœdiae ex recensione Augusti Nauckii editio tertia uolumen I (–II) (1876): Naiditch (2002), 61. 3 Peter Elmsley (1774–1825), whose edns. of Euripides and Sophocles were published in 1821 and 1826 respectively, in addition to his edns. of individual plays. 1 2 Cambridge booksellers. Published in 1854; first edn., 1834. 2

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21 February 1920

there was no hard and fast rule, and Cortius3 made a fool of himself in trying to rob Lucan of variety in the matter. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11212 . Maas, 414.

TO H E N RY F E S T I N G J O N E S Trinity College 18 Feb. 1920 Dear Jones, I return herewith the note-book,1 in which I have found other unpublished matter worth reading besides the Pauli story,2 which still remains mysterious. I suppose you do not know anything about the Mr Griffin who was Pauli’s executor. I know, or did know, a man of that name who is a barrister; and I am wondering if I could get any information from that side. I hope you enjoyed your stay in Cambridge and will soon come again. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Wellesley MS.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Feb. 1920 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, The celestial globe arrived yesterday, and seems to have stood the journey pretty well. I am very grateful for it, and I am now completely equipped for dealing with the 5th book of Manilius, for which I required it: I am now just finishing the 4th . 3 Gottlieb Cortius (1698–1731), whose edn. of Lucan was published in 1726. The point is the Imperial poets’ preference for the rhythm Troiae qui over the Republican poets’ qui Troiae. The work of collecting examples and exceptions was done by Friedrich Marx, Molossische und bakcheische Wortformen in der Verskunst der Griechen und R¨omer (Leipzig 1922). Respect for Marx and disrespect for Cortius may be found in AEH’s Lucan, xxxii and n. 1 Almost certainly of Jones’s friend the writer and artist Samuel Butler. 2 Charles Paine Pauli (d. 1897) was a charming rogue whom Butler met in New Zealand. He returned to England at the same time as Butler did, and Butler gave him financial support, discovering only at Pauli’s funeral that others had been doing the same.

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Letters 1872–1926

If you are going to settle at another spot, I hope you will let me know where it is, and I will try not to miss you if I find myself near it. I daresay you have been as much amused as I was by the life-like portrait of William in Max Beerbohm’s last book.1 He is more successful with the pen than with the pencil in depicting this model. With the kindest regards to both of you, I am Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 39. Maas, 171–2.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Feb. 1920 Dear Mackail, I agree that χειρὶ παχείῃ is not parallel to ingenti manu nor τρήρωνα πέλειαν to uolucrem columbam, but I do think that XI 556 dextra ingenti is parallel to the one and Soph. Ai. 140 πτηνῆσ πελείασ to the other. ingenti no doubt is tumid, but in reading Virgil I often cry ‘Out, hyperbolical fiend! how vexest thou this man!’;1 and uolucrem is useless, but if epic poets are debarred from useless epithets they will never fill their 12 or 24 or 48 books. The magnitude of Serestus’ ship is not much to the point, so long as the mast itself was tall, which we are told in 489. From what I see in the papers, you are to be congratulated on your son’s connexion with The Dynasts at Oxford.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.3. Hawkins (1958), 187; Maas, 414–15.

1 Seven Men (1919), in which Rothenstein is a prominent character in the story Enoch Soames. For Beerbohm, see List of Recipients. 1 Twelfth Night, 4. 2. 26. 2 ‘Denis Mackail designed the scenery for the production which opened on 10 February 1920’: Maas, 415 n.

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21 March 1920

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 3 March 1920 My dear Richards, It is a fortnight since I have received any proofs of Manilius IV, though you told me that the printers promised you to send the whole book in proof at the beginning of December. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 172

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 March 1920 My dear Richards, Thanks for sending me Mr Armstrong’s music,1 and his civil letter, which I return. I am sorry you found Italy so bad: some one, I forget who, told me the passport was the only trouble and things were all right when you got there. I hope you were not too early for the celebrated plenty of rare flowers in Capri. When I was there it was autumn and they were all gone to seed. I stayed at the Hotel Eden at Anacapri, and found it quite satisfactory; but you probably stuck to the lower town at this season. In a day or two I will send the corrected proofs of the text and notes of Manilius IV, and those of the preface shortly after. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 172–3 (incomplete); Maas, 172.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 March 1920. My dear Richards, I enclose corrected proofs of the entire text and notes of Manilius IV: I shall be obliged if you will acknowledge receipt. The preface shall follow in a few days. 1

See AEH to GR, 6 June 1919, and n. 1.

434

Letters 1872–1926

In making additions and subtractions I have taken considerable pains to bring the added or subtracted matter to such measurement that no rearrangement of lines, or only the very slightest, will be needed in the surrounding parts. It might be well to call the attention of the printers to this, that they may not hastily make more change than is necessary. I think I had better see a revise of the notes before they and the text are made up into pages together. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 173.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 29 March 1920 Dear Gow, I suppose you would not like to be Professor of Latin at Liverpool?1 because I think it possible you might be. They have so bad a field that they are making enquiries everywhere: Postgate wrote to me; Harold Butler has also been asked if he can recommend anyone. Although it is not the ideal situation for you, I would rather see you that than a schoolmaster; but you may not agree. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 13 . Maas, 172–3.

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 9 April 1920 My dear Bridges, It is good of you to send me your new volume,1 and of course I am glad to have it, though I do not expect to be always reading it and carrying it in my head like the first four books of the Shorter Poems.2 You have been 1 The chair became vacant when Postgate retired later in the year. His successor was D. A. Slater. 1 October and Other Poems. 2 Published in 1873, 1879, 1884, and 1890. AEH owned a copy of the 4th edn. (1894), now in TCC. Several echoes and parallels in AEH’s poetry are noted in Poems (1997), 321, 325, 332, 352, 408, 415, 430.

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13 April 1920

spinning down the ringing grooves of change3 while I have been standing at gaze like Joshua’s moon in Ajalon,4 and the pieces I like best are those which remind me of old times, Poor Child and Fortunatus nimium. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 103. Maas, 173.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 13 April 1920 My dear Richards, By all means. The date which probably would suit me best is May 14, but either April 30 or May 7 would do if they are more convenient to you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 13 April 1920 My dear Rothenstein, I am sorry if it upsets your arrangements, but I am not going to write literary criticism for you or anyone else; and moreover I should feel awkward and embarrassed in writing about Hardy under his nose.1 I do not mean that it would violate any principles or general notions which I may happen to have, but it would distress my sensations, which I believe are in some respects morbid. I sympathise with your feelings about leaving Oakridge, but Campden Hill, I always used to think, must be the best spot inside London to live in.

3 Tennyson, Locksley Hall, 182: ‘Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.’ 4 Locksley Hall, 180: ‘stand at gaze like Joshua’s moon in Ajalon!’, referring to Joshua 10: 12–13. 1 Rothenstein had asked AEH for a short piece to accompany his drawing of Hardy in Twenty-Four Portraits (1920).

436

Letters 1872–1926

Give my kindest regards to Mrs Rothenstein. I hope I shall see you when you are in Cambridge. I suppose, as your stay is so short, it is no use asking you to any meal here? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 40. Maas, 173.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 April 1920 My dear Richards, I enclose corrected revise of the notes to Manilius IV. These may now be made up into pages with the text. In doing this, care should be taken that every note begins on the page containing the line of text to which it refers. This is not absolutely necessary provided that the page containing the line of text and the page containing the beginning of the note are pages both of which lie before the readers’ eyes at the same time; but every effort should be made to avoid having the line of text on one side of a leaf and the beginning of the note on the other. The preface also may now be put into pages; and I enclose the MS of a page to face the first page of text and notes. I think it ought to be possible to print this so that the word INTERPOLATOR comes out more clearly than it does in some copies of books II and III. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 173.

TO W. H . D. RO U S E Trinity College 16 April 1920 Dear Dr Rouse, I do not remember rearranging Lucr. II 453–5,1 but I take verse 453 to mean that you can scoop up poppy-seed in your hand as easily as water. This is the proper meaning of haurire, as may be seen from Ouid. met. VI 347 ‘‘ut hauriret gelidos potura liquores’’ or IV 740 ‘‘manus 1 Nor had he, though some editors had done. He did, however, favour transposing 456–63 to follow 477: JP 25 (1897), 233 (Classical Papers, 428).

437

27 April 1920

hausta uictrices abluit unda’’; and so you have XIII 425 sq. ‘‘cineres hausit’’ and 526 ‘‘peregrinae haustas harenae’’. namque indicates an argument from analogy: you see the effect of the roundness of the seeds, and you can infer the effect of the roundness of atoms, and presume that shape in the atoms of fluids. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 16 April 1920 Dear Sir, A good number of the poems have been set to music by various composers, but I do not remember the details. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. University of San Francisco MS.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 27 April 1920 My dear Kate, I enclose the account of A. J. Macleane1 in our Book of Admissions, which is not renowned for accuracy. ‘Pensioner’ means Commoner; ‘Fellow-Commoner’ was a purchasable status, now extinct, but held by Arthur Balfour2 in his time, which entitled one to dine at High Table with the Fellows. Macleane was 4th Classic in the Tripos of 1845. Together with George Long he was general editor of a series of classical authors for school and college called Bibliotheca Classica, which faithfully represented the low ebb of scholarship in England in the middle of the 19th century. The Horace

1 The Revd A[rthur] J[ohn] Macleane (1813–58). He was admitted to TCC as a Pensioner at the age of 28. He was Principal of Brighton College, 1848–53, and Rector of Charcombe in Somerset and Headmaster of King Edward’s School, Bath, 1853–8. 2 Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930), British Prime Minister, 1902–5. He studied philosophy at TCC, 1866–9, and was elected to a fellowship in 1878.

438

Letters 1872–1926

and the Juvenal and the Persius he edited himself.3 His learning was small, and so was his modesty, but he had common sense, and some of his impudence was sprightly. He sent his son to Shrewsbury, and there is a story of Kennedy4 putting him on to construe and asking ‘where did you get that translation from?’ ‘From my father’s edition, sir’ said the youth. Kennedy said nothing, and the lesson proceeded; but after the class had been dismissed some one happened to go into the study, and found Kennedy sitting with his head on his hands and groaning to himself ‘Poor boy! poor boy! I couldn’t tell him his father was no scholar’. Aunt Kate would have been 96 next month.5 When you say ‘no doubt she will be buried by Uncle Basil’ no doubt that is true in one sense, but it gave me a momentary shock. I expect that much of the bother about the funeral would be taken over by her step-daughter Alice Huntingdon and her family. I hope that the meeting which was to provide for your declining years at the national expense went off all right. I have written a poem suited to your infant mind6 on the paper enclosed. Love to Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS.

3 Macleane’s edn. of Horace appeared in 1853, that of Juvenal and Persius in 1857. Revised edns. were subsequently produced by Long. 4 Benjamin Hall Kennedy (1804–89), Fellow and Lecturer in Classics, St John’s College, Cambridge, 1828; Headmaster of Shrewsbury School, 1836–66; Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge and Canon of Ely Cathedral, 1867. Partly from funds collected at his retirement at Shrewsbury, the chair of Latin was founded at Cambridge to which AEH was elected in 1911. Later in 1911, the title of the position became ‘The Kennedy Professorship of Latin’. See Naiditch (1995), 27–8. 5 ‘Death of Aunt Kate April 1920 aged 95’: note in KES’s hand written on the MS. 6 Identified by KES on the MS as Amelia mixed the mustard: see Poems (1997), 250. If, as looks to be the case, the poem was sent to KES for the first time with this letter, then its date is over twenty years later than was previously thought: see Poems (1997), 535–6. The form of the capital ‘A’ in the text reproduced in facsimile in Recollections, 26, would not rule out this later date.

439

4 May 1920

TO F. M. CORN F OR D Trinity College 3 May 1920 Dear Cornford, After declining to stand for the Oratorship I suppose I shall make myself unpopular if I refuse the next request which is made me, so I will try to write something for Frazer.1 But oh, why was I born? This is a rhetorical question, and does not expect an answer. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 54827, fo. 96. Ackerman (1974), 359.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 May 1920 My dear Withers, I have decorated your infatuated purchase with my signature and the shortest of my unpublished poems:1 unpublished, though I also wrote it for Meynell2 in a book belonging to one of his daughters. I should have thought, though, that this would detract from the value of the book for a true bibliophile; but no doubt this is already a spoilt copy, the leaves having been cut. I think you have found a house in a good part of the world.3 I motored through Aynho last year, but I do not remember it distinctly, though I remember Deddington. My Oxford walks did not bring me nearer than Bicester. One great charm of all the parts of Oxfordshire I know is the wide horizon you command even from a slight elevation. Sciatica is one of the few ailments I sympathise with, as I used to have it myself, no doubt in a mild form, twenty years ago, till I learnt to change my things when I had got into a sweat. Cancer is worse, they say, and being shot through the palm of the hand makes one scream louder. 1

The address of Apr. 1921: Selected Prose, 163–4. AEH wrote out LP XXVII (The sigh that heaves the grasses) and signed it ‘A. E. Housman’ on the flyleaf of Withers’s copy of the first edn. of ASL, now in SCO. 2 Wilfrid Meynell (1852–1948), journalist and poet, and husband of the poet Alice Meynell (1847–1922). 3 Souldern Court in the village of Souldern, north of Bicester, Oxfordshire. See Robin Shaw, Housman’s Places (1995), 55–6. 1

440

Letters 1872–1926

No doubt you know that Rothenstein also has deserted Gloucestershire, owing, he says, to the ambitions of his children. I spent three weeks of last September in France, most of it in beautiful country in the Limousin, where I had not been before. Things were cheap, and they were yearning for the return of the English tourist. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 174.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 10 May 1920 My dear Richards, On Friday I shall be lecturing till 12, but I can reach Liverpool Street either at 2. 21 or at 5. 15. Perhaps the latter would be too late to catch you at Paddington. The bad weather of these last weeks has kept back the trees so perhaps the hawthorn will not be over in Berkshire. It is nearly a month since I saw any proofs of Manilius IV. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 174 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 12 May 1920 My dear Richards, I shall be very glad to stay till Tuesday morning. As you give me the choice, I will come by the secondx train and be at Paddington for the 6. 50. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. x To be exact, I shall /perhaps / come by a third train, which gets to Liverpool Street at 6. 10[.] LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s.

441

24 May 1920

TO M A RT I N S E C K E R Trinity College | Cambridge 18 May 1920 Dear Mr Secker, It is exceedingly good of you to give me the book which Richards handed me yesterday,1 and if it is half as good as South Wind 2 I have a great treat in store. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. PM MS MA 2808 R.V. Autographs Misc. English.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 24 May 1920 My dear Richards, I enclose the MS of the Index to Manilius IV and of a page to be inserted before it. This completes the book. But I am perplexed and disquieted by certain phenomena in the paged proofs of the text and notes. New errors have been introduced in places which were previously correct. Two of these (p. 3 l. 4 of notes and p. 113 l. 18 of notes) have been put right again by the proof-reader; but I have noticed others (p. 114 line 5 from bottom, 61 for 861; line 2 from bottom, Vrigo for Virgo), and I do not know how many more there may be. As for preventing letters at the beginning and end of lines from getting out of their place, it seems a hopeless business: as fast as they are put straight in one place they fly crooked in another. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 174; Maas, 174–5.

1 2

Probably They Went, a novel, published in 1920, by Norman Douglas (1868–1922). Novel by Douglas, published by Secker in 1917.

442

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 May 1920 My dear Richards, Thanks for your note. Send Dr Kroll1 the copy of Manilius III which he wants. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 1 July 1920 My dear Richards, Your rather immoral but very readable novel1 reached me at a crisis which made me particularly grateful, for there was a great dearth of literature around me and I had been reduced to Agatha’s Husband 2 by the authoress of John Halifax, Gentleman. Both Agatha’s and Olivia’s husbands had rather odious wives, and your heroine would have incurred the ruin she deserved if God had been her creator instead of you. I did not think the Monte Carlo part so good as the rest. Your knowledge of the turf and everything connected with it fills me with admiration and horror. I believe however that you have confused the persons of Mr Backhouse and Mr Eaton. The latter (p. 85) ‘‘was the racecourse member of the firm’’, so I do not see why the firm should tell the lie you make them tell on p. 113, and I think it was probably Mr Eaton whom Olivia met at Kempton Park3 on p. 127. How did Mr Eaton on p. 249 form an opinion on Brocklesby’s possibilities at Liverpool, a city to which you never sent the horse?4 That both Mr Eaton and his clerk were christened Alfred may be a compliment to me or merely a coincidence. I cannot square

1 Wilhelm Kroll (1869–1939), editor of Paulys real-encyclop¨adie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, which began publication in 1894. 1 Double Life (1920). 2 3 Published in 1853. The anonymous author was Dinah Maria Mulock. Racecourse. 4 GR retorted that the ‘racing army’ goes from London to Lincoln and thence to Liverpool before returning to London, and that therefore he was being very exact when he spoke of the bookmaker having come back from Liverpool impressed by Brocklesby’s abilities: to AEH, 5 July 1920 (BMC MS).

443

14 July 1920

Olivia’s arithmetic on p. 91 with the facts (if facts they are) recounted on p. 90.5 I enclose the final proofs of Manilius IV, in which there are three corrections to be made. These have been held up for a fortnight because they were sent to Cambridge and not to me in Gloucestershire, whence I returned yesterday. Now will begin the delays of binding, on which you are always descanting in the Times Literary Supplement.6 I may attempt Paris by the aeroplane route in September, so any information about it which you may possess or acquire would be welcome; also about passports. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. LC-GR MS (copy in GR’s handwriting). Maas, 175.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 July 1920 My dear Richards, Many thanks for your enclosures. As you are generously disposed to give me a copy of Saintsbury’s cellar book,1 I certainly shall be grateful for it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 174 (nearly complete).

5 GR defended the arithmetic as correct: Olivia won £50, which, after deducting the £45 she had lost during the week, left her £5 to the good: to AEH, 5 July 1920 (BMC MS). 6 In his weekly advertisements. TLS 963 (1 July 1920), 421, contained an announcement that R. W. Postgate’s The Bolshevik Theory, due to be published on 22 June 1920, ‘was unavoidably postponed’. 1 George Saintsbury, Notes On A Cellar-Book (Macmillan & Co., 1920). AEH’s copy is in Lilly: Naiditch, HSJ 31 (2005), 154.

444

Letters 1872–1926

TO TH O M A S M O U LT Trinity College | Cambridge 21 July 1920 My dear Sir, I am naturally flattered by the handsome compliment which you and your contributors have paid me, and I am pleased and grateful to receive a gift so full of interest and merit.1 I beg also to thank you personally for the kindness of your note, and I am Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Thomas Moult Esq. Brotherton MS (Moult Correspondence).

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 21 July 1920 My dear Kate, I enclose the Provost of Eton’s1 answer to your enquiries. The change from A. M. and A. B.2 to M. A. and B. A. signifies, at least in the Universities, that English was superseding Latin in formal writing and speaking,—such as statutes and notices; and it took place early in the 19th century. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. King Edward’s School, Bath, MS.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 26 July 1920 My dear Kate, Christ Church seems to have been the name conferred on the cathedral when it became a cathedral in 1546. To this day Christ Church is not strictly a college: its official description is ‘The Dean and Chapter of the 1

Probably a copy of Georgian Poetry 1918–1919 (1920), of which Moult was editor. M. R. James: see List of Recipients. 2 ‘artium magister’ and ‘artium baccalaureus’ (in Latin word order), for ‘Master of Arts’ and ‘Bachelor of Arts’. 1

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15 August 1920

Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the foundation of King Henry the Eighth’. They call themselves ‘the House’. I forgot to say that where Magdalene now stands in Cambridge there was formerly a Benedictine Hostel, with separate buildings or staircases for the different monasteries,—Crowland1 etc. I am glad that Denis2 is D. P. H.,3 but I rejoice on trust, as I don’t know what it means,—Devastator of Public Health, or Dispenser of Pharmaceutical Horrors. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS. Maas, 176.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Aug. 1920 My dear Richards, Thanks, if you would answer such letters for me it would save some little trouble. But I seem to remember that on one occasion in the past you mixed up my benevolence to composers with my hard-heartedness to anthologists, so that a poem of mine was published in one collection on your permission when I had refused mine to the editors of others, who had applied to me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Maas, 176.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Aug. 1920 My dear Richards, I am very grateful for the leaflets. I am most attracted by the Aircraft Transport people because theirs is more explicit, and by mentioning a charge for ‘Passengers’ Excess Baggage’ they give me hope of disappointing

1 2 3

Historia Crowlandensis (1413), a source of information about medieval monasteries. KES’s second son, Arthur Denis Symons (1891–1951). Doctor of Public Health.

446

Letters 1872–1926

your malevolent expectations about difficulty arising from the weight of my bag. You should not always insist on carrying it. Do you still possess backstairs influence at the French consulate? Last year you relieved me of the trouble of having to appear in person to get my visa, and I don’t yet know if Cook & Son can. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 175; Maas, 176–7.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Aug. 1920 My dear Richards, Cook professes himself able to get me a Visa, so I will not trespass on your kindness. The Visa of last year was for 2 months. My inclination to go by the Air Express is confirmed by the crash they had yesterday, which will make them careful in the immediate future.1 Their cars start from your neighbourhood, the Victory Hotel, Leicester Square; so I shall try to get a bed there for the night, unless you warn me against it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 175; Maas, 177.

1 AEH made his first flight on 9 Sept. 1920: see AEH to GR on that date. Jeremy Bourne, ‘Housman in the Air’, HSJ 23 (1997), 43, notes that crashes were frequent at the time. Graves, 158, records that ‘one pilot’s total of forced landings climbed to seventeen during the first few years of passenger flights’.

447

Before 3 September 1920

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Aug. 1920 My dear Richards, Revenge is a valuable passion, and the only sure pillar on which justice rests, so I do not want to hinder your pursuit of Constable if it can be conducted without making me seem to be the pursuer. But have you also a vendetta against James Agate?1 From reading your serial in the Literary Supplement I supposed that he was one of your pets.2 I shall stay at the Victory Hotel on the night of Wednesday Sept. 8, and I shall be delighted if you will dine with me that evening. As I shall have no dress clothes, but only a dark grey or brown suit, you had better select, from your superior knowledge of London, the best restaurant where that costume would not be conspicuous. Not that I really much mind public reprobation if you do not. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 177; Maas, 177–8.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S [Trinity College | Cambridge Before 3 Sept. 1920]1 [ … ] Library to have the two books sent to Bath. Of course they may be out. I return Jerry’s letters with many thanks. They are very full and interesting, and he seems to be beginning well.2 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Housman Society MS: fragment. 1 Messrs Constable and Company’s publication, L[ines] Of C[ommunication] (1917), being the letters of a temporary officer in the army service corps, Captain James E. Agate (1877–1946), contained on p. 1, as an epigraph to the first chapter (‘Joining Up’), an unauthorized printing of ASL XXV (On the idle hill of summer). See AEH to GR, 13 Jan. 1917. 2 GR’s advertisement in the TLS 970 (19 Aug. 1920), 533, countered the claim in the Athenaeum that ‘no first novel of literary merit can hope to sell more than a thousand’ with the example of Agate’s Responsibility: ‘It was a first novel; it had literary merit … and it did sell—oh! very many more than a thousand.’ 1 Dated according to the next letter, in which AEH tells KES that the two library books had arrived back. 2 Her youngest son began work in the Indian Civil Service in 1920.

448

Letters 1872–1926

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Sept. 1920 My dear Kate, I return the document1 with my signature. I made you a present of the two dishes, and I have no business to take any credit with R. E. and M. Symons2 for your thoughtfulness on their behalf. The two books arrived in time. The Library3 now closes for three weeks or so, but after that there is no reason why you should not have again the book which is not at Bath. They tell me here that the right thing to do with railway stock and shares is to stick to them; but I shiver when I look forward to the additional trouble of filling up my Income Tax return. I shall leave here on the 8th and return not later than the 18th . When I was at Monmouth I did not succeed in finding all the beauty you speak of; but I was there less than a week, and was walking to distant places like Raglan and Chepstow and Speech House. I am glad for the sake of both of you to hear about the school. Do you remember Mr J. C. Whall who was an assistant master at Bromsgrove?4 I see he died the other day. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 3 . Maas, 178.

1 A Record Office note of Chancery Proceedings c.1440 in which the Petitioner is ‘Richard Houseman’. 2 KES’s grandsons Robert Edward and Michael, both born in 1920, the latter on 10 August. 3 The London Library. AEH sponsored KES as a ticket-holder. 4 An obituary appeared in The Times, 1 Sept. 1920, 13b. The Revd John Clephane Whall was Assistant Master at Surrey County School before moving to Bromsgrove in 1874, where he was appointed Assistant Master at The Grammar School of King Edward VI. He subsequently became Warden of Christ’s College, Hobart, Tasmania; Master of the Lower School, Queen Elizabeth’s School, Ipswich; Chief Inspector of Religious Education in the Diocese of Worcester, 1891–1906; Vicar at Montgomery; and Vicar of Hopesay, Salop, 1914–20.

449

5 September 1920

TO R I D G E LY TO R R E N C E Trinity College | Cambridge | England 5 Sept. 1920 Dear Sir, I am obliged by your letter, but I hope you will not mind if I make the same reply which I have made to editors in this country,—that I do not care to publish verse in periodicals unless it is concerned with current events. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Ridgely Torrence Esq. Princeton MS (Frederick Ridgely Torrence Collection, II. 41, folder 7).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Sept. 1920 My dear Richards, 7. 30 at the Café Royal on Wednesday. Perhaps you and Charles1 would come and find me about 5 minutes earlier in the lounge of the Victory Hotel (are you sleeping there?) About the probable date of publication of Manilius IV, the probable strike in the binding trade, the inevitable shipwreck of the vessel which conveys it from Glasgow to London, we can talk when we meet; but I want to put in writing for your convenience that on its publication I think it ought to be advertised once at least both in the Classical Review and the Classical Quarterly, as the other day I discovered that a scholar here, and a friend of mine, did not know that book III had yet appeared. Suppose I produced a new volume of poetry,2 in what part of the year ought it to be published, and how long would it take after the MS left my hands? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 178 (incomplete); Maas, 178–9.

1 GR had been invited by AEH to dinner on 8 Sept., and, that being the birthday of his son Charles, GR had asked if he might bring him along: Richards, 177. 2 AEH’s first hint of what would be LP.

450

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 8 Sept. Hˆotel Continental. Safely arrived: you also I hope. A. E. H. LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘M Grant Richards | British Hotel | Gorey | Jersey’ and redirected to Cookham Dean, Berkshire.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS All right1 A. E. Housman 9 Sept. 1920 LC-GR MS: p.c addressed ‘Grant Richards | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | Londres (W. C. 2) | Angleterre’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 179; Maas, 179.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS     | 3,   |  13 Sept. 1920 My dear Richards, I have decided to come home on Friday morning, and this, if I remember your plans correctly, will prevent me from having the pleasure of meeting you here. At this instant I am suffering much from indigestion, whether chiefly due to myself or to Montagne,1 Traiteur,2 I do not know. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 179.

1 AEH is reassuring GR of his safe arrival in Paris after his first flight: Richards, 178–9. Jeremy Bourne, ‘Housman in the Air’, HSJ 23 (1997), 42, notes that the first flight across the English Channel had been Blériot’s on 25 July 1909, and that the first attempt at setting up an organized transport company for the route had been made in 1919. Bourne judges AEH to be ‘remarkably courageous’ in choosing to fly. 1 2 The restaurant of Prosper Montagné in Paris. ‘Restaurateur’.

451

21 September 1920

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS  Room 386. |    | 3,   |  16 Sept. 1920 My dear Richards, I am very glad we can meet after all. At 2. 30 a newly married couple are going to make a short call on me here, but otherwise I am not engaged in the afternoon. I will come to the Normandy at 1 o’ clock and wait a little: if you find this letter without me, that will mean that I have gone for my lunch. I shall be in this hotel at 3 o’ clock, but do not think this an engagement. I could dine with you if you are willing to dine early and lightly: that is to say, I shall dine lightly; there is no reason why you should. I should have to leave you soon after 8. 30, but the nearer I was to a station on the Vincennes-Maillot line of the Metropolitain, the longer I could sit at table. If we dont1 meet at 3, I shall be here from 6 to 7. 15. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 179–80.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Sept. 1920 My dear Laurence, That is all right. I hope that by fair means and foul together you despoiled America of a great deal of its appreciated coinage.1 I have just flown to Paris and back, and I am never going by any other route, until they build the Channel Tunnel, which I will give a trial, if it is much cheaper. Love to Clemence: I hope Bath did her good. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 177–8 (nearly complete).

1

For ‘don’t’. LH left England on 30 Dec. 1919 for a twelve-week visit, his second, to the United States. His ostensible purpose was to advocate a League of Nations, but he spent much of the time giving readings from his plays: The Unexpected Years (1937), 318, 320. 1

452

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Sept. 1920 My dear Richards, I enclose cheque for £80. Also, on the next leaf, two additions to the lists I sent you yesterday. Please send me 4 copies. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Grant Richards Esq. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge] No copy of Manilius IV is to be sent to the Classical Quarterly, which does not review books. Again the label on the back has been stuck on upside-down, as in the first copies of book III four years ago. A. E. Housman. 22 Sept. 1920 LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’ LC-GR t.s. Richards, 180 (incomplete); Maas, 179.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Sept. 1920 My dear Richards, Oh, damn the Bookman.1 The author wrote to me some months ago, asking for private particulars, and I thought that my reply had chilled him off. I have not been photographed, I think, since 1894: that was the year when I was beginning to write A Shropshire Lad, and if for that reason they would care to have it, I could send you one, as I do not want to seem churlish. As to Rothenstein, his portraits are of 15 years ago, and one of them, the one he shows in exhibitions, is a venomous libel, to which he 1 The Bookman had asked GR for a photograph or other portrait of AEH to reproduce. In no. 350 (Nov. 1920), 71–2, was an article on AEH by John Freeman. It was illustrated by photographs by Van der Weyde (1894), E. O. Hoppé (1911), and GR (1916).

453

3 October 1920

adds fresh strokes whenever he feels nasty. This is full face; the other one, more side face, he reserves for his private delectation. Now I think of it, I was photographed by Oppé,2 also about 15 years ago, and I think I rather lately received a copy for the first time; but I do not know what I have done with it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. (with ‘reverses’ corrected to ‘reserves’, and other minor corrections). Richards, 180; Maas, 179–80.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Sept. 1920 My dear Richards, The signed copy is for you,1 the other for the Bookman. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 180.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Oct. 1920 My dear Kate, Well, I flew there and back all right, and am never going by any other route in future. Surrey from overhead is delightful, Kent and France less interesting, the Channel disappointing, because on both days there was too much mist to let both shores be seen [at] once. It was rather windy, and the machine sometimes imitated a ship at sea (though that is due to differing densities of atmosphere and not to wind) but not in a very life-like manner. Members of your unhappy sex were sick, however. The noise is great, and I alighted rather deaf, not having stuffed my ears with the cotton-wool provided. Nor did I put on the life-belt which they oblige one to take. To avoid crossing the 60 miles of sea which a straight flight would involve, they go from Croydon to Hythe, Hythe to Boulogne, Boulogne to Paris. You are in the air 2 12 hours: from Leicester Square to your hotel in 2 1

For ‘Hoppé’. Of the photograph of AEH by Van der Weyde from 1894.

454

Letters 1872–1926

Paris you take little more than 4; though on the return journey we were 2 hours late in starting because the machine required repairs, having been damaged on the previous day by a passenger who butted his head through the window to be sick. My chief trouble is that what I now want is no longer a motor and a chauffeur but an aeroplane and a tame pilot, which I suppose are more expensive. The weather in France was beautiful, though I read of storms in London. Unfortunately I got poisoned at a restaurant and was out of action for the best part of two days. Pray why should the manager of W. H. Smith’s establishment in Paris want to know if you are my sister?1 It was not me he asked, but Grant Richards; and twice. Love to all[.] Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2, with the corner bearing ‘at’ torn off. Memoir, 147–8 (nearly complete); Maas, 180.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Oct. 1920 My dear Richards, Certainly I should be delighted to come to you for a week-end in November; but I delayed answering because on one week-end in that month, I am not sure which, there is a dinner at Oxford of an interUniversity Club to which I belong,1 and I tried to find out the date from the secretary. He however is in Hungary; and, as I think the Oxford dinner is on the 13th , I should like to fix the 19th for coming to you. But it is no good hoping to lunch with you that day, as on Fridays I am lecturing till noon. I wrote to Clemence about the wood-engraving, but she has not answered yet. As I have not received the labels for Manilius IV I suppose it is not yet published. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. 1 ‘Answer: W. H. S.’s manager came from Bath, and knew I was the sister of Laurence Housman’: KES’s handwritten note in her copy of LH’s Memoir, inspected at Sotheby’s, 4 Nov. 2001. 1 The Arcades.

455

24 October 1920

TO F. M. CORN F OR D Trinity College 14 Oct. 1920 Dear Cornford, I send you this draft of an address to Frazer because I despair of making it better by keeping it longer. It seems to me not only too ornate, as some of Frazer’s own writing is, but also stilted, which Frazer’s writing is not. Perhaps you and Giles1 can improve it, or create something better of your own. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 58427, fos. 97–8. Ackerman (1974), 359. Envelope addressed ‘F. M. Cornford Esq. | Conduit Head | Madingley Road’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH. Enclosed is a draft in ink on two lined foolscap sheets of the address to Sir James Frazer, for which see Selected Prose, 163–4. The only difference from the text finally printed in 1921 is that the last paragraph is not a separate paragraph.

TO D R G. C . W I L L I A M S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Oct. 1920 Dear Dr Williamson, I am sorry that your earlier letter failed to reach me, probably when I was abroad last month. Certainly I have all the will in the world to do honour to Keats, whom I admire, in the strict sense of the word, more than any other poet; but unfortunately I am not able to write poetry (nor even prose that is worth writing) at will; and it would be no good my making you any promise. If anything should soon come into my head, I would send it you;1 but it is very unlikely. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Dr G. C. Williamson. Princeton MS (Keats Memorial Volume II: Letters Gen. MSS [bound] Am 21565). Envelope addressed ‘Dr Williamson | Burgh House | Well Walk | Hampstead | N. W. 3.’ 1 Identified by Ackerman, loc. cit., as ‘Peter Giles (1860–1935), classical scholar, Master of Emmanuel College, and member of the Organizing Committee for the Frazer fund’. Giles was elected Reader in Comparative Philology at Cambridge, 1891, and served as Master of Emmanuel, 1911–35, and as Vice-Chancellor, 1919–21. His only book was a Short Manual of Comparative Philology for the Use of Classical Students (1895). 1 For The John Keats Memorial Volume which Williamson (1858–1942) edited in 1921.

456

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Oct. 1920 My dear Richards, I enclose cheque for £31. 15. 10, and return Maclehose’s1 invoice. When exactly was the book published, and were the copies from the author sent out simultaneously? I ask because one unlucky fellow appears to have bought one before mine reached him. Perhaps he was premature, and ordered one. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 6 Nov. 1920 Dear Scholfield, I have the Lucretius,1 and it is not worth having: The Persius,2 from what I know of Cartault, would be much the same; and no edition of a Greek author produced in France can be fit for exportation. The editions of Cicero,3 when they appear, might be worth getting; and also any book, if there were any, edited by Havet4 or Lejay.5 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 80 20 . Maas, 181.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Cambridge] 19 Nov. 1920 Missed train will try meet you at Paddington Housman LC-GR t.s. Telegram addressed to ‘Grant Richards | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Sq | Ldn.’. 1

For ‘MacLehose’. Ed. Alfred Ernout (b. 1879), in the ‘collection Budé’ of classical authors (1920). Naiditch (2003), 125, gives full details. Scholfield, as Librarian of TCC, had asked advice on purchases. 2 Ed. Augustin Cartault (1847–1922), 1920. 3 In the Collections des Universités de France, beginning in 1921. 4 Louis Havet (1849–1925). He published an edn. of the Phaedrus (1895) and Notes Critiques sur Properce (1916). AEH owned a copy of the former: Naiditch (2003), 138. 5 Paul Lejay (1861–1920). He published an edn. of Horace (1903) and vols. on Virgil (1921). 1

457

12 December 1920

TO D. S. RO B E RT S O N Trinity College 8 Dec. 1920 Dear Robertson, I enclose the three essays for the Members’ Prize.1 I have marked such misprints and false accents as I have noticed, and have also marked or indicated a good many other mistakes. I was wrong when I told you that the bad handwriting would disqualify the written essay: I had wandered into the regulations about the Hare Prize2 on the same page. Perhaps you will let me know, verbally or otherwise, that you have received the essays. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Dec. 1920 My dear Richards, I enclose a cheque for £500,1 which my bank-book seems to be capable of standing; not more I am afraid, for I have other friends who are in difficulties. But I hope this will be some good. I am not losing any interest, as I always keep in my current account enough money to flee the country with. I am glad to hear good news of Gioia,2 and I hope this last expert is right. What do you know of the genesis of the enclosed press-cutting? Will you send me one copy of the illustrated edition of A Shropshire Lad? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman

1 The Members’ Classical Prize, either for a thesis submitted in Part II of the Classical Tripos or for an M.Phil. thesis. 2 For a Ph.D. dissertation. 1 GR’s publishing business was in financial difficulties. See AEH to GR, 27 Oct. 1921, and n. 1. 2 GR’s daughter.

458

Letters 1872–1926

I observe that your pet bruiser has beaten Beckett. It appears that he does something wrong with his elbow,3 which I hope he has not taught to Charles.4 BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Dec. 1920 My dear Richards, I return Lovat Frazer’s designs1 most of which I do not like at all, though the landscapes are generally pleasing. The trouble with book-illustrators, as with composers who set poems to music, is not merely that they are completely wrapped up in their own art and their precious selves, and regard the author merely as a peg to hang things on, but that they seem to have less than the ordinary human allowance of sense and feeling. To transpose into the 18th century a book which begins with Queen Victoria’s jubilee2 is the act of a rhinoceros. I should look a fool if I allowed the book to appear with these decorations. This reminds me. I am told that composers in some cases have mutilated my poems,—that Vaughan Williams cut two verses out of Is my team ploughing (I wonder how he would like me to cut two bars out of his music),3 and that a lady whose name I forget has set one verse of The New Mistress, omitting the others.4 So I am afraid I must ask you, when giving consent to composers, to exact the condition that these pranks are not to be played.

3 The British boxer Joe Beckett was knocked out in the second round by Frank Moran of Pittsburgh in a fight at the Albert Hall, London. In The Times, 11 Dec. 1920, Beckett is criticized for not using his superior speed to advantage; Morgan for using the ‘Mary Ann’ punch (‘The referee … had to warn Morgan for a second time against making use of his elbow’). 4 GR’s son. 1 Joseph Thorp had suggested to GR that the painter, illustrator, and decorator Claud Lovat Fraser (1890–1921) should make a set of illustrations to ASL: Richards, 180–1. They were published in 1924 under the auspices of the First Edition Club as Sixty-three Unpublished Designs. AEH writes ‘Frazer’ for ‘Fraser’. 2 The first poem in ASL is ‘1887’. 3 In Vaughan Williams’s song cycle On Wenlock Edge, originally performed on 26 January 1909, the third song, Is my team ploughing (ASL XXVII), at some point in its performance history came to lack stanzas 3 and 4, and the first line of the final stanza was represented as ‘Yes, lad, Yes, lad, I lie easy’. The prefatory quatrain was also omitted from ‘Clun’ (ASL L). 4 Christabel Marillier, A Farewell (published by J. Curwen & Sons Ltd., 1920). The setting also repeated the last line of the first stanza.

20 December 1920

459

Mr Cecil Roberts5 must be an angelic character, if he persists in being civil to you after a quarrel. I was not annoyed by the paragraph,6 for undeserved renown is what I chiefly prize. I am much more celebrated in Cambridge for having flown to France and back last September than for anything else I have done. I don’t think Machen7 ought to drink port on the top of burgundy. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. [Enclosure] 1. X Poem on March illustrated by tree in full leaf IV Early morning light very good XX What on earth is this? I recognise a water-lily, but nothing else. XLI Not an illustration XLVIII Not an illustration; and no illustration is possible. XL Good in itself, but not distant enough to be an illustration. XXXVIII Very good XXXII No illustration: none possible. XLV Pretty but hardly appropriate 2. XVIII Lunatic at large. XXIV No illustration LI Fancy selecting a mutilated statue! XXXIX Hybrid between broom and hawthorn, I suppose: much unlike either. II What a cherry-tree! LII The poem is about black poplars growing by pools and whispering at night when there is no wind. The illustration displays Lombardy poplars in broad day and a furious gale: no water anywhere about, except suspended as vapour in a cloud. 3. XXXVII One of my friends at farm-work, keeping my head from harm by wearing enormous boots. 5 Cecil [Edric Mornington] Roberts (1892–1976), prolific miscellaneous writer, and at this time editor of The Nottingham Journal and Express. 6 ‘Mr Housman has just published, with his friend Grant Richards, another book of his edition of Manilius. The Professor is less known than the poet of ‘‘The Shropshire Lad’’, and still less known is the Mr Housman the gourmet, to whom I believe such a skilled epicure as Mr Grant Richards gives first place’: The Nottinghamshire Journal and Express, 2 Dec. 1920. 7 Arthur Machen (1863–1947), novelist and translator, to whom GR was both friend and publisher. See AEH to GR, 3 Apr. 1922.

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Letters 1872–1926

XLII Good XLIII Good enough XXI Bredon Hillock XXII The soldier was not so much astonished and horrified as all that. XIII How like an artist to think that the speaker is a woman! XVII What a weed! No wonder he was unfortunate in love. 4. XLIX Satyr dressed up as John Bull: allegory, I suppose: quite inappropriate. L Good LV Good in itself XI A broad joke XXX Poem contrasting the passions of youth and the unwholesome excitement of adultery with the quiet and indifference of death, illustrated by figure of obese old man: possibly the injured husband. LXIII Pretty, but because I call them stars he makes them bells. IX Fancy stringing two chaps to the gallows! XXVI What an aspen! State University of New York at Buffalo MS (for the letter alone). LC-GR t.s. Richards, 181–3 (incomplete); Maas, 181–2 (without enclosure).

TO MILDRED PLAT T Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Dec. 1920 Dear Mrs Platt, I shall be delighted to dine and stay the night on Monday Jan. 3. The 31st Dec. is excluded because I and other choice spirits here always see the New Year in on oysters and stout, to do what we can for the cause of human progress and the improvement of the world. I congratulate you on having managed to live with Platt so long.1 This is a compliment of the season. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 182.

1

35 years.

461

28 December 1920

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1920 My dear Withers, You certainly have had plenty of troubles, but I hope you are now happily at the end of them,—except that the shocking convulsion in your cellar must be permanent in its effects. Yours must be a pleasant part of the country, though in my Oxford days I never walked nearer it than Bicester. I am here for Christmas as usual, my own family having an aversion for Christmas gatherings and Trinity College very much the reverse. I am afraid we shall not have our new and much superior Combination Room ready for you by the spring, as a builders’ strike and other things have delayed operations. The wall at the dais end of the Hall was found to have stood 300 years on no foundation supporting a weight of 60 tons: it might have fallen on us any day as we sat at meat, but contented itself with merely cracking. A happy new year to both of you, and many of them. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 183.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1920 My dear Rothenstein, I am very grateful for the proof,1 especially as the portrait is not in the eminent artist’s most virulent vein. I very seldom find myself in London, but when next I do I will try to find you out in your eligible quarter of the town. My kindest regards to Mrs Rothenstein, and a happy new year to all of you, not even excluding the ambitious children who have uprooted you from Oakridge.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 41. Maas. 182–3. 1

Of Rothenstein’s 1915 portrait of AEH in his Twenty-Four Portraits (1920). Iles Farm, Far Oakridge, Gloucestershire, where the Rothensteins lived from 1912 until moving to Campden Hill, London, in 1920. Their children, according to Rothenstein, Men and Memories, 2. 364, ‘missed the companionship of others of their own age’ and ‘were pining for concerts and plays’. 2

1921 TO DR W. H . D. RO U S E Trinity College 2 Jan. 1921 Dear Dr Rouse,1 In Lucr. III 83 I think your hic … hic, which Heinze2 and Merrill3 assign to one Bergson,4 may quite well be right; but I do not see anything wrong with Munro’s reading. hunc … hunc divide up the homines of the verse which he inserts, and may get support of one kind from Verg. georg. II 505–12 and of another from Aen. X 9 sq.5 IV 418–9 is a passage I have often broken my head over without avail. The lections of the MSS are as you say: caelum ut A, caelum B, corpora AB. caeli ut (with other changes) was proposed by Bergk,6 and Giussani7 adopts it without other changes. I only feel clear that mirande was not Latin in the time of Lucretius, if it ever was, and that caelum cannot be right in both verses. Also I do not think he would say mirando caelo. What I should expect is something like ‘et mole ut uideare uidere | corpora miranda’.8 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Trinity College, Dublin, MS 2287. Maas, 415.

1

Rouse’s edn. of Lucretius was published in the Loeb Classical Library in 1924. Richard Heinze’s edn. of book 3 of Lucretius (Leipzig, 1897), of which AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2003), 125. 3 W. A. Merrill’s edn. (1907), of which AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2003), 125. 4 French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) early in his career (1884) published an edn. of extracts from Lucretius with a critical study of the text and the poet’s philosophy. 5 Rouse printed hunc … hunc. 6 Wilhelm Theodor Bergk (1812–81), among his proposed emendations to Lucretius (1895). 7 Carlo Giussani in his edn. (1896–8), of which AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2003), 125. 8 Rouse printed nubila despicere et caeli ut videare videre | corpora mirande sub terras abdita caelo (‘so that you seem to look down upon the clouds and to see the heavenly bodies after a wonderful fashion buried in a heaven below the earth’). 2

463

25 February 1921

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 5 January 1921 My dear Richards,] ‘My new book’ does not exist, and possibly never may. Neither your traveller nor anybody else must be told that it is even contemplated. What I asked you1 was a question inspired by an unusually bright and sanguine mood, which has not at present been justified. I saw E. B. Osborn’s remarks,2 but they did not alter my opinion of him. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Grant Richards, Author Hunting (1932), 268; Richards, 184; Maas, 183.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Feb. 1921 My dear Richards, I wish you would send me Grant Allen’s Umbrian Towns1 and Smaller Tuscan Towns2 as I expect to be going there these holidays. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 184 (excerpt).

1

See AEH to GR, 5 Sept. 1920. ‘E[dward] B[olland] Osborn, author and journalist (1867–1938). In a review of Harold Monro’s Some Contemporary Poets (1920) in The Morning Post, 46355 (17 Dec. 1920), 4, he wrote of AEH’s ‘smooth, shining tabloids of sentimentality’ as ‘an antidote to the bulky pomposity of late Victorianism’. 1 The Umbrian Towns, by J. W. and A. M. Cruickshank (Grant Richards Ltd, 1901; 2nd edn., 1912), in the ‘Grant Allen’s Historical Guides’ series. 2 The Smaller Tuscan Towns, by the same authors and in the same series from the same publisher. 2

464

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College, Cambridge 28 Feb. 1921 Many thanks for the Grant Allen guides, which are more elaborate than I knew. Yrs A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’ Richards, 185 (excerpt).

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 17 March 1921 Dear Sirs, Mr Ireland1 may set to music all the poems he wishes, but he must not print No. 50 as a motto; /nor No. 40, which is what he means./ I return his letter. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 185 (incomplete and wrongly dated 2 March).

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 20 March 1921 Dear Sirs, I do not want revenue from gramophone and mechanical rights, and Mr Ireland is welcome to as much of it as his publisher will let him have. I hope it may be sufficient to console him for not being allowed to print the poem he wants. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards Ld. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 185; Maas, 184.

1 John Ireland (1879–1962) published a setting of the last three stanzas of ASL X (March) in 1917 and of XXXIX (’Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town) in 1919. In 1921 he published The Land of Lost Content. Six Poems by A. E. Housman.

465

30 April 1921

TO D. A . W I N S TA N L E Y Trinity College 29 April 1921 Dear Winstanley, I enclose my essays at inscriptions for Prior1 and Sedley Taylor.2 Their form is dictated by the necessity of putting the names in the nominative case; for neither Taylor nor Sedley is declinable, and the question of the declinability of Prior would excite acrimonious controversy. To prevent the engraver from introducing J or U I have copied them out in proper script; but I know that my labour will be lost,3 as it was in the case of the late Master’s inscription. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS Letters b. 126 . Maas, 185.

TO J. F. DU F F Trinity College 30 April 1921 Dear Mr Duff, I should be pleased to come to the meeting of your society1 on Monday May 9th , and I suggest the Moselle of Ausonius if you think it suited. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS a. 393/1.

1

Joseph Prior (1834–1918), Fellow of TCC, 1860–1918. 1834–1920. Fellow of TCC, 1861–9, and resident in TCC thereafter. 3 The inscriptions (for memorials in the college chapel) were in fact done correctly. See AEH to GR, 12 Oct. 1902, n. 4. 1 Classical Reading Society. 2

466

Letters 1872–1926

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 10 May 1921 Dear Sir, I am obliged and flattered by your letter, but I do not wish to see the Fragment1 separately published, nor, incidentally, to break the tender heart of Mr Grant Richards, which would be one consequence of my doing as you kindly suggest. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 18 May 1921 My dear Richards, The number of the Dutch Museum, containing a review of Manilius IV, which you have just sent me,—was it sent to you spontaneously by the publisher (as I rather gather from the word Bewijsnummer stamped upon it), or was it procured for you by some agency which you employ to collect reviews? And do the publishers of Museum generally send you a copy when it contains a review of a book published by you? (But I suppose it seldom does, being a classical periodical). Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 185.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 1 June 1921 My dear Withers, Next Tuesday, the 7th , I am motoring to Stroud; and as you lie on my way I was wondering if I might drop in on you for lunch and renew acquaintance with you and Mrs Withers after what seems a rather long 1 Fragment of a Greek Tragedy (first published in 1883), or Fragment of a Didactic Poem on Latin Grammar (first published in 1899). A version of the former was printed in the Trinity Magazine in 1921, with acknowledgement of the Cornhill Magazine printing of 1901 but with a slightly different text: see Poems (1997), 531.

467

28 June 1921

interval. I should arrive some time between 12 and 1. I suppose there is some place near where the chauffeur could stable his steed. I hope you are both well and still contented with your home. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 49 (excerpt); Maas, 185.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD 6 June 1921 Trinity College | Cambridge Dear Sirs, Dr Ley1 may publish his settings. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Grant Richards Ld. LC-GR MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 June 1921 My dear Richards, I am motoring to Eton on Saturday, and as you are, so to speak, in the neighbourhood, and spend that day at home, I was wondering if I might drop in for lunch, as I am not wanted at Eton before tea-time. I wrote you a letter more than a month ago, with questions about foreign reviews of my Manilius, to which you have not condescended to reply.1 My kind regards to Mrs Richards. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 185; Maas, 185–6.

1 Henry George Ley (1887–1962), English organist and composer; appointed organist of Christ Church, Oxford, whilst an undergraduate, 1909; Director of Music at Eton, 1926. His settings of ASL XXXVI (White in the moon the long road lies) and LII (Far in a western brookland) were published in 1921. 1 See AEH to GR, 18 May 1921.

468

Letters 1872–1926

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 29 June 1921 My dear Bridges, I was in the country when I got your letter, and as my memory did not contain all the words of Orpheus with his lute1 I put off answering till I returned here. The translation of this piece seems to me graceful and easy, and there is nothing against it except that eo in the sense of there has no authority which can be trusted. If what he wrote is ea, that would be defensible (= along his route), though ibi would be more correct. Tell me where2 is not so good: without the English I could not have found out what the last five lines meant; and there are also faulty details. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 106–7.

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 30 June 1921 Dear Duff, I have looked at Lucr. I 657 and I think it ridiculous that the subject of the verbs cernunt, fugitant, metuunt, amittunt, cernunt, credunt, reparcent, should be the title of a book, the alternative title of a book, and the title of two other books,—the history of Herodotus and the epistles of Aeschines. The subject must be the same as the subject of faciant 655, namely qui materiem rerum esse putarunt ignem. It is a further absurdity of Ernout’s1 to fancy that the names Μοῦσαι and περὶ φύσεως were given to Heraclitus himself. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 1961 . Maas, 415–16.

1 2 1

All is True (or Henry VIII ), 3. 1. 3, by Shakespeare and John Fletcher. The song Tell me where is Fancy bred: The Merchant of Venice, 3. 2. 63. In his edn. of Lucretius (1920).

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21 July 1921

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 July 1921 My dear Richards, I am afraid that the reason why you do not answer my letters is that you feel awkward because you said that you would be able to repay my loan by April.1 But I never imagined that you would: I knew your sanguine temperament (due, in Herbert French’s2 opinion, to an over-generous diet) far too well; and I write now to prevent you from afflicting yourself unnecessarily. I am not suffering any inconvenience, and the money would only be lying at the bank in my current account. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 July 1921 My dear Richards, I am very sorry to hear the tale of all your unmerited troubles; though ‘lassitude and inertia’1 are my normal condition, especially in this weather. I hope you will not worry yourself about anything connected with me. I have been away from Cambridge a great deal since the beginning of June, and I now am settling down to work. I am obliged to be here at the beginning of August for a meeting of the Classical Association, damn it: I am not a member, but they have chosen to meet here, and Americans are coming, and I am the only classical professor /of Cambridge/ who is able to deliver an address.2 If I go away later in the month it will be to meet some of my family at Monmouth. I intend to go to Paris for a week about September 10, and if that is about the time when you would be going to fetch Mrs Richards back, of course I should like to go with you.

1

2 See AEH to GR, 12 Dec. 1920. Author Herbert [Stanley] French (1875–1951). Standard medical phraseology. 2 AEH read The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism to the Classical Association at Cambridge on 4 Aug. 1921. 1

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I would not insist on your flying, as I could face land and sea with you for courier. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Thanks for the information about Museum.3 LC-GR MS. Richards, 185–6 (nearly complete); Maas, 186.

TO A . S. F. G OW [Trinity College 5 Aug. 1921] Belger’s Moriz Haupt p. 126. But what he said was that he would write Constantinopolitanus for o.1 A. E. H. With TCC Add. MS c. 11256 .

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Aug. 1921 Dear Mr Hall, If there is yet time, I should be obliged if the following correction could be made in my paper on Lucan VII 460–465.1 On the second page the name Lemaire occurs twice: it ought in both places to be Weber. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

3

See AEH to GR, 18 May and 28 June 1921. A reference to the statement made by Moriz Haupt in opposition to the strictly palaeographical method of emendation, which AEH the previous day quoted in The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism: ‘If the sense requires it, I am prepared to write Constantinopolitanus where the MSS. have the monosyllabic interjection o’: Selected Prose, 141; Ricks (1988), 333. 1 CQ 15 (Oct. 1921), 172–4: Classical Papers, 1043–5. 1

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1 September 1921

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS ’  , | . 21 Aug. 1921 My dear Richards, My present intention is to fly to Paris on Sept. 8 and stay there a week. But if you are thinking of going there at anything like the same date, I would rather travel with you, even if you went by land and water instead of air, if it were agreeable to you. I shall not begin taking steps to secure passage by aeroplane till I return to Cambridge, which will be on next Friday. I hope your health is all right or improving. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 186.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Aug. 1921 My dear Richards, Thanks for you letter, which I have just found here; but you do not say whether, on the 8th or 9th Sept., you would or would not travel by air. My intention is to go to Paris, and I not only must notify the Air Service people in good time but also must send some short notice to my friends and acquaintances there. I mean to stay /there/ a week, and I have taken so much holiday and done so little work in this vacation that I do not think I shall prolong the time. St Malo would be interesting, but too far; Boulogne not interesting, nor probably Dieppe. My kind regards to Mrs Richards. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 186.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Sept. 1921 My dear Richards, As I did not hear from you by Tuesday evening I wrote and secured passage to Paris by the Messageries Aeriennes on the morning of the 8th . I wrote you a letter last Friday to the Hˆotel Normandy, which apparently

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you did not get, to say that Paris was my only objective and that I had already taken more than my due of holiday in the country, so that St. Malo etc. would not suit me; and this naturally applies to Jersey. I am sorry it could not be managed, and I hope you will get a holiday which will do you good. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I expect to be at the Hˆotel Continental, and stay a week. LC-GR MS. Richards, 186–7.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Sept 1921 My dear Richards, I suppose you are back from Jersey. In the first place I must thank you for Tahiti,1 which in my postcard I forgot to do. Secondly, Winstanley,2 whom you have met here, and I are coming to London some day next week, not Friday, to see Max Beerbohm’s things at the Leicester Gallery3 x and lunch at the Café Royalx [← at 1 o’ clock]; and I wish you would join us, at least at lunch, and let me know in good time what day will suit you best. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 187; Maas, 186.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 27 September 1921 My dear Richards,] Tell him that the wish to include a glimpse of my personality in a literary article is low, unworthy, and American. Tell him that some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.1 Tell him that Frank Harris found me rude and Wilfrid Blunt found me 1 By ‘Tihoti’ (George Calderon), an account, written 1913–15, of Calderon’s visit to Tahiti in 1906. It was left unfinished when Calderon was killed at Gallipoli. 2 See List of Recipients. 3 An exhibition of his caricatures opened on 11 May 1921. 1 Cf. Dr Johnson, The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language: ‘my book is more learned than its author’. (I owe this parallel to Christopher Ricks.)

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20 October 1921

dull.2 Tell him anything else that you think will put him off. Of course if he did nevertheless persist in coming to see me I should not turn him out, as I only do that to newspaper reporters. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 187; Maas, 187.

TO C H A R L E S S AY L E Trinity College 11 Oct. 1921 My dear Sayle, Many thanks for your letter. I cannot let you be my host, as you kindly offer; but when I know more exactly than I yet do about my engagements in the neighbourhood of Nov. 14 I will write again.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Oct. 1921 My dear Richards, Come to lunch at 1. 30 by all means to-morrow. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Oct. 1921 My dear Richards, I wish I could be of real help to you in your troubles, which I am very sorry to hear of; but the worst of it is that you are not the only one of my friends who is in want of money. Besides your £5001 I have lent £600 to 2 1 1

See AEH to GR, 15 May 1919 n. 3. Sayle had invited AEH to the annual dinner of Oxford men at Cambridge on 14 Nov. See AEH to GR, 12 Dec. 1920.

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others, £300 of which I do not expect to see again (and I do not mind if it is the same with your £500), and the last loan I was obliged to restrict and make it less than was asked. I possess much less than you probably suppose. As I have nobody dependent on me I have always spent nearly up to my income; and at this moment my wealth consists of about £300 in the bank, and £1500 in investments which would fetch much less if realized, and the dividends from which do not pay my income-tax. Therefore, in view of my means and of other claims on them which may arise, I am not properly able to lend you even the least which you think enough for your immediate needs; and, being despondent by temperament as you are sanguine, I do not believe that it really would be enough. Even if your calculations are right, accidents will happen, like your ill-health earlier in the year. Naturally your troubles make me unhappy, and I hope you will not increase them by vexing yourself about repaying the £500. I shall never think of it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Oct. 1921 My dear Richards, I had one of my loans repaid yesterday, so I can send what you want, and I enclose two /(2)/ cheques for £125. 0. 0. each. I am glad things are going better.1 The walnuts are being eaten in Combination Room,2 and I must thank you also for the works of Willy-Collette,3 though I have not yet found time to start demoralizing myself with them. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. 1 AEH is being very generous. When GR’s business was in difficulties in 1920, he lent him £500, and transformed the loan into a gift before now advancing him another £250. See AEH to GR, 12 Dec. 1920 and 14 July 1921. In 1932 GR sent AEH a copy of George Bernard Shaw’s Three Plays for Puritans: The Devil’s Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra, & Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, which he had published in 1901 and Shaw had autographed on 27 March 1929, in an attempt to compensate for AEH’s large losses. It was appraised as having a market value of £250. See Naiditch (2005), 27–8, for further information. 2 The senior common room at TCC. 3 Henri Gauthier-Villars (1859–1931), husband of French author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873–1954), published in 1900–3 the four ‘Claudine’ novels, reminiscences of an uninhibited young woman, under his pen-name ‘Willy’.

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3 November 1921

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Oct. 1921 My dear Withers, It is very kind of you to ask me, and I know that if I came I should enjoy myself; but I do not see the chance of getting away this term, which is full of continuous engagements to an extent which I cannot remember the like of. These engagements, I ought in honesty to confess, are many of them convivial, but not all: for instance next week is full of prelections by candidates (10 in number) for the professorship of Greek, some of which I want to hear and one of which I must.1 This extraordinary autumn is at last beginning to put on colour, about a month late. Coming back from Stroud I was arrested by the beauty of the church at Bloxham, and so made the acquaintance of the Vicar (or Rector), who directed me to Adderbury and King’s Sutton. It was a great treasuretrove, as I had never heard of this group, though it appears that they are celebrated. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. I am really sorry not to be able to take advantage of your invitation. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 187.

TO C H A R L E S S AY L E Trinity College 3 Nov. 1921 My dear Sayle, I will come to the Oxford dinner on the 14th and I enclose Postal Order for 8/-[.] Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 2588/321.

1 AEH’s friend and former colleague Arthur Platt was a candidate for the Regius Professorship left vacant by the death of Henry Jackson. A. C. Pearson was appointed. See AEH to Pearson, 16 Nov. 1921.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO C H A R L E S S AY L E Trinity College 9 Nov. 1921 My dear Sayle, It may be vanity, but I believe myself to be more capable of uttering one word and adding nothing than either the late Mr Gladstone1 or the present Sir John Sandys.2 But I rather gather that ‘Oxford’ is to be prefaced by other words, which is not so much in my true vein: still, I suppose I could say something.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Maas, 188.

TO D R G. C . W I L L I A M S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Nov. 1921 Dear Dr Williamson, It was not pressure of duties which prevented me from sending you a contribution last year,1 but torpor of the inventive faculty; and this, I regret to say, persists. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Keats Memorial Volume II: Letters Gen. MSS [bound] Am 21565). Envelope addressed ‘Dr Williamson | Burgh House | Well Walk | Hampstead | N. W. 3’.

1

1809–98. British Prime Minister. John [Edwin] Sandys (1844–1922). Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge (1867–1907), Tutor (1870–1900), and Public Orator at Cambridge (1876–1919); knighted, 1911; author of A History of Classical Scholarship (1903–8) and numerous works on classical oratory. 3 Sayle had asked AEH to propose the toast of Oxford at the annual dinner of Oxford men at Cambridge on 14 Nov. 1 See AEH to Williamson, 24 Oct. 1920. 2

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16 November 1921

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Nov. 1921 My dear Richards, I will not under any circumstances allow a portrait of me to appear in an ‘‘authorised edition’’. Mrs Asquith1 and Lord Alfred Douglas2 can do such things if they like. The municipal hospitality of Ventimiglia must have made me very drunk, for I forget the whole affair.3 My recollection is that you and I climbed in mist or drizzle a hill with a castle on it, that we lunched at a restaurant where you after much palaver induced the proprietor to furnish us with a viand which I did not much admire, small envelopes of paste enclosing mincemeat,4 and that we walked through the town and under some trees by the shore to a rough stone breakwater. But I suppose I dreamt all this while I was under the table. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 135 (incomplete); Maas, 188.

TO P RO F E S S O R A . C . P E A R S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Nov. 1921 Dear Professor Pearson, I congratulate you very sincerely on your election.1 As Platt was after all a candidate, my sentiments were divided, and my joy is not unalloyed; but I told those electors who consulted me that I was glad it was they and not /I/ who had to choose between you, and that they would be very wrong if they chose any of the other eight. The chief danger was that

1 Margot (1864–1945), second wife of statesman Herbert Henry Asquith (1852–1928), published in 1920 an autobiography that contained as a frontispiece a photographic portrait of her in a turban reading. 2 Lord Alfred [Bruce] Douglas (1870–1945) customarily included portraits of himself in his books. The Collected Poems of Lord Alfred Douglas (1919) had a photographic portrait by W. Ramsford as a frontispiece. 3 According to Belfort Bax’s recollection of GR’s and AEH’s report of the event, an official reception for AEH during his visit in 1915: Richards, 132–5. GR had appealed to AEH for confirmation that the story was not true. 4 Ravioli. 1 As Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge.

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some of them had a passion for youth, or comparative youth; but merit has gained the day against it. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. KCC MS Misc. 34/31. Maas, 189.

TO H A R R I E T M O N RO E Trinity College | Cambridge | England 30 Nov. 1921 Dear Madam, I do not think I have ever sent unpublished poems to Mr Witter Bynner:1 I have sent him a few which have appeared in English papers or journals, and one or more of these have reappeared in American publications. I am flattered by your request, but I have no poems by me which I wish to see in print. I thank you much for the two numbers of Poetry which you have been kind enough to send me. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. University of Chicago MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Harriet Monroe | Editor of Poetry | 543 Cass Street | Chicago, Ill. | U. S. A.’ Maas, 189.

TO S I R H E R B E RT WA R R E N Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Dec. 1921 My dear Warren, I have been a long time without thanking you for your lecture on Virgil,1 for I see that your accompanying note was about the candidates for our Greek chair. So in thanking you I will say that I think the right man was chosen, as Platt, whom I should put beside him, did not really want to leave London.

1 In fact, he sent Bynner The sigh that heaves the grasses (later LP XXVII) with a letter of 12 Oct. 1913. 1 Virgil in Relation to the Place of Rome in the History of Civilization: A Lecture Given to Oxford University Extension Students by Sir Herbert Warren, K. V. C. O., in August mdccccxxi (1921).

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10 December 1921

Your brother2 has built us a new Combination Room with which everyone is pleased and which we are to handsel3 on Christmas Day. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Tipped-in on fly-leaf of copy of LP (1922) which contains the slip ‘With the author’s compliments’.

TO H E N RY F E S T I N G J O N E S Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Dec. 1921 Dear Jones, I thought I had a lot of copies knocking about, but it took some little time to rout out a decent specimen, and now I am belated, as your book1 came this morning. I can see that I shall greatly enjoy reading it, and I wish that I on my part could have sent you something new. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL MS, Keynes I. i. 43, in ASL (1907).

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Dec. 1921 Dear Mrs Grant Richards, Many thanks for your kind invitation,1 which I am delighted to accept. If I may come to you on Friday the 23rd and stay till the Tuesday, that will suit me excellently. I hope to find you all well. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Richards, 187.

2 Edward Prioleau Warren (1856–1937), who specialized in domestic and collegiate architecture. 3 Inaugurate the use of. Cf. ASL L 16: ‘handselled them long before’. 1 Mount Eryx and Other Diversions of Travel (1921). 1 For Christmas.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 16 Dec. 1921 My dear Cockerell, This1 is so very precious that I return it instantly, after showing it to Winstanley, who shared my curiosity about Miss Cornforth.2 I am very grateful for the sight of it. It will often flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude.3 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.). Maas, 190.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Dec. 1921 My dear Richards, It is very kind of you to ask me to stay longer, and I should not be averse from meeting Robert Lynd;1 but it would upset arrangements which I have made, and would consequently interfere with my comfort, to which I am much attached; so I will pray you to have me excused. On Friday I would travel with you to Cookham, if that would suit you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 188; Maas, 189.

1 ‘A photograph of Rossetti with his brother W. M. R., Swinburne and Fanny Cornforth’: Cockerell’s note written on the MS. ‘W. M. R.’ is William Michael Rossetti. 2 Fanny Cornforth (1824–1906)—real name Sarah Cox—became Rossetti’s model in 1858 and his mistress and housekeeper in 1862. Nicknamed ‘The Elephant’, she antagonized his family and friends by her coarseness and quarrelled with them when he died. Mention of her was substantially edited out of memoirs of Rossetti for over sixty years after his death. 3 Wordsworth, I wandered lonely as a cloud, 21–2: ‘They flash upon that inward eye | Which is the bliss of solitude’. 1 Robert [Wilson] Lynd (1879–1949). Journalist and essayist; contributor to the Daily News, 1908–47. A collection of his articles, The Pleasures of Ignorance, was published by GR in 1921. On AEH’s death, he paid tribute in the Daily Chronicle: ‘In his use of his simple materials … he was profoundly original. He ordered his unambitious words with the skill of an epigrammatist and, though the music of his verse was an echo from the past, he contrived by his genius to impose it on his generation as a personal music expressive of a personal vision of life’ (quoted in Richards, 290).

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31 December 1921

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Dec. 1921 My dear Richards, Very well, 5. 45 on Friday at Paddington. I had decided on general grounds of propriety to bring a dress suit. I ought to have thanked you before for Norman Douglas’s book.1 Yours A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 188 (excerpts).

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1921 Dear Mrs Grant Richards, There is nothing in to-day’s Times about the great Cookham and Maidenhead match,1 but I hope you had the pleasure of watching a glorious victory, and that Charles and Geoffrey particularly distinguished themselves.2 I got safely home, very much the better for my Christmas under your roof. A happy new year from Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Richards, 190 (nearly complete).

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 31 Dec. 1921 Dear Thompson, This is to thank you heartily for your Christmas present, which I have read with the greatest enjoyment, and to wish you a happy New Year. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. St Andrews MS 23592. 1

Alone (1921), a memoir of travels during the Great War. A local rugby match. 2 The Richards’s son Charles, recently a naval cadet, was instrumental in setting up a Cookham rugby club: Richards, 190. Geoffrey was the Richards’s younger son. 1

1922 TO M A J O R H E N RY C H O L M O N D E L E Y JAC K S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Jan. 1922 Dear Colonel1 Jackson, I know from experience that the paper of this edition2 does not take ink well, so I have copied the poem3 on a separate sheet. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS 167, with the volume designated C. 13. 74. UCL has a photograph, Lilly MSS 2. 1. 10 is a t.s. copy.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Jan. 1922 Dear Gow, There is a short and rather good book on Rossetti by Joseph Knight,1 who knew him well, and I suppose the diffuse and solemn William Michael2 would yield you something; but lives of Meredith are no use. W. B. Scott3 is more promising; but most of the amusing tales about the menagerie4 probably do not exist in print. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 14 . Maas, 190. 1

For ‘Major’, The 1st edn. of ASL (1896), a copy of which was put into the Trinity Book Club in 1897 at the request of Henry Jackson and bought by him at the subsequent sale for 1s. 3 Loveliest of trees, the cherry now (ASL II). 1 Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1887). 2 Rossetti Papers, 1862–1870, ed. William Michael Rossetti (1903). 3 Autobiographical Notes of the Life of William Bell Scott … and notices of his artistic and poetic circle of friends, 1830 to 1882, ed. W. Minto (1892). 4 ‘The eccentrics in Rossetti’s circle’ (Maas, 190), but Naiditch (1995), 162, thinks ‘perhaps only the zoo’. Either is possible. Rossetti shared Tudor House, 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, with his brother William Michael Rossetti, Swinburne, Meredith, and the painter Frederick Sandys, 2

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25 February 1922

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Feb. 1922 Dear Gow, Ovid does not in point of fact use nesci˘o except in nescioquis, but it cannot be supposed that he would feel any scruple, when Catullus had already used it 85 2, and he himself /has/ confer˘o ex Pont. I 1 25 and oder˘o amor. III 11 35. I may be in Eton at the end of term, as that Minotaur (or Μινώκριος1 rather) the Essay Society is bleating for a new victim. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11215 . Maas, 416.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 25 Feb. 1922 Dear Scholfield, This gentleman1 is hoping to pay his railway fare to Italy by selling some of the few copies remaining of this book;2 he has also bought a copy of my Manilius and presumably thereby impaired his fortune: therefore I am to suggest to the College Library that it should purchase a copy of his work. He will send one on approval if you should wish it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 80 21 . Maas, 190–1.

and the household was notorious for its drunkenness, fights, parties, and indiscreet love-affairs. However, Rossetti kept a menagerie of exotic and rare birds and animals. Knight, 95, tells ‘the only surviving story presenting Rossetti in a light absolutely comical’: it involves a zebu which ‘by super-bovine exertion … tore up by the roots the tree to which it was attached, and chased its tormentor round the garden’. E. R. and J. Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 5th edn. (1911), 80, cited by Naiditch, tell of a bull of Bashan charging at Rossetti, and of a wombat, thought lost, being discovered dead in a cigar box. Evelyn Waugh, Rossetti: His Life and Works, 2nd edn. (1975), 117, lists the animals in the household. 1 ‘The ram’ was the nickname of A[llan] B[eville] Ramsay (1872–1955), Assistant Master at Eton, 1895–1925, and host to the Essay Society. He was Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1925–47. For another metaphorical Minotaur, see Selected Prose, 154. 1 R. T. Günther. 2 Pausilypon. Author and work are identified in Naiditch (1995), 162.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 3 March 1922 My dear Withers, I am very sorry to hear that you are ill,1 especially with one of those abominable maladies which require one to govern one’s appetites. I hope you may succeed in nipping it in the bud by dint of your abstinence. I for my part am not more gouty than usual, and expecting to eat a particularly good dinner this evening. I did get your Christmas letter, which I ought no doubt to have answered; but letters which do not ask questions very often go without answers from me. I do not go abroad in the winter, and I only spent just Christmas itself in Berkshire, where the carol-singers walked off with a bottle of champagne which had been put out of doors to cool. My host thereupon wrote to the vicar of the parish; but as they were not choir-boys he disclaimed all responsibility for their morals. It would be a great pleasure to me to come and see you some time in May or thereabouts, when your country and garden are likely to be near their best. If you had the storms of rain that we had the day before yesterday, it must have done something towards replenishing your watersprings. No, no more poetry, or at least nothing to speak of. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. It is a fearful thing to be The Pope. That cross will not be laid on me, I hope. A righteous God would not permit It. The Pope himself must often say,

1 Withers, 11–12: ‘Not illness merely, but physical disabilities and cares generally, light or heavy, real or threatened, won his immediate interest and solicitude, and however diffident the inquiries he made, there was no doubting their absolute sincerity: he genuinely wished to know as one confident of the sympathy he had to give, and desired to give.’ The correspondence with Withers, and Withers’s own reminiscences, bear this out.

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15 March 1922

After the labours of the day, ‘‘It is a fearful thing to be Me.’’2 SCO MS. TCC MS a. 71151 is a copy. Withers, 66, quotes the poem and one sentence.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 8 March 1922 Dear Sir, The Press of this University proposed to Jackson in the last year of his life that his scattered papers should be collected and reprinted. He was pleased by the proposal, but he wished to make changes and additions, which were prevented first by the state of his health and then by his death. The Press, after consulting those members of the University who are most interested in Greek philosophy, has decided not to proceed with the design. The reasons given are that the collection would not possess unity or completeness, and that the papers themselves are readily accessible. This of course is truer of England than of Norway; and I am sorry that your wish is not likely to be gratified. It is possible that a memoir may some day be published,1 but I do not think it has yet been taken in hand. I thank you for the interest which you take in the matter, and it would have given pleasure to Jackson. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Columbia MS, Housman Box. Maas, 191.

TO A N D R E W B E N N E T T 15 March 1922 I must begin by expressing my high sense of the honour which the Senatus Academicus of the University of St Andrews have designed to confer upon me, and my gratitude to them for their proposal; and I must then beg them to forgive me if I ask leave to decline it, as I have declined 2 Benedict XV died on 22 Jan. 1922, and Pius XI was elected his successor on 6 Feb. See Poems (1997), 514, 523, 561, for disrespectful remarks by AEH about Catholicism. 1 Henry Jackson, O. M. by R. St John Parry (1926) contained a memoir, a list of books dedicated to Jackson, a bibliography of his writings, obiter scripta (mostly letters), two lectures, and a sermon, but none of Jackson’s substantial papers.

486

Letters 1872–1926

similar honours which other Universities have with similar kindness been prepared to bestow. The reasons which render me unwilling to receive such distinctions would be tedious to enumerate, and some of them might not be easy to express; but they are in my judgment decisive. There is no need to assure you that they do not include any lack of veneration for your ancient and famous University, any failure to understand the dignity conferred by its degrees, or any indifference to the goodwill and generosity of the Senatus Academicus in my regard; and I trust that I am showing more respect for St Andrews in writing thus, than if I put forward the excuse of inability to be present at the appointed date. I am, dear Sir, Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3 (draft).

TO J E A N - LO U I S P E R R E T [c.27 Mar. 1922] I wish I could make some return for your amiable letter by giving you counsel of any value or utility.1 But the tradition of Juvenal’s MSS is so blended and erased that no classification, in the full sense of the word, can be hoped for. It is however interesting to note the occurrence of good and rare lections in MSS which are not on the whole good and some of which are quite late; and I suggest that you might find it worth while to read /and compare/ if you have not done so already, the account of the Dresden MSS of Juvenal given in Rhein. Mus. LX pp. 202 sq. I am afraid I can hardly expect you to find many MSS in Finland,2 but I hope /it/ will prove agreeable in other respects. TCC MS with Adv. c. 20. 32: draft in pencil replying to Perret’s letter of 24 Mar. 1922.

1 Perret’s doctoral thesis was on the MSS of Juvenal and was published as La Transmission du texte de Juvénal (Helsinki, 1927). 2 Where he was going after his time in Florence.

487

3 April 1922

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 3 April 1922 Dear Cockerell, Heffer1 sent Hardy’s poems all right, and at odd times I have been reading and marking them.2 When you require them I can finish the job with little delay. At this moment I am rather full of my own affairs.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Fitzwilliam MS 64-1950. Maas, 192.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 3 April 1922 My dear Richards, Thanks to you, I believe I possess Machen’s1 complete works. He is always interesting (except in the Evening News) and to some extent good. Mixing up religion and sexuality is not a thing I am fond of, and in this book2 the Welsh element rather annoys me. The imitation of Rabelais is very clever. I knew already, having been told, that it is wrong to have one’s wine brought in a cradle, and now I know further that it is wrong to decant it; so in future I shall just have the cork drawn, and suck the liquid out of the bottle through a tube. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 191; Maas, 191.

1

Cambridge bookseller. Apparently for a projected selection (never published) from Hardy’s Collected Poems (1919). See letter of 1 May 1922. 3 During April, in at least 85 pages of his fourth notebook (‘D’), AEH wrote 4 poems and most of another 2, and brought to completion at least 10, perhaps as many as 17, others. See Poems (1997), Introduction, lvii. 1 Welsh writer Arthur Llewellyn Jones Machen (1863–1947), who contributed to the London Evening Standard from 1910. His fiction and verse were strongly influenced by Welsh folklore and the supernatural, and he was a member of the magical Order of the Golden Dawn. His novels include The Great God Pan (1894), The Three Impostors (1895), and The Hill of Dreams (1907). The latter was published by GR, as were two or three other works of his. 2 The Secret Glory (1922). 2

488

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 9 April 1922 My dear Richards, It is now practically certain that I shall have a volume of poems ready for the autumn;1 so I wish you would take what steps are necessary as soon as they are necessary. But do not mention it to anyone until you are obliged to mention it. Perhaps you can tell me what my legal position is as regards a poem which I contributed in 1899 to the Academy.2 They sent me a cheque, but I returned it: I don’t know if that makes any difference. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 191; Maas, 192.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 18 April 1922 My dear Richards, Thanks for your reply. The book will probably be rather shorter than A Shropshire Lad; and it had better have a wider page, or smaller print, or both, as there are more poems in it which have long lines. I desire particularly that the price should be moderate. As to America, I much prefer that they should wait. What is the latest date for sending you the complete manuscript? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 191–2; Maas, 192–3.

1 AEH’s first definite mention to GR of LP, published on 19 Oct. 1922. He had hinted at it in a letter of 5 Sept. 1920 and denied its existence in another of 5 Jan. 1921. 2 Illic Jacet (LP IV), published in The Academy, 58. 1451 (24 Feb. 1900), 169, and signed ‘A. E. Housman’.

489

22 April 1922

TO J. B. P R I E S T L E Y Trinity College 19 April 1922. Dear Mr Priestley, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your Brief Diversions.1 Some of the parodies and other verses I had read with great interest and pleasure in the Cambridge Review.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Texas MS. Maas, 193.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 April 1922 My dear Richards, The end of September, as far as I can judge, would suit me quite well for publication. The size of page should at any rate not be more than in the Riccardi edition,1 if so much. The poems should not be run on, as originally in A Shropshire Lad, but each should start on a fresh page. If, as I rather gather from what you say, printers no longer print from MS, then I should be obliged if you did the type-writing,2 though it will not be more legible than the hand I write literature in. The Oxford dictionary defines reach as ‘to stretch out continuously, to extend’, and quotes ‘how high reacheth the house’ (1526) and ‘the portico reaches along the whole front’ (1687). Perhaps your friends are baffled by the subjunctive mood, and think it ought to be reaches;3 but see Psalm 138. 6 ‘Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly’.

1 Brief Diversions: being Tales, Travesties, and Epigrams (1922). It contains a parody of AEH, a ‘Dedication for the ‘‘Shropshire Lad’’ ’ entitled To All the Gravediggers Between Ludlow Town and Hughley. AEH’s (unannotated) copy is now at BMC: Naiditch, HSJ 31 (2005), 173. 2 Nearly all the pieces in the volume appeared in this journal. Priestley had in 1919 gone up to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, to read English and History (later switching to History and Political Science), and he was still in Cambridge when Brief Diversions was published. 1 Of ASL, published in 1914. 2 A t.s. copy of AEH’s handwritten MS was prepared for the printers of the Riverside Press by GR’s secretary Pauline Hemmerde: Richards, 197. 3 In ASL XXXVI 10: ‘And straight though reach the track’.

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Letters 1872–1926

When you next print A Shropshire Lad I want to make 2 alterations.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Grant Richards, Author Hunting (1932), 268–9. Maas, 193.

TO D. B. H A RDE N Trinity College 24 April 1922 Dear Mr Harden, It is only a year since I last had the pleasure of attending a meeting of the Classical Reading Society.1 Spare me a little that I may recover my strength.2 Social intercourse with human beings, however agreeable, is exhausting, and I cannot make a habit of it. Perhaps ten years hence, if the world lasts. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS a. 393/2. Envelope addressed ‘D. B. Harden Esq. | Trinity College.’ Note added at lower corner: ‘‘A.E.H. to be asked again Lent Term | 1932’’.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 April 1922 My dear Withers, I could come to you on Saturday May 13 and stay till the Tuesday, and if that suits you it will delight me. I should be interested and pleased to meet Gordon Bottomley.1 Most likely I should motor from Bletchley, and should not need to stable my steed. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. 4 ‘Loose’ for ‘Thick’ in XXXVIII, and ‘no more remembered’ for ‘long since forgotten’ in LII. The changes, which he told to GR in person, were meant to appear in an issue simultaneous with LP (published on 19 Oct. 1922), but by GR’s fault they did not appear until Nov. 1922. See AEH to Sparrow, 19 June 1934, and Richards, 264–5. 1 See AEH to Duff, 30 Apr. 1921. 2 Ps. 39: 13: ‘O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.’ 1 1874–1948. Poet and dramatist. He published The Mickle Drede and Other Verses in 1896, and his work was included in Edward Marsh’s first vol. of Georgian Poetry in 1912. His plays include The Crier by Night (1902), King Lear’s Wife (performed in 1915; published in 1920), and Gruach (1921).

491

30 April 1922

TO J O H N D R I N K WAT E R Trinity College | Cambridge 26 April 1922 Dear Mr Drinkwater, A silly review in to-day’s Times1 reminds me that I never thanked you—or at least I think I did not, and indeed I usually put off writing letters till they do not get written at all—for giving me your Seeds of Time2 when you were last in Cambridge. I particularly admired the /third/ poem.3 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Marquette University MS (Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, series 5, box 4). Maas, 194.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 April 1922 My dear Richards, The specimen page looks all right to my untutored eye. I am sorry that all my week-ends are occupied, either here or elsewhere, for the next month or so; and even this late spring will not delay your cherry blossom till June. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 192–3 (excerpts).

1 The review, of Drinkwater’s Selected Poems, denounced him for plagiarism from ASL. AEH told Withers with ‘anger and annoyance’ that it was ‘grossly unfair, the charge spitefully exaggerated—the work of jealousy’ (Withers, 42). 2 3 Published in 1921. A Lesson to my Ghost.

492

Letters 1872–1926

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College | Cambridge 1 May 1922 Dear Cockerell, I return Hardy’s poems, and in the table of contents I have marked those I like best. Longer lines mean that I feel sure those poems ought to be included in a selection.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.). Maas, 194.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 9 May 1922. My dear Richards, There is no leakage:1 what has happened is merely that John o’ London casually wrote a paragraph, completely false, about the early adventures of A Shropshire Lad,2 and this reminded a man whom I knew here as Lieut. Lee, and who now seems to have a job on the Weekly Despatch, that I had let him have a poem for the Blunderbuss which he was editing.3 The only person besides you whom I have told is sure to be equally trustworthy, and is not in touch with journalists.

1 See the letter of 3 Apr. 1922. Naiditch, HSJ 26 (2000), 108, notes that the copy of Hardy marked up by AEH now appears to be lost. 1 Of the contents of LP in advance of publication. 2 John O’ London’s Weekly, 6 May 1922: ‘When, in 1896, Mr A. E. Housman sent the manuscript of A Shropshire Lad to a London publisher, it was accepted forthwith. In the letter of acceptance was a query as to when a second book of verse might be expected. Mr Housman replied: ‘‘As it has taken me twenty years to write this volume, maybe after twenty years more I’ll send you another.’’ ’ 3 ‘Argonaut’ in his column ‘Books and their Writers’ (The Weekly Dispatch, 7 May 1922) recalls printing As I gird on for fighting (LP II) in The Blunderbuss, the Book of the 5th Officer Cadet Battalion, TCC, which he edited, and reprints the poem, which originally appeared above AEH’s signature on p. 36 of vol. 3 (Mar. 1917) of the magazine. The poem was also reprinted in The Trinity Magazine, 2. 5 (Nov. 1920), 4.

493

12 May 1922

The photograph is Oppé’s, about 15 years ago I should think.4 It appeared in the British Weekly in an article which you had more to do with than I.5 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Grant Richards, Author Hunting (1932), 270; Richards, 193; Maas, 194–5.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 12 May 1922 My dear Kate, I do not think that the rules of the London Library are to be taken very seriously. I never paid a fine in my life, and once when I kept a book three years it provoked no more than a mild remonstrance. I fell into conversation the other day with a great though very Protestant medievalist,1 and I enclose his rather illegible letter, which probably is not much to your purpose. Gasquet’s book2 is said to be rather dishonest in its suppressions. If one of your authorities is a book on Bath Abbey by one Hunt,3 be warned that his preface betrays great ignorance, or what specialists regard as such. To prefer Sussex to Monmouth is a sign of some refinement of taste. I think that very likely in late July or August I might come down your way. I think of going to Paris for a week at the beginning of June, and then staying here. Thanks for the learned Edwardian,4 which I return, as I seem to remember you are not rich in copies. I also return Jerry’s letter, interesting as usual. His present companion is a new character to me. 4 AEH gets both the name of the photographer and the date wrong. The photograph by E. O. Hoppé dates from 1911: Naiditch (2005), 163. 5 A supplement to The British Weekly, 51. 1310 (7 Dec. 1911) contained numerous photographic portraits, some of literary figures, but AEH’s is not among them. 1 George Gordon Coulton (1858–1947), Lecturer in Medieval History, and author of such works as Christ, St Francis, and To-day (1919), The Roman Catholic Church and the Bible: Some Historical Notes (1921), and Infant Perdition in the Middle Ages (1922). 2 Francis Aidan, Cardinal Gasquet (1846–1929), Monastic Life in the Middle Ages, with a Note on Great Britain and the Holy See, 1792–1806 (1922). 3 William Hunt, An Account of the Priory of St Peter and St Paul, Bath (1893). 4 Magazine of King Edward’s School, Bath, where Kate’s husband was headmaster until 1921.

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Letters 1872–1926

Another book by Laurence,5 rather well reviewed. I hope Edward is quite recovered from his illness. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. City of Bath Municipal Libraries MS. Maas, 195.

TO M A RY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 17 May 1922 Dear Mrs Withers, We made a capital run to Bletchley in little more than 50 minutes, with the sun lighting the landscape and green leaves just as it should. To-day it rains in Cambridge, and appropriate gloom surrounds my emotions of regret, and of envy for Mr and Mrs Bottomley.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 May 1922 My dear Richards, I am very much touched by your solicitude for the corruption of my mind, and I eagerly expect the new Proust.1 I rather gather from your epistle to the world last Thursday2 that your Mr Ronald Firbank3 is a bit in the same line. I never heard of Jean Coctreau,4 but I do know something of the Paris bains de vapeur (or vapeurs as Mr van Vechten5 says). 5

Little Plays of St Francis. See AEH to Withers, 22 Apr. 1922. 1 Probably vol. 2 of Le Cˆoté des Gueramantes (1921). 2 GR’s advertisement in the TLS 1061, 18 May 1922, 322. 3 1886–1926. Homosexual, a flamboyant aesthete, and an habitué of the Café Royal, he was known for his novels Vainglory (1915), Caprice (1917), and Valmouth (1919), and a short story Santal (1919), which were innovative in style. GR published his Flower Beneath the Foot in 1923. 4 French writer, film actor and director Jean Cocteau (1889–1963). AEH gets his name wrong. 5 American author Carl Van Vechten (1880–1964), from whose article on Firbank GR’s advertisement quotes. In it Firbank is characterized as ‘Aretino in Piccadilly. Jean Cocteau at the Savoy. The Oxford tradition with a dash of the Paris bains de vapeurs [sic]’. 1

495

25 May 1922

I am flying to Paris (though not necessarily to these haunts of vice) on June 1 and I shall sleep in London the night before, Hotel Victoria, Northumberland Avenue; so perhaps we might manage to dine together. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 193; Maas, 196.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 May 1922 My dear Withers, The marmalade has just arrived quite safe, and two pots when I only hoped for one; and I am very grateful both to you and Mrs Withers for your respective shares in the gift. It is a great pity that you should be laid up, and very nice of you to lay it on Bridges1 and not on your entertainment of me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 196.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 25 May 1922 My dear Richards, It is possible that I might be back from Paris on June 9, but not at all sure, and I might find myself hampered if I made any promise, so I had better regretfully decline. Would you see about engaging a table at Verrey’s at 7. 30 on the 31st . I have hardly ever been there, but I suppose it is a place where one dines in comfort without dressing: anyhow I shall have no dress things with me. I am not at all likely to burst in on you at Oundle.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 194.

1 1

Robert Bridges. ‘A school of which he vaguely approved and where I had a son, Geoffrey’: Richards, 194.

496

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 May 1922 My dear Richards, Many thanks for Proust. The 3 volumes are the right ones, though the numeration outside is absurdly stupid. I am keeping them to read in France. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 194 (incomplete).

TO G A I L L A R D L A P S L E Y Trinity College 27 May 1922 Dear Lapsley, I shall be very glad to come to-morrow at 1. 15. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Brown University MS.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 30 May 1922 My dear Kate, I am just off to France for a week or so, so I send back Jerry’s letters. The book you speak of, Wilkins (David), Concilia, is in the London Library but is in Latin.1 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1 Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, a synodo Verolamiensi, A.D. 446 ad Londinensem, A.D. 1717 (1737).

497

12 June 1922

TO A L I C E C . C O O P E R Trinity College | Cambridge 31 May 1922 Dear Miss Cooper, For many years I have been refusing English anthologists permission to print poems from A Shropshire Lad; but the book is not copyright in America, and my consent is not required. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 739/1. Envelope addressed ‘Miss Alice C. Cooper | University High School | Oakland | California | U. S. A.’

TO L ADY AN D ERS O N Paris 3 June 1922 Dear Lady Anderson, When these honours fall to my friends and acquaintances, I always write to congratulate their wives, if I have the pleasure of knowing them, because they are the persons who take most pleasure in the affair; and so I send these felicitations to you in particular, though I do not altogether exclude Sir Hugh.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7649/46.

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 12 June 1922 Dear Mrs Richards, I am afraid I was even duller than usual, for I was not very well when I came to you; but I hope you will be pleased to hear that I think my stay at Bigfrith has set me right again. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Richards, 194 (nearly complete). 1

Sir Hugh Kerr Anderson (1865–1928). See List of Recipients.

498

Letters 1872–1926

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 12 June 1922 My dear Withers, I am concerned to hear about your health, and I hope you will soon find relief, whichever way the doctors may decide. The photograph1 is not quite true to my own notion of my gentleness and sweetness of nature, but neither perhaps is my external appearance. I am just back from France and have broached the first jar of marmalade, which inspires me with respect as well as gratitude towards Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 196–7.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 June 1922 My dear Richards, I cannot arrange the order of the poems satisfactorily until I know for certain which I shall include and which omit; and on that point, as I told you, I want to consult one or two people.1 Therefore I want the poems printed first simply according to the various metres they are written in, not at all as they will afterwards stand. Will the transpositions // , which will then have to be made before the book arrives at its proper form be very expensive? If so, perhaps type-writing had better be used, but I do not like it, as it makes things look repulsive. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 194–5; Maas, 197 (both nearly complete).

1 1

Taken in May 1922, and reproduced opposite the title-page in Withers. W. P. Ker, J. W. Mackail, and a third, unnamed adviser.

499

19 June 1922

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 June 1922 My dear Richards, I do not believe that A Shropshire Lad could be well translated into French, and I should not be able to judge whether the translation was even as good as it might be. I return Charles’s1 post-card. As it comes from University College, I think I can guess who has been indiscreet. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Richards, 194 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 17 June 1922 Ulysses received, also Firbank.1 Thanks for both. A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 June 1922 My dear Richards, Herewith the manuscript, 50 pages.1 Please acknowledge receipt. After all, I do not think much transposition will be required. You must not do what you spoke of doing, preserve a copy of the book in its present state, as I value the opinion of posterity too much. When it is printed, let two copies be sent to me at first, for correction. It will save the

1

‘My son’s’: Richards, 194. ‘James Joyce’s Ulysses, which he thought he might like to read, and … some of the books of Ronald Firbank’: Richards, 195. Ulysses was published in Paris in Feb. 1922 in an edn. of 1,000 numbered copies. Foreign edns. were banned in the United States until 1933, and in England until 1936, when the first English edn. appeared. On Firbank, see AEH to GR, 22 May 1922, n. 3. 1 In fact, 51: AEH had numbered two pages ‘47’, and ‘48’ survives. See Poems (1997), Introduction, xxxiii, xxxiv. 1

500

Letters 1872–1926

printers trouble if you tell them that they had better not try to improve my spelling and punctuation. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 195; Maas, 197.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 20 June 1922 Dear Gow, Many thanks: these Persons of Quality drink from a Hippocrene or Onocrene of their own.1 I shall be here till the end of July, I expect. I hope we shall see you as usual when your term is over. Yours A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 16 . Maas, 197–8.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS I am returning Ulysses, which I have scrambled and waded through, and found one or two half-pages amusing. Firbank also is very unrewarding hitherto. But I am grateful to you all the same. A. E. H. 24 June 1922 Trin. Coll. Camb. Yale MS (MS Vault. Joyce, series 1, box 4, folder 5): p. c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’ Richards, 197.

1 Hippocrene (‘horse-fountain’, because thought to have been produced by a stamp of the hoof of the winged horse Pegasus) was a spring, sacred to the Muses, on Mt. Helicon. Its waters were thought to inspire with poetry those who drank them. Onocrene, by analogy, would be an ass-fountain.

501

10 July 1922

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 26 June 1922 Secret as the grave. Dear Mackail, I am bringing out a volume of poems this autumn: will you do me the kindness to look through them first? They are neither long nor many. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Fitzwilliam MS Autogr. 3/2–1946. Maas, 198.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 8 July 1922 My dear Richards, I do not know what penalty the Tatler people have laid themselves open to,1 and anyhow I should think they had better be left alone. I am told that Vaughan Williams has mutilated another poem just as badly, to suit his precious music.2 Probably the sort of people who read the Tatler would not realise that anything was missing, or prefer the full text if they had it. The poem in italics is to stand facing p. 1,3 so I do not think the print is too small. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 197; Maas, 198.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 10 July 1922 My dear Richards, I enclose: Proofs corrected

1 By printing without permission part of Bredon Hill (ASL XXI), illustrated by Percy Home, on 5 July. 2 3 See AEH to GR, 20 Dec. 1920. The prefatory poem, We’ll to the woods no more.

502

Letters 1872–1926

One MS piece for insertion1 Directions for rearrangement. When all this has been done please send me 4 copies.2 It is not yet to be put into regular pages. Remember that there is to be a vine-leaf at the end of each poem,3 except the introductory piece in italics. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 198.

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 10 July 1922 Dear Mrs Richards, Thanks for the photographs. Though I do not forgive you for taking them, I am bound to say that your camera is not such a venomous caricaturist as some that I have met. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Grant Richards | Bigfrith | Cookham Dean | Berks.’ Richards, 197–8 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 12 July 1922 My dear Richards, I am no judge of this sort of thing, but there is nothing in the design which I much object to, except the portrait of a tramp sucking a stick. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 198; Maas, 198.

1 2 3

XXII, The sloe was lost in flower: see Poems (1997), Introduction, xxxiii. One for himself, and one for each of his three advisers. As in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th edns. of ASL.

503

18 July 1922

TO T H E O D O R E S P I C E R - S I M S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 17 July 1922 Dear Sir, I am not qualified to judge your medallions as works of art, but they please me, and Mr Hardy’s portrait is certainly a good likeness.1 As you are kind enough to propose a portrait of me, I shall be very willing to sit to you, if it can be arranged; only it unfortunately happens that I shall be away from Cambridge from the 21st to the 24th . I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS: Gen. MSS. Bound (oversize), Spicer-Simson Am 17277, p. 83. Maas, 199.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 18 July 1922 Dear Mackail, Thanks for The Dead Sanctuary,1 which I have read with mild pleasure and disapproval. It is quite a wrong sort of thing, as wrong as The Revolt of Islam,2 and there is something of silliness in expending so much adornment on a quite arbitrary fiction, which does not seem to have even the bad excuse of allegory; and it very seldom rises, as it does at the end of the 56th stanza,3 into anything really poetical. And yet it is somehow winning and likeable, and it is quite free from vice and sham.4 Thanks also for consenting to look through my proofs, which I enclose. I want you to note anything that strikes you as falling below my average, 1

Spicer-Simson did a medallion of Thomas Hardy in 1921. By J. B. Trinick, with an introductory note by Mackail (OUP, 1922). Trinick was born and brought up in Melbourne, served in France in the Australian Imperial Forces, and later became a practising craftsman in stained glass. 2 By Shelley, 1818. 3 Yet once again there lay betwixt mine eyes, | Her lips—a moment ere there came the slow, | Hushed, broken murmur of their words, ‘O friend, | ‘Sleep well—sleep well—’, uttered in weary wise. | Then, answering her softly, ‘Thou also— | ‘May that be with thee, that my soul would spend | ‘Its very life to bring to thee,’ I said— | ‘Oh, rest indeed—my soul’s one friend.’ Her brow | Made stillness for my lips, ere it was laid | Gently upon my breast. And as the deep, | Last breath of dying day, at evening’s end, | So did she sigh but once and fall asleep. 4 Mackail’s judgement was: ‘throughout, in the whole treatment as in the metrical handling, we shall not be mistaken in recognizing the hand of a competent artist, who knows how to use his medium, who can preserve clarity of drawing and harmony of colouring, and whose attained faculty, both in design and execution, holds out promise of higher fulfilment’ (vi–vii). 1

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or as open to exception for any other reason. The piece I myself am most in doubt about is the longest;5 and I fear that is not its worst fault. You need not be afraid of stifling a masterpiece through a temporary aberration of judgment, as I am consulting one or two other people, and shall not give effect to a single opinion unless it coincides with my own private suspicions. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Fitzwilliam MS Autogr. 3/3-1946. Maas, 199.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS I asked for 4 copies of proofs,1 but have only received 2. A. E. Housman. 18 July 1922 Trin. Coll. Camb. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’ Richards, 198.

TO T H E O D O R E S P I C E R - S I M S O N K, Whewell’s Court | Trinity College | Cambridge 19 July 1922 Dear Sir, I shall be pleased to see you here any time before 1 o’ clock to-morrow. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘T. Spicer Simson Esq. | 55a Sloane Square | S. W. 1.’, with the hyphen in the surname omitted.

TO WA LTE R DE LA M A RE Trinity College | Cambridge 20 July 1922 My dear Sir, The statements I have made to other anthologists in refusing to let them include poems from A Shropshire Lad prevent me, much to my regret, from 5 1

Hell Gate (LP XXXI). See the letter to GR, 10 July 1922.

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giving permission to you or to anyone,1 though it would be a pleasure to me to serve you in any way. I hope to make your personal acquaintance when you are here for the Clark lectures.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS: Walter de la Mare Uncatalogued Collection.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 25 July 1922 Dear Mackail, I thought that p. 27 and 50 and perhaps 33 were rather thin, and I shall probably take them out, though another counsellor is very strong for 27.1 15 is not much in itself, and I only put it in for variety, as I did No. XX in A Shropshire Lad.2 57 I have no particular admiration for, though I like bits of it.3 39 I think good, and 10 does not dissatisfy me; but I believe I am too fond of the Laura Matilda stanza,4 which I think the most beautiful and the most difficult in English. On p. 55 ‘home’ and ‘native land’ signify ‘the sea where they fished for you and me’. 25 dissatisfies me too, but not quite in the same way. The first and last stanzas came into my head; the middle ones are composed. I think the last stanza really requires that the poem should have five stanzas. 1 de la Mare’s anthology Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes & Poems for the Young of all Ages was published in 1923. 2 In Michaelmas Term, 1922. He gave six lectures, on ‘the status of fiction’, ‘the medium of prose’, ‘the material of fiction’, ‘its relation to life’, ‘ a comparison’, and ‘portrayal of character’. In a 1952 letter to M. Morant, de la Mare recalls that AEH attended one of the lectures ‘and with a dry little smile remarked: ‘‘You seem to have caught the knack’’ ’: cited in Imagination of the Heart: the Life of Walter de la Mare by Theresa Whistler (1993), 327. 1 It is not possible to identify all the poems. The pages were page-proofs, but not the final page-proofs, than which they were larger; the order of pages may not have corresponded in every case to the final order; and poems were selected provisionally at this stage. 2 Oh fair enough are sky and plain. 3 There survive only pages 57 and 58 bearing Smooth between sea and land, which was not included in LP, but later printed as MP XLV. 4 LP VIII (Soldier from the wars returning) is in this verse form, and may have been on p. 10. AEH used the stanza for ASL I and XXXV, and for AP I, and the metre for MP XLVI. See also AEH to Bridges, 19 Dec. 1925. ‘Laura Matilda’ was the pseudonym of Horace and James Smith when they used the stanza for Drury’s Dirge in Rejected Addresses (1812). 5 Bearing LP I (The West).

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36. ‘you do lie’6 is not really for metre’s sake, but an imitation, false I daresay, of the ballads which I do imitate. About Hell Gate7 my troubles were, first, that the whole thing is on the edge of the absurd: if it does not topple over, that is well so far. Secondly, as you perceive, the texture of the diction, especially in the parts which I had to compose, is not what it should be, and I rather despair of mending it. It would not do simply to omit the passages you mention: I should have to put something in their place, and it probably would be nothing better. As to three consecutive initial and’s, that occurs in the L’Allegro of my great exemplar;8 and Shelley in The Invitation and again in Ariel to Miranda has five.9 On p. 43 I think the repetition has a certain value; on p. 42 it is mitigated by the intervention of a full stop, and offends the eye more than the ear. 46. I must confess I do not know what lines 3 and 410 mean. I find that I originally wrote ‘forest hut’, which may be better. I wish you would turn an unfriendly eye on p. 29. I stuck it in to keep apart two poems which should not come together. The first two lines are as good as need be; but is not the idea of the poem trite and banal, and the execution too neat and too near to smartness? Please keep the proofs for the present, if you will allow me to worry you again, as perhaps I may want to when W. P. Ker comes back from the Alps, on whose summits he is now pirouetting. Meanwhile thanks for what you have already done. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Exception is taken, as I foresaw it would be, to ‘spruce’11 on p. 44. I think it is the right word, and helps, like ‘finery of fire’,12 to keep the piece from being too solemn; and moreover Milton talks about ‘the spruce and jocund Spring’.13 The alternative is ‘brave’, which I like less, partly 6

7 ‘In the land where you do lie’: LP XXVI 6. LP XXXI.. ‘And the milkmaid singeth blithe, | And the mower whets his scythe, | And every shepherd tells his tale’: Milton, L’Allegro, 65–7. 9 To Jane: The Invitation, 13–17: ‘And smiled upon the silent sea, | And bade the frozen streams be free, | And waked to music all their fountains, | And breathed upon the frozen mountains, | And like a prophetess of May … ’; With a Guitar; To Jane (which starts ‘Ariel to Miranda:—’), 49–53: ‘And dreaming, some of Autumn past, | And some of Spring approaching fast, | And some of April buds and showers, | And some of songs in July bowers, | And all of love; and so this tree,—’. 10 Of LP XXXIII, published as ‘And about the forest hut | Blows the roaring wood of dreams’. The first and second drafts and the MS sent to the publisher had ‘hunter’s’ for ‘forest’. 11 12 In l. 99 of Hell Gate: ‘As in all his spruce attire’. ‘In his finery of fire’ (l. 40). 13 Comus, 985. 8

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because it has the same vowel-sound as ‘failed’ in the next line.14 What do you think? Fitzwilliam MS Autogr. 3/4–1946. Maas, 200–1.

TO T H E O D O R E S P I C E R - S I M S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 26 July 1922 Dear Mr Spicer Simson,1 Next Monday and Tuesday will suit me quite well. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Colby College MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 July 1922 My dear Richards, The correction of proofs will be held up for three weeks or so by the absence of W. P. Ker in Switzerland; so I write on details which I want to be clear about. What is the exact height of a page available for containing printed matter? The p. 22 which I enclose is a specimen of the largest number of verses, composing one poem, which now stand on one page. Would the addition of the vine-leaf at the end exceed the measure, or involve diminishing the spaces between verse and verse?1 Would the further prefixing of a number or a title do so? The p. 2 which I enclose will probably be p. 1. That being so, does the poem begin too high up, and will one verse or more have to go over the page? I ask these questions because I want to be able to map out exactly what page each poem or part of a poem will stand on.2

14

‘Failed the everlasting fire’. AEH omits the hyphen in the surname. 1 See AEH to GR, 10 July 1922, and n. 3. 2 In the 1st edn. of ASL, the poems were printed continuously. In LP, at AEH’s request, each poem began on a fresh page: AEH to GR, 22 Apr. 1922. 1

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What is the proper procedure about the agreement? Does your solicitor draw it up and send it to my solicitor; or do you draw it up and I submit it to some Society for the Protection of Authors against Publishers? Thanks for Story’s book on Paris restaurants,3 which I have not yet had time to look at properly: I see a fair sprinkling of names unknown to me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 198–9; Maas, 201.

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 27 July 1922 Dear Duff, μοῦσαι in Plat. Soph. p. 242 D is a generic term: ᾿Ιάδες μοῦσαι is the literary Ephesian and Σικελαὶ μοῦσαι is the literary Agrigentine, and Clement copies the phrase. The result of considering these passages is that I do not believe Μοῦσαι really was the title of anything which Heraclitus wrote, and when Diog. Laert. gives it as an alternative to περὶ φύσεως he is merely misunderstanding Plato’s phrase. And this is the opinion of Wellmann in Pauly-Wissowa VIII i. p. 505. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 196 2 . Maas, 416.

TO A . B. RA M S AY [Trinity College 3 Aug. 1922] Multa decem lustris addantur lustra precantur Arietis Housmanus Gouius Harrisonus1 TCC MS: Ernest Harrison’s Commonplace Book, fo. 9r .

3

Sommerville Story, Paris à la Carte: Where the Frenchman Dines and How (1922). A greeting to A. B. Ramsay (‘The Ram’) on his fiftieth birthday from Housman, Gow, and Harrison: ‘Housman, Gow, and Harrison pray that fifty more years be added to the fifty of the Ram.’ The greeting is an elegiac couplet, the second verse beginning at ‘Arietis’ (scanned as a dactyl). The arrangement of names, with Housman first, is the only one that will make metre. Ernest Harrison (1877–1943) had been a Fellow of TCC since 1900. By 1932 AEH was using the form ‘Housmannus’: Manilius, editio minor, p. viii n.1. 1

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26 August 1922

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Angel Hotel | Midhurst 24 Aug. 1922 My dear Richards, I enclose corrected proofs, which can now be put into book form, as there will be little further change. Silence may now be broken, as I am safely away from Cambridge and out of humanity’s reach. When you make the announcement in print I shall have to censure your fanfares. I should think the first had better be something quite short, such as— ‘I shall publish on –––– the only book of poetry written by Mr A. E. Housman since the appearance of A Shropshire Lad twenty-six years ago.’ or perhaps better simply— —‘Mr A. E. Housman’s second volume of poetry’.1 I shall be here, as I told you, till the 5th Sept., and then I shall be going into Gloucestershire for a week, not returning through London; so I shall be glad if you can pay me a day’s visit here as you say. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. The printers, as usual, when making corrections, seize the opportunity of introducing new errors. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 199; Maas, 201–2.

TO M R S M I TH Trinity College | Cambridge | England 26 Aug. 1922 Dear Mr Smith, You have my permission to publish your setting of With rue my heart is laden. I am obliged to you for offering to submit the music to my approval; but my taste in music is not good enough to constitute me a judge. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1 GR’s announcement in the TLS a month later stated simply: ‘Early in October I shall publish a new book by A. E. Housman. It will be entitled Last Poems (5/-)’.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS From the 5th to the 12th my address will be c/ Mrs Yorke Selsley Road N. Woodchester Stroud. So far as I know at present, I shall be glad to see you at Cambridge on the 14th . 1 Sept. 1922 A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Torcross Hotel | Kingsbridge | Devon’. Richards, 200 (nearly complete).

TO L. W. PAY NE Trinity College | Cambridge | England 14 Sept. 1922 Dear Mr Payne, I have so long made it a rule to refuse English anthologists permission to reprint poems of mine that I cannot now give permission to anyone. But my permission is not required in America, where the poems are not copyright.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS. Maas, 202–3.

TO T H E O D O R E S P I C E R - S I M S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Sept. 1922 Dear Mr Spicer Simson, 1 I am very grateful for your gift of the medallion2 which I find awaiting me here on my return from a month’s absence.

1 Payne sought permission to include poems in Selections from English Literature, edited by himself and Nina Hill (1922). 1 As before, AEH omits the hyphen from the surname. 2 The medallion portrait of AEH is reproduced opposite p. 178 of LH’s Memoir (and the artist’s name is mutilated). See AEH to Spicer-Simson, 17 July 1922.

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20 September 1922

Neither Thompson3 nor Rutherford4 seems to be in residence here at present, but when they come back I will not fail to show them the portrait and excite their envy. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Princeton MS: Gen. MSS. Bound (oversize), Spicer-Simson Am 17277, p. 83. Maas, 202.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Sept. 1922 My dear Richards, Here are the 33 persons to whom I want copies to be sent from me.1 Thanks for Sacheverell Sitwell.2 My wrapper should be as simple as possible: just white paper and letterpress. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 200–1 (excerpts).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Sept. 1922 My dear Richards, I return the agreement signed; also the wrapper, which does not cause me any special disgust, as most wrappers do. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 201. 3

4 For ‘Thomson’. See List of Recipients. See List of Recipients. SIU MS VFM 1082 lists the following, almost all with their addresses: Miss [Clemence] Housman, Laurence Housman, Mrs Symons [i.e. KES], ‘Fräulein Sophia Becker’, Miss [Edith] Wise, Mrs [John] Maycock, A. W. Pollard, The Revd Canon Watson, D.D., The President of Magdalen College, Oxford [i.e. Sir Herbert Warren], T. C. Snow, Professor Gilbert Murray, Sir James Frazer, J. D. Duff, The Master, Magdalene College, Cambridge [i.e. A. C. Benson], Herbert Millington, Ralph Thicknesse, Mrs [Ralph] Thicknesse, William Rothenstein, Dr [Percy] Withers, Thomas Hardy, O.M., Witter Bynner, J. W. Mackail, Arthur Platt, W. P. Ker, H. Festing Jones, Signore H[oratio] Brown, Robert Bridges, D.Litt., John Masefield, Edmund Gosse, C.B., Sir William Watson, Signore H[erbert] Trench, John Drinkwater, and Mrs H. G. Woods. 2 Very probably Sitwell’s The One Hundred and One Harlequins, published by GR in 1922. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Well then, if you are a man of your word, send me the Weekly Westminster Gazette.1 A. E. Housman. Trinity College 21 Sept. 1922 Cambridge LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’ Richards, 201.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Sept. 1922 My dear Richards, This seems all right. Thanks for the Westminster. Remember that I have not yet seen the final proofs of the book. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 201 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Sept. 1922 My dear Richards, Please look at what I have written on pages 55 and 79.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 201.

1 See AEH to KES, 26 Mar. 1923. Richards, 201 n., finds the two letters difficult to reconcile. He sent the periodical to AEH: see the next letter. 1 On p. 55, referring to the spacing between stanzas of poem XXIX, AEH complained ‘Too much white. Why not bring first stanza lower? or space the lines as on p. 75’; on p. 79 he asked ‘ ‘‘The End’’, as in Shropshire Lad?’

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3 October 1922

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Sept. 1922 My dear Withers, I enclose the reply I got from the custos hortorum1 at St John’s2 when I wrote about the alleged distribution of surplus Alpines at this season; and I hope that, operation or no operation, you will be in case to do as he proposes in the spring. I wish you had a better account to give of yourself, and I am sorry there seems to be no chance of seeing you here this term. As to seeing you at Souldern, I am afraid there is not much chance of that either, and, considering the effect I have on your health, it is better so. The book of poems is even smaller than A. S. L., so do not promise yourself repletion. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 47 (excerpt); Maas, 203.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 3 October 1922 My dear Richards,] You must not print editions of A Shropshire Lad without letting me see the proofs. I have just been looking through the editions of 1918 and 1921, and in both I find the same set of blunders in punctuation and ordering of lines, some of which I have corrected again and again, and the filthy beasts of printers for ever introduce them anew. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 201; Maas, 203.

1

Keeper of the Gardens. SJCO has a rock garden which is famous for its rare plants. It was formed in the NW corner of the inner grove in the early years of the twentieth century by the Bursar, Henry Jardine Bidder (1847–1923), with the assistance of the botanist R. J. Farrer. 2

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TO T H E R I V E R S I D E P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Oct. 1922 Dear Sirs, I return the three specimens. I do not like the red, and I agree with Mr Richards that the dark blue1 is on the whole the best. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 201.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Oct. 1922 My dear Richards, As to your kind invitation to me to dine with you, the 19th would not be an available date, and a Monday or Wednesday would probably be best. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 201 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Oct. 1922 My dear Richards, No, don’t send Mr Bert Thomas a photograph.1 One or two of his cariacatures2 which I have seen I thought not bad. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 201; Maas, 203.

1

Cloth binding, used for LP. Bert Thomas (1883–1966), famous for his cartoons of the First World War, and a regular contributor to Punch, had asked GR for a photograph of AEH to help him with a caricature, which appeared in Punch on 25 Oct. 1922, six days after the publication of LP. It is reproduced in Richards opposite p. 202. See AEH to KES, 29 Dec. 1922. 2 For ‘caricatures’. 1

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14 October 1922

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Oct. 1922 My dear Richards, 1. I knew the printers would do something, and I only wondered what it would be. On p. 521 they have removed a comma from the end of the first line and a semi-colon from the end of the second. 2. Remember that I am not P. B. Mais,2 and do not quote reviews in your weekly epistle, when reviews begin to appear. Brag about the sale as much as you like. 3. Please add to the list of those who are to have copies from the author sent them:3 W. T. Vesey Esq.4 Caius College Cambridge. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 202; Maas, 204.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS No, don’t put in an errata slip. The blunder will probably enhance the value of the 1st edition in the eyes of bibliophiles, an idiotic class. Yrs A. E. Housman. 14 Oct. 1922 Trin. Coll. Camb. Lilly MSS 1. 1: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’ Richards, 202; Maas, 204.

1

In The half-moon westers low, my love (LP XXVI). S[tuart] P[etre] B[rodie] Mais (1885–1975), prolific novelist, journalist, and writer on travel and the countryside. Most of his books were published by Richards. 3 See AEH to GR, 16 Sept. 1922, and note. 4 William Trevor Lendrum (1854–1935), who assumed the name Vesey in 1917. Fellow of Gonville and Caius College since 1890, and an authority on Pindar. Maas, 204 n., notes that AEH contributed to his obituary in The Caian, 43 (1935). On AEH and Vessey, see Naiditch (1995), 37–9. 2

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Oct. 1922 My dear Richards, I return the printers’ letter. Printers seem to regard this sort of error as the act of God: I remember the same thing in several places in the Juvenal. I do not require any copies beyond the six I have. What the Times1 has done is what the Standard did in the case of Lord Beaconsfield’s Endymion;2 and in some way which I do not understand it was supposed to have injured the sale. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 202; Maas, 204.

TO M O S E S JAC K S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Oct. 1922 My dear Mo, I have been putting off writing so as to be able to send you this precious book,1 published to-day. The cheerful and exhilarating tone of my verse is so notorious that I feel sure it will do you more good than the doctors;2 though you do not know, and there are no means of driving the knowledge into your thick head, what a bloody good poet I am.3 In order to intimidate you and repress your insolence I am enclosing the review and the leader which the Times devoted to the subject.4 I may also inform you that the copy of the 1st edition of my other immortal work which I gave you is now

1

A premature review of LP appeared in The Times, 17 Oct. 1922, 8. Novel, published in 1880, a year before Disraeli’s death. 1 2 LP. Jackson was ill, and died from stomach cancer on 14 Jan. 1923. 3 E. W. Watson, a contemporary in Oxford days, told Gow in a letter of 25 May 1936 that Jackson was ‘a perfect Philistine … a vigorous rowing man, quite unliterary and outspoken in his want of any such interest’: TCC Add. MS a. 71169 ; Page, 41. Jackson’s son, G. C. A. Jackson, is quoted in George L. Watson, A. E. Housman: A Divided Life (1957), 160, as saying that ‘My father jokingly always professed to have a contempt for Housman’s poems’. This may explain the heading of AEH’s dedicatory poem in the Manilius I: sodali meo M. I. Iackson harum litterarum contemptori. 4 The Times, 17 Oct. 1922, carried a review and a leading article (entitled Ave Atque Vale) on pp. 8 and 13 respectively. 2

19 October 1922

517

worth £8 or more if you have kept it at all clean;5 and that the average annual sale is over 3000 copies. That is largely due to the war, because so many soldiers, including at least one V. C., carried it in their pockets, and thus others got to know of it and bought it when they came home. But it does not seem to stop bullets as the Bible does when carried in the pocket, so I have been disappointed of that advertisement, probably through the jealousy of the Holy Ghost. Of this new book there were printed 4000 copies for a 1st edition, which were all ordered by the booksellers before publication, so there is already a 2nd edition in the press. It is now 11 o’clock in the morning, and I hear that the Cambridge shops are sold out. Please to realise therefore, with fear and respect, that I am an eminent bloke; though I would much rather have followed you round the world and blacked your boots.6 In June I flew over to Paris for a week as usual, and late in the summer I spent a month at Midhurst in about the best part of Surrey, between the chalk downs and the Haslemere type of country. I motored through Godalming: Witley Common has been rather devastated by the Canadian camp there.7 Gerald8 writes to me now and then, and seems to be a wonder in the way of industry and determination; both Oscar and Rupert9 evidently think a lot of him.

5 AEH had presented an inscribed copy of the first edn. of ASL to Jackson on publication in 1896. It was sold at Sotheby’s on 6 Nov. 2001 for £48,500, as Naiditch (2005), 140, notes. Cf. ASL XXXIV 7: ‘She will not be sick to see me if I only keep it clean’. 6 Cf. Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine, 934: ‘To serve you, and to follow you through the world’. The unique notebook draft of ASL IX (On moonlit heath and lonesome bank) contains the variant reading at ll. 23–4: ‘In shoes I’d liefer black than most | That walk upon the land’. Cf. other references to boot-blacking: Swinburne, The Sisters, 2. 1. 139–41: ‘ I’d like to black his boots.  You weren’t his fag, | Were you?’; Oscar Wilde in a letter to Leonard Smithers, 11 Dec. 1897: ‘Ask for dear Robbie [Ross], if he will kindly send me out a pair of his oldest boots I will blacken them with pleasure’. 7 In Jan. 1915 a camp for training Canadian soldiers before they were sent to France was created at Witley Common near Godalming, Surrey. It was occupied 1916–Sept. 1919 and used afterwards as a demobilization camp. 30,000–50,000 soldiers passed through. Local traders built wooden shops with tin roofs and the place was nicknamed ‘Tin Town’. 8 Gerald C. A. Jackson. See List of Recipients. 9 Oscar Adalbert Edmund Jackson (1895–c.1973) and Rupert W. P. Jackson (b. 1890), Jackson’s third and eldest sons respectively: Naiditch (1995), 143.

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Letters 1872–1926

My very kind regards to Mrs Jackson. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. MS inspected at Sotheby’s, 4 Nov. 2001. T.s. copy, with some errors of transcription, in SJCO, Sparrow Collection. Two sides reproduced in reduced photographic facsimile, and excerpts quoted, in Sotheby’s catalogue, The Library of Frederick B. Adams, Jr, Part 1: English & American Literature (6 Nov. 2001), 33. Shortly afterwards, the photograph was reproduced a second time between pp. 56 and 57 of HSJ (2001).

TO J O H N D R I N K WAT E R Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Oct. 1922 My dear Mr Drinkwater, I have written your name and mine in the book1 with great pleasure, and I thank you much for the gift of your own volume of poems,2 among which I think perhaps I like the two sonnets best.3 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. I have corrected the errors of the press on p. 52.4 Marquette University MS (Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, series 5, box 4). Maas, 205.

TO P RO F E S S O R G I L B E RT M U R R AY Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Oct. 1922 My dear Murray, I seem to be esteemed on Boar’s Hill,1 which is satisfactory. I am not conscious of having been influenced by writing verse in Greek and Latin, and I think we have models enough in English. The new-fangled verse you speak of hardly comes to my ears (I suppose you move in the midst of

1 LP, a copy of which AEH had sent through the Richards Press Ltd: AEH to GR, 16 Sept. 1922, n. 1; Drinkwater to AEH, 20 Oct. 1922 (BMC MS). 2 Preludes 1921–1922 (1922). 3 Prelude and Interlude (on pp. 9, 62). 4 See AEH to GR, 12 Oct. 1922. 1 For ‘Boars Hill’, just outside Oxford. Murray and his family moved to their house ‘Yatscombe’ there in 1919, and Robert Bridges and John Masefield were neighbours. Bridges had written a letter of warm appreciation for LP to AEH on 19 Oct. 1922 (SJCO MS).

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26 October 1922

some of its authors); but I have been admiring Blunden2 for some time. He describes too much; but when one can describe so well, the temptation must be great. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MSS Gilbert Murray, 45. 206–7. Maas, 205.

TO E D M U N D G O S S E Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Oct. 1922 My dear Gosse, I thought you were very nice about me in the Sunday Times,1 and I have copied out a poem2 for you as you wish. It is one of those which I did not put into the book; for I know you bibliophiles, and your passion for l’inédit irrespective of merit. Please thank Mrs Gosse for her kind remembrances, which are reciprocal. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL MS Ashley B. 903, fos. 44–5. Maas, 205–6.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Thanks. The press-cutting agency sends me, with due delay, more notices than I want to see. What guarantee have I that all these editions of yours are being printed correctly? A. E. Housman. 26 Oct. 1922. Trin. Coll. Camb. LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq.| 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’ Richards, 204; Maas, 206.

2 Edmund [Charles] Blunden (1896–1974), author at this time of The Waggoner and other poems (1920) and The Shepherd (1922). 1 Gosse’s review of LP appeared on p. 6 of The Sunday Times, 22 Oct. 1922. It is reprinted in Gosse’s More Books on the Table (1923), 21–6. 2 Tarry, delight; so seldom met (MP XV). In a letter of 18 Oct. 1922 (LC-AEH MS) Gosse had asked AEH to copy out a poem to go with similar gifts received from Tennyson, Swinburne, Patmore, and Hardy.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO P. P. S T E VE NS Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Oct. 1922 Dear Stevens, Certainly not. I have only two spare copies, and they are for the good and pure. The most shocking things about you ‘‘devotees of editions’’ are the shamelessness with which you avow your vice and the calm stupidity with which you stab the vanity of authors. How do you suppose we feel when we hear all this fuss about the difference between a first edition and a tenth? The only merits of any edition are correctness and legibility. This astounds you; and when I tell you that the first edition contained an error which was corrected in the second, you will be ready to tear your hair. I told the publishers to send a copy on publication to one of your fellow devotees, who insincerely pretends, like you, to be interested in my poetry. When he got it, he could not wait to read it, he despatched it to me by the next post for my autograph. I am really glad when I hear that knavish booksellers are practising extortion on fellows of your sort, and demanding sums which range from 7/6 to a guinea, according as the customer looks a lesser or a greater fool. However, in consideration of the Tankard,1 and your share in my education, I am prepared to autograph a copy of the second edition, if you like to buy one; but as it has the proper number of stops on p. 52, you may think 5/- too high a price. How are you earning your bread? Honestly, I hope. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text from a t.s. (Lilly MSS 3. 1. 10) made by John Carter from the autograph MS, which was sold at Sotheby’s on 17 Dec. 1946. Maas, 206–7.

1 A silver loving-cup presented to AEH by his students from the previous nineteen years when he left UCL in 1911 for Cambridge. It was inscribed with a quotation from ASL LXII 21–2: ‘Malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man’: R. W. Chambers, Man’s Unconquerable Mind (1939), 380.

521

29 October 1922

TO E . V. LU CA S Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Oct. 1922 Dear Lucas, I am honoured by the request of the English Association, but I must ask to be excused. While I was at University College I was in a measure compelled to read things to the Literary Society now and then;1 but I am escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler,2 and I shall never do it again. To prepare a paper would be endless labour and anxiety, and the result nothing in which I could take pride; for I am only a connoisseur and do not mistake myself for a critic. Thanks for your letter all the same. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Oct. 1922 My dear Richards, I return the proofs of the small edition of A Shropshire Lad, which seem to need no corrections beyond those which have been marked. I have found no errors yet in the second impression of Last Poems, but it seems to me that the stanza on p. 56 ought to be leaded, or whatever you call it, in the same way as the two stanzas on p. 55.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 204–5.

1 Naiditch (1988), 144, affirms that AEH gave five or six lectures to the Literary Society at UCL: on Matthew Arnold, the Spasmodic School, Erasmus Darwin, Robert Burns, Tennyson, and (perhaps) Swinburne. Naiditch (1988), 142–51, gives a full account of AEH’s relations with the Society. 2 Ps. 124: 7: ‘Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers’. 1 No change was made to the layout of the page.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Oct. 1922 Dear Mrs Richards, A heavy case has arrived, and I have had it opened and have come to the top layer, but have not eaten my way further down at present.1 I write now to thank you, before I make myself ill. It seems that your garden has been doing its duty this year. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Richards, 204 (nearly complete).

TO S T E P H E N G A S E L E E Trinity College 30 Oct. 1922 Dear Gaselee, I should be delighted to dine with you at Magdalene on Saturday Nov. 11 at 7. 45. I think you don’t dress on weekdays. The epitaph1 was reprinted in an anthology of War poems called Valour and Vision by Jacqueline T. Trotter (1920),2 and also, with 5 emendations by the University Press, in Cambridge Readings in Literature book V (1918).3 I think too that I gave permission in some other case or cases; and it must also have been printed in weeklies where it was turned into Greek and Latin and Hebrew. I wrote it in September 1917.4 The caucus has gone wrong. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I have just remembered that the Times itself reprinted it in an article on a later 31st of October[.] BMC MS. 1

Mrs Richards had sent him a box of walnuts from their garden: Richards, 204 Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries (LP XXXVII). 2 Valour and Vision: Poems of the War 1914–1918, ed. Jacqueline T. Trotter (1920), 117. 3 There were four: ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’s’ (twice) began with capitals, and there was no space between ‘foundations’ and ‘fled’. The editor was George Sampson, and the poem appeared on p. 286. 4 LH, Memoir, 269, records ‘rough draft, and second draft corrected’ on Nbk C 92–3. The MS of the second draft was sold at Sotheby’s on 27 May 2004. See Archie Burnett, ‘Fastidious Housman’, TLS, 25 June 2004, 13. The poem was published in The Times, 31 Oct. 1917, 7, beneath a leading article entitled ‘The Anniversary of Ypres’, and signed ‘A. E. Housman’. 1

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3 November 1922

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 31 Oct. 1922 I have noted some more corrections. Perhaps that on p. 59 may not be feasible. A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 3. Richards, 205.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1 Nov. 1922 American agreement enclosed signed. A. E. Housman. Grant Richards Esq. Trinity College Cambridge LC-GR MS.

TO H O RATI O F. B ROW N Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Nov. 1922 My dear Brown, Your queries1 do you credit on the whole. XL is entirely of last April,2 and XXII except the first two lines;3 and most of the others /which you name/ finished then, though conceived and partly executed earlier or even much earlier (IX for instance).4 But XII and XLI are quite old,5 XXV

1

About composition dates of poems in LP. The two drafts date from 10–30 Apr. 1922. 3 ‘Finished April, 1922’: AEH to Cockerell (TLS, 7 Nov. 1936; Richards, 437). The surviving draft dates from 10–30 Apr. 1922, and no earlier draft of ll. 1–2 survives. The fair copy was written Apr.–10 July 1922, possibly after 19 June. 4 What LH, Memoir, 264, describes as ‘fragments’ and a ‘rough draft of first verse’ date respectively from Oct.–Dec. 1895 and Dec. 1895–24 Feb. 1900. The second and third drafts date from 30 Mar.–10 Apr. 1922. 5 Of the drafts of XII, the first dates from Aug.–Dec. 1894, the second from 30 Mar.–10 Apr. 1922, and the third from before 19 June 1922. Of the drafts of XLI, the first dates from Dec. 1895–24 Feb. 1900, the second and third from c.1900–7 June 1902 (the third probably after 30 Oct. 1901), and the fourth from c.1900–Sept. 1917 (possibly c.1900–5, but not Oct. 1910–Oct. 1912). 2

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was published in 1903,6 and III was actually printed in A Shropshire Lad but removed before publication in consequence of other changes.7 The book is selling at such a rate that I am afraid I cannot be such a very good poet after all. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 8534/2. Published by Maas in HSJ 2 (1975), 35.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Nov. 1922 My dear Richards,] Do not at present put in hand the new edition of A Shropshire Lad which you speak of. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 205.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Nov. 1922 My dear Richards,] I would rather there were no one but you and Mrs Richards.1 [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Text based on that in Richards, 204.

6

On p. 39 of vol. 1 of The Venture, ed. LH and W. Somerset Maugham. The first draft dates from Aug.–Dec. 1894, the second from 10 Aug.–30 Sept. 1895. In the sheets of page proofs that survive (Lilly) it is printed as poem XLIII, and cancelled by AEH. 1 At the dinner to celebrate the publication of LP. 7

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17 November 1922

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Nov. 1922 Dear Mrs Richards, I hope to see you and your frock on Monday, but I am sorry I shall not be able to plunder your Christmas tree.1 We have a regular feast here, which last year I deserted for you, but this year I am expecting a guest of my own. Many thanks all the same. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Grant Richards | Bigfrith | Cookham Dean | Berks.’ Richards, 205 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS I shall reach town (Great Northern Hotel) at 6 p.m. on Monday, and I can stay till 11. 50 a.m. on Tuesday, so we can arrange to meet some time that morning. A. E. H. 12 Nov. 1922 Trin. Coll. Camb. LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq.| 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 17 Nov. 1922 Dear Cockerell, As I still cannot lay my hands on the Shropshire Lad MS,1 and as you are more ardent for possession than the College Library, I send the MS of Last Poems. Half-a-dozen pieces are missing.2 The MS, as you will see, did

1 On 9 Nov., before AEH dined on 13 Nov. at the Carlton restaurant with GR and his wife to celebrate the publication of LP, Mrs Richards invited him to come to their home at Bigfrith for Christmas: Richards, 204, 205. 1 See AEH to Adams, 3 Mar. 1926, and AEH to Martin, 20 Nov. 1933 2 The MS of LP sent to GR for printing contained Smooth between sea and land (MP XLV), The stars have not dealt me the worst they could do (AP XVII), Oh were he and I together (AP II), XV (Eight O’Clock), XVIII (The rain, it streams on stone and hillock), and one other poem on a single sheet. See Poems (1997), Introduction, xxxii, xxxv.

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Letters 1872–1926

not go to the printers, but a type-written copy was made in the publisher’s office.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Fitzwilliam MS, Gen. Ser. 539-1964. Maas, 207.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Nov. 1922 Dear Sir, The only uncollected poem of mine that I can think of is a parody of Greek tragedy in the Cornhill for April 1901.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Nov. 1922 My dear Richards,] Mr Vickers can have what he wants, and any of his countrymen. I am told that Americans are human beings, though appearances are against them. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 205.

3

See AEH to GR, 22 Apr. 1922, n. 2. Fragment of a Greek Tragedy appeared in The Cornhill Magazine,  10 (Apr. 1901), 443–5. This was the third printing: see Poems (1997), 531–2. 1

527

11 December 1922

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Dec. 1922 My dear Laurence, Thanks for Dethronements,1 though I do not think it one of your good books, nothing like so good as Angels and Ministers.2 I do not believe that any of the people resembled or resemble your figures; and in the second dialogue the falsification of history is quite awful. On p. 48 there is a misprint, make for may, and on p. 61, Collins. I gather from p. 19 that you are one of the many people who think that Morley3 wrote a book in favour of compromise: else I don’t understand ‘‘And yet’’.4 I liked the remark about America on p. 71.5 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Memoir, 178, where the letter is cut and misleadingly merged with another of 11 Dec.; Maas, 207.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1922 My dear Laurence, To represent Chamberlain as an injured man, and Balfour as a man who injured him, is like saying that Christ crucified Pontius Pilate. ‘The downfall of the Man of Business’ (p. 6)1 was caused by eating, drinking, and smoking immoderately, and taking aperients instead of exercise. From the election of 1905 he came back in much better plight than Balfour, and was in a position to patronise him by finding him a seat. What Balfour did in his premiership was to prevent Chamberlain from quite ruining the party. Outside Parliament, Chamberlain was much the stronger of the two: everything in 1

Dethronements: Imaginary Portraits of Political Characters, Done in Dialogue (1922). Published in 1921. 3 John, Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923), statesman and man of letters. 4 Morley opposes compromise throughout his On Compromise (1874). LH has Parnell say ‘Morley’s an authority on compromise. And yet I like him’. 5 ‘In the distance an occasional blare of brass and the beat of drums … the kind of noise which America knows how to make; a sound of triumph insistent and strained, having in it no beauty and no joy.’ 1 The second dialogue in LH’s Dethronements, ‘The Man of Business’, is between Joseph Chamberlain and a distinguished visitor. 2

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Letters 1872–1926

Unionism which was vulgar and sordid and greedy looked to him as its leader. When he started his precious tariff-reform, a thing which he had not intellect enough to comprehend, Balfour could not oppose him, especially as Free Trade was not the fetish to him that it is to Liberals: what he did was to temporise, and hold together, at the cost of much humiliation to himself and damage to his position, the party which Chamberlain would have torn asunder and led two thirds of it down a blind alley into a pit. His reward was to be driven from the leadership a few years later by those two thirds. Page 64. The only occasion when Churchill came down to fight in the Central division of Birmingham was in 1885, before a Unionist party existed. In 1889, when Bright died, he did not come down, and the reason was Chamberlain, who was not going to have another cock crowing on his dunghill. On April 2, when the writ was moved, Hartington came to Churchill and said that Chamberlain was furious and in a state of extreme irritation. The question was decided straight away by a meeting of Chamberlain, Hartington, and Hicks Beach, Churchill having declared that he would accept their decision. That Balfour, who was then Chief Secretary for Ireland, had even an opportunity of hearing about it before it was settled is hardly possible. He was afterwards sent down to Birmingham to pacify the Conservatives there and persuade them to vote for Chamberlain’s nominee; so I think your report of Chamberlain’s remarks on the subject makes him out a very impudent dog. Your affectionate brother (though I have received a press-cutting which authoritatively states that we are not brothers). A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 178–9, where it is presented as the continuation of the first paragraph of the letter of 5 Dec. 1922. Maas, 208, separates the letter off properly, but gives it the imprecise date ‘circa 7 December 1922’.

TO D O U G L A S G O L D R I N G Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Dec. 1922 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your book on Flecker,1 which is interesting as a record and contains, if I may say so, discriminating criticism.

1

James Elroy Flecker: An Appreciation, with some biographical notes (1922).

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22 December 1922

I shall be pleased to see you when you are in Cambridge. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Douglas Goldring Esq. | 19 Taviton Street | Gordon Square | W. C. 1’.

TO S I R JA M E S BA R R I E Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Dec. 1922 Dear Sir James Barrie, It is kind of you to write as you do,1 and I on my part was very grateful to Whibley2 for bringing us together, as he had long promised he would. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS MA 3568 R.V. Autographs Misc. English.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Dec. 1922 My dear Withers, Your generous enthusiasm is very nice, but I have not myself felt more than a faint pleasure in the success of the book, which is not really a matter of much importance. I was pleased by letters I had from Masefield and others. Lewis,1 as perhaps you know, had a long and severe illness this year; and although he is now quite chirpy, I think he is rather shaken. His pronunciation is less distinct, and he is less regular in coming to Combination Room.

1

Barrie wrote on 15 Dec. 1922: ‘Dear Mr Houseman [sic], Though I have made such poor use of my opportunity, owing to my being an uncommon dreary character, to meet you last night was a great thing to me. That was mainly what I journeyed to Cambridge for with Charles Whibley’s kindly help, and I am very glad I went. My admiration for your poems passes words. Yours sincerely J. M. Barrie’. The letter was printed in Scribner’s cat. 110 (1936), no. 1233A, where it is described as a ‘letter, so often misquoted’: on which, see Naiditch (2005), 26–7. 2 Leonard Whibley (1863–1941). Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, 1889–1941; University Lecturer in Ancient History, 1899–1910; published Companion to Greek Studies (1905), and, with P. J. Toynbee, an edn. of the letters of Thomas Gray (3 vols., 1935). 1 William James Lewis (1847–1926), Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge since 1881.

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Letters 1872–1926

You do not say anything about your own health, nor whether you have had or are going to have an operation. I hope silence means that things are not going badly. With kind regards to Mrs Withers I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. 2 I met the Rector (or Vicar) of Croughton at Eton some months ago. SCO MS. Withers, 47 (excerpt); Maas, 209.

TO J O H N D R I N K WAT E R Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Dec. 1922 My dear Mr Drinkwater, There are only two complete translations of Horace’s odes which I have done more than glance at, and of those I think Conington’s1 better, though less showy, than Theodore Martin’s:2 closer to the sense, and nearer, though of course not near enough, to Horace’s manner. The most poetical versions of Horace which I have come across are Calverley’s in his Verses and Translations,3 and they are as close as Conington’s; but they are too Tennysonian to be very Horatian. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Conington’s translations of Horace’s satires and epistles4 are among the best verse translations in English. Marquette University MS (Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, series 5, box 4). Maas, 209.

2 Identified by Maas, 209, as the Revd John Willis Price (1872–1940): ‘novelist and writer of verse; Vicar of Croughton, 1912–1940’. 1 The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace, translated into English verse by John Conington (1863). Conington (1825–69), was the first Corpus Christi Professor of Latin at Oxford, 1854–69, and known chiefly as a Virgil scholar. 2 The Odes of Horace, translated into English verse, with a life and notes, by Theodore Martin (1860). Martin (1816–1909) was an eminent man of letters. He published translations of Catullus (1861), Dante’s Vita Nuova (1862), Goethe’s Faust (1865–6), and Heine (1878), among others; collaborated with William Aytoun on Bon Gaultier Ballads (1845, etc.); and prepared a life of the Prince Consort for Queen Victoria (5 vols., 1875–80). He was knighted in 1880. 3 Verses and Translations, by C. S. C. [Charles Stuart Calverley] (1862, etc.) Calverley (1831–84) was elected Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1857, and called to the Bar in 1865. He published a translation of Theocritus (1869), but is best remembered for his light verse and parodies, which include Fly Leaves (1872, and subsequent edns.). 4 The Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica of Horace, translated into English verse by J. Conington (1870).

531

29 December 1922

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1922 My dear Richards,] The wine has arrived, and I am very grateful.1 There is a great amateur of sherry in this college, with whom I must sample it. I am prepared to receive royalty from America for the sale of A Shropshire Lad. I suppose it will be the same as for Last Poems. In the copies of the small Shropshire Lad which you sent me a few weeks ago the corrections I gave you have not been made. Is that the case with all the 5000 (or whatever it was) which you had printed lately? A happy new year to you and yours. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 206; Maas, 210.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Dec. 1922 My dear Kate, I hope your lumbago has gone or is going, and that you and Edward are about to begin a happy new year. I return Jerry’s letter, and am glad of his success: also the Edwardian1 (for which also thanks) as I believe you are short of copies. The artist in Punch is one Bert Thomas. He asked Grant Richards for a photograph, which I would not send,2 and I think he had to depend on one of Rothenstein’s drawings of me. Janet’s nephew is to go to Worcester Grammar school: so Rosalie told me in a letter which I forwarded to Basil, as she appeared to intend.

1 ‘We sent him some sherry as a Christmas present—sherry from John Fothergill’s cellar at The Spreadeagle at Thame’: Richards, 205. 1 The magazine of King Edward’s School, Bath, where KES’s husband Edward was headmaster. 2 See AEH to GR, 11 Oct. 1922, and n. 1.

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Letters 1872–1926

The notice of Mr Millington in the Times,3 which I thought good, though it left out some points, was by Paul Roberts, now Vice-Provost of Worcester College.4 I am well, except that I am eating and drinking too much. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS; Richards, 202 (excerpt). 3 4

The unsigned obituary of Herbert Millington: The Times, 21 Dec. 1922, 12. Paul E. Roberts (1873–1949), Tutor in Modern History.

1923 TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS I suppose the Braille people1 may do Last Poems as they did the other book. The blind want cheering up. Yours A. E. Housman. 10 Jan 1923. Trin. Coll. Camb. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2’. Richards, 207; Maas, 210.

TO F. W. H A LL I have told Arnold that I can send him six or eight pages about the middle of February.1 A. E. H. 15 Jan. 1923 Trin. Coll. Camb. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4: p.c. addressed ‘F. W. Hall, Esq. | St John’s College | Oxford’. Maas, 210.

TO A. W. POLLARD Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Jan. 1923 My dear Pollard, Jackson1 died peacefully on Sunday night in hospital at Vancouver, where he had gone to be treated for anaemia, with which he had been ailing for some years. I had a letter from him on New Year’s Day, which he ended by saying ‘goodbye’. Now I can die myself: I could not have 1

The National Institute for the Blind. Edward [Vernon] Arnold (1857–1926), Professor of Latin at the University College of North Wales, was co-editor with Hall of CQ. It looks as though Hall had heard AEH read a paper and asked him to send it to CQ, and that Arnold rejected it (AEH to Hackforth, 12 Mar. 1931 and note). The only article by AEH in CQ in 1923 or subsequent years is ‘Dorotheus Once More’, CQ 17. 1, and it occupies only two pages of print (53–4). 1 Moses Jackson: see List of Recipients. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

borne to leave him behind me in a world where anything might happen to him. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 18 January 1923 My dear Richards,] Did you succeed in finding out Witter Bynner’s address and send him a copy of Last Poems?1 I have a letter from him which reads as if he had not received one.2 I am told that the Brighter London Society3 are printing Lovat Fraser’s illustrations to A Shropshire Lad 4 on calendar covers. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 207.

TO W. H . S H E W RI NG Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Jan. 1923 Dear Mr Shewring, The Fragment of a Greek Tragedy was published in Cornhill in 1901, I think; at any rate in one of the early years of the century.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Tipped-in on the flyleaf of the 1914 Riccardi Press edn. of ASL (paper copy no. 800), with envelope addressed ‘W. H. Shewring Esq. | 7 Birchwood Road | St Anne’s Park | Bristol’ tipped-in on front inside cover. 1

See AEH to GR, 16 Sept. 1922, n. 1. GR duly wrote to Bynner on 24 Jan. 1923. Richards, 207: ‘he did receive his copy all right, but … he was a man who moved about a great deal’. 3 The Times, 18 Jan. 1922: ‘A society, as announced yesterday in The Times, has now been formed to make London a more cheerful and a more beautiful place. It is called the Brighter London Society … It is, however, concerned with more than the beauty of the Metropolis. It aims at creating within it more of the holiday atmosphere that may be found in the big cities on the Continent.’ 4 See AEH to GR, 20 Dec. 1920. 1 It appeared in The Cornhill Magazine,  10 (Apr. 1901), 443–5, having first been published in The Bromsgrovian,  2. 5 (8 June 1883), 107–9. See Poems (1997), 531–2. 2

535

2 February 1923

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Jan. 1923 My dear Kate, They have sent me these, which had better be in your possession. I am ordering the Catalogue to be sent to you: if it does not arrive in a few days, scream. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BCD: The Journal of the Book Club of Detroit, 3. 1 (Spring 1978), 22.

TO P RO F E S S O R K A R L B R E U L Trinity College 25 Jan. 1923 Dear Professor Breul, I shall be delighted to be your guest at King’s on Feb. 13 at 8 o’ clock. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 2 Feb. 1923 My dear Richards, Lord Henry Bentinck1 can have what he wants. I have heard from Witter Bynner that he has received his copy. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS.

1

Lord Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (1863–1931).

536

Letters 1872–1926

TO P RO F E S S O R O. L . R I C H M O N D Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Feb. 1923 Dear Richmond, I am really grateful to you and Grierson1 for your kind intentions, and to you for your very pretty letter, and I do not lack veneration for the University of Edinburgh nor appreciation of the honour which her degrees confer; but it is an old resolve of mine, the reasons for which it would be tedious and in some respects difficult to set forth, not to accept such compliments from any quarter. I am also obliged to you for giving me private warning; for when matters have been allowed to go as far as the academical senate it causes one a good deal of embarrassment. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 6 Feb. 1923 Dear Witter Bynner, You sent me your Canticle of Pan,1 and I ought to have thanked you for it if I did not; but I am afraid you are not the only person who has reason to complain of my ungracious silence. The fact is that I have a strong tendency to postpone writing all letters; and so it often happens that they do not get written at all, because I have gradually come to fancy that I have written them because I ought to have written them. Thanks for what you say about my last volume.2 The sale is larger than I expected, though I expected a larger sale than the publishers and booksellers did.3 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071 (17). Bynner/Haber (1957), 21–2; Maas, 211. 1 Herbert [John Clifford] Grierson (1866–1960), Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at Edinburgh University, 1915–35. 1 The Canticle of Pan And Other Poems (1920). 2 LP, published on 19 Oct. 1922. 3 Discouraged by booksellers, GR decided to print 4,000, not 5,000, copies. AEH had advised 10,000. By the end of 1922, 21,000 had been printed. See Richards, 200.

537

25 February 1923

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD If I did lay it down (which I do not remember) that composers were not to give titles of their own to my poems, they have broken the rule often before now, and it is no good adhering to it. A. E. Housman 14 Feb. 1923 Trin. Coll. Camb. LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘Messrs Grant Richards Ld. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’ Richards, 207; Maas, 211.

TO P E RC Y S I M P S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Feb. 1923 Dear Sir, I do not now clearly remember what proposals I made for restoring Jonson’s verses,1 but I remember that I was not at all satisfied with them; and therefore, though of course you are at liberty to use any suggestions which will fit in with your own reconstruction, I would rather that my name were not mentioned. What you say about the construction sounds as if it were right, but I have not the context in my memory. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Yale MS (Percy Simpson Papers, Osb MSS 8).

TO E . M . F O R S T E R Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Feb. 1923 Dear Mr Forster, It is very kind of you to write, and I value what you say. I remember meeting you, and the circumstances; and so perhaps this letter may find you even though you withold1 your address.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. KCC MS (EMF Library), tipped-in in Forster’s copy of LP (2nd impression, Oct. 1922). 1 Simpson and his wife Evelyn were completing work on the Oxford edn. (11 vols., 1925–52), begun by C. H. Herford, of the works of Ben Jonson. 1 For ‘withhold’. 2 Forster had written on 22 Feb. 1923 (BMC MS) to express ‘thankfulness from the bottom of my heart’ for AEH’s poetry and ‘the wish that you may be happy’. The meeting between

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Letters 1872–1926

TO P E RC Y S I M P S O N circularem is not ‘convincing’ to me in default of a context. I could not ascertain that philtram really was capable of meaning headgear; but perhaps you have. A. E. Housman. 2 March 1923 Trin. Coll. Camb. Yale MS (Percy Simpson Papers, Osb MSS 8): p.c. addressed to ‘Percy Simpson Esq. | Oriel College | Oxford’.

TO E R N E S T H A R R I S O N Trinity College 26 March 1923 Dear Harrison, uersant in Iuu. VI O 18 is not the word for turning in a particular direction: that would be uertunt: animum uersant would naturally mean the same as Hor. serm. I 8 19 uersant … humanos animos. Nor ought magistris to stray outside the clause in which discunt is. But, quite apart from these two points, I do not see how anyone could guess that the sense of the words is what R.1 says it is. ‘Heavy irony’ is litotes, and ‘characteristically’ and ‘Juvenalian’ are libel. You have spotted two of the metrical points in the C. R.:2 the others are these. p. 12a . It would not be a Sophoclean elision3 unless the preceding syllable were long; it would not even be possible; because, until one foot is full, nothing can overflow into the next. p. 13b . Do you know of any place where the first vowel of ᾿Ιόνιος is short?

Forster and AEH had taken place in the company of G. Lowes Dickinson and Roger Fry at Harry Norton’s house in Cambridge. Forster had withheld his address to preclude a reply. He wrote to AEH on 28 Mar. 1928 (BMC MS): ‘I don’t know whether there is such a thing as impersonal affection, but the words best express the feeling I have had towards you, through your poems, for the last thirty years, and I ask you to pardon this expression of it.’ 1 A note on the MS states that ‘P. 1 refers to a note on Juvenal by D. S. R.’ Naiditch (1995), 163, readily identifies D. S. Robertson. The note was not published, either in CR or CQ. 2 In Harrison’s article, ‘Aristophanes, Frogs, 1203’, CR 37. 1/2 (Feb.–Mar. 1923), 10–14. 3 Between lines in Greek iambics, to avoid a final tribrach.

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26 March 1923

p. 16a . Ag. 239 has no ‘metrical flaw’ except in the imagination of the ignorant and immodest Agar,4 and similar folk. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11217 . Maas, 417.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 26 March 1923 My dear Kate, Thanks for your letter on my birthday with its enclosures. I may as well sit down at once and answer it, not being much good for anything else. For the last three weeks I have been about as ill as I ever have been in the course of a fairly healthy life with boils on the neck and a carbuncle on the back; though I daresay poor Basil has often been worse. The doctor says I am better today, and I think perhaps I am. It is very pleasant to see how happy and active Jerry is: he seems to have found his vocation. I don’t exactly know what his office is,1 nor whereabouts he is in the large province of Bengal: not far from Calcutta apparently. I had meant to spend this vacation in interesting work: now, as soon as I can get out, I shall probably have to waste the rest of it at the seaside. I receive, though I do not wish to, the Weekly Westminster 2 in which my verses are translated. The prize copy of Greek elegiacs had a false quantity in the second line: I did not read on to see if there were more. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. 1. Memoir, 148; Maas, 211–12.

4 T. L. Agar, ‘Suggestions on the Agamemnon of Aeschylus’, CR 37. 1/2 (Feb.–Mar. 1923), 16–18. 1 In 1920, Kate’s son ‘Jerry’ had begun a career in the Indian Civil Service that was to last twenty-five years. In 1931 he was made Secretary to the Bengal Board of Revenue; in 1934, Secretary to the Governor of Bengal. For further information, see Jo Hunt’s obituary tribute: HSJ 12 (1986), 1–8. 2 Cf. AEH to GR, 20 Sept. 1922.

540

Letters 1872–1926

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 23 April 1923  . | --, | . My dear Kate, I am better, and have been staying here since the 19th ; to-morrow I go back. Thanks for your instalment of history: it is now at Cambridge, but I will send it back. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 4 .

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 28 April 1923 Dear Sir, I have been unwell for many weeks, and my letter-writing is much behind-hand; so in thanking you for your kindness in sending me your Greek versions I must apologise for not having thanked you before. I am yours truly A. E. Housman. Text as printed in Waiting for Godot Books, cat. 35 (Feb. 1996), no. 619.

TO P R I N C E S S M A R I E LO U I S E V I C TO R I A Trinity College | Cambridge 1 May 1923 Madam, I willingly give my permission for the printing of the poems which I selected in The Book of the Dolls’ House Library.1 I am, Madam, Your Highness’s obedient servant A. E. Housman. Private MS.

1

See the next letter.

541

4 May 1923

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College| Cambridge 4 May 1923 My dear Richards, I wish, if you can, you would stop the Westminster 1 (Saturday) setting poems of mine to be turned into Greek and Latin. They will soon have reprinted the whole volume. What makes it worse is that they award prizes to copies containing false quantities. My old, dear, and intimate friend Princess Marie Louise, who is furnishing the Queen’s doll’s-house,2 asked me some months ago to let 12 poems of mine be copied small to form one volume in the library; and I selected the 12 shortest and simplest and least likely to fatigue the attention of dolls or members of the illustrious House of Hanover. Now she says that there is to be printed a book describing or reproducing the contents of this library, and asks me to allow these poems to be included in it; and I have consented. So do not send a solicitor’s letter to the Queen (for the book is to be hers) when it appears. The issue is to be 2000 copies in this country and 500 for America, and the Queen is to do what she likes with the proceeds. As I say, the poems are my shortest, and the 12 together are 96 lines. I have to thank you for sending me several things, including Mrs Taylor’s book on the renascence,3 which I find I can read, though what she writes is not prose. I think her verse is better, though it has not much beyond mere gorgeousness. I have been ill for two months, worse than I ever was in my life (though that may not be saying much), with carbuncles, which I never had before and do not want to have again. At last I am better, but it has ruined my Easter holiday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 207–8; Maas, 212 (both incomplete).

1

See AEH to GR, 23 Sept. 1922. Designed by Sir Edward Lutyens and decorated by Philip Connard, A. R. A., and now exhibited at Windsor Castle. E. V. Lucas advised on the choice of books for the library. Apart from AEH’s, each book contained a specially commissioned story. Maas, 212, notes that only Bernard Shaw refused to oblige. 3 Aspects of the Italian Renaissance by Rachel Annand Taylor. Published by GR in 1923. Richards, 208 n.: ‘It was Dr. Gilbert Murray who first drew Housman’s attention to Mrs. Taylor’s work—to her poetry rather than her prose, which had not then been published. She was a warm admirer of Housman’s work.’ 2

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Letters 1872–1926

TO H E T T I E G R AY BA K E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 9 May 1993 Dear Miss Baker, I wish I could return your kindness, but I have no bookplate of my own. I have written my name on one of yours as you request, and enclose it. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. One of her bookplates bears the signature ‘A. E. Housman.’

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 May 1923 My dear Withers, For nearly three months I have been ill, not on a scale which would inspire your respect, but enough to make me very angry and disgusted, and in fact worse than I ever was in my life. It has been a succession of carbuncles, which I thought had ended a week ago, but it had not. At present I am not in a case to accept hospitality, and, in particular, your cellar would be almost as bad for me as for you. I had thought of proposing to call on you when I motor into Gloucestershire on June 4, but it is now settled that I shall go by another route. When I come back, about June 20, it appears that you will not be at home; so I cannot hope for anything nearer than July, /as I don’t want to leave Cambridge again till the vacation term begins./ When I saw the invention of Insulin1 I thought of you, and I expected to hear that you were cured already. I hope you will be soon; and then we will try if our Audit ale2 can make you ill again. I doubt its power, for it is not as good as it was before the war. How about your book?3 My kind regards to Mrs Withers and many thanks to both of you for the kindness of your invitation. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 213. 1 Anti-diabetic hormone obtained by Canadian surgeon and physiologist Frederick G. Banting and C. H. Best, who first successfully treated a human being in Jan. 1922. 2 Strong ale supplied to TCC by E. Lacon and Company. The audit was the annual check of the college’s finances, and TCC celebrated the occasion with a feast: see Naiditch (2005), 25. 3 Friends in Solitude (1923).

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22 May 1923

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 21 May 1923 Dear Gow, Yes, I shall be grateful for your spare Porson.1 I hope I am getting better. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11218 .

TO DR P. H . COW E LL Trinity College | Cambridge 22 May 1923 Dear Sir, I believe that your Office kindly allows its assistants to undertake for private payment astronomical calculations for those who cannot easily perform them themselves, and I should be very grateful if I could thus be supplied with answers to the questions which I have set out on the next page.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Dr Cowell Superintendent Nautical Almanac Office At the date XVI kal. Febr. A.U.C. 705 = 15 Jan. 49 B.C., which, according to most chronologers, corresponds, in the reformed calendar, to 28 Nov. /50/ B.C., when the sun had lately entered Sagittarius: in what degrees of what zodiacal signs were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus situated? Was Mercury /either/ stationary or retrograde? If not, what are the nearest dates, before and after, at which he was stationary? And how 1

Probably one of his edns. of Euripides. Cowell wrote five letters to AEH in 1923 (SJCO MSS). His help is acknowledged in AEH’s edition of Lucan (1926), 326. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

long does he usually remain stationary? and at what intervals does he become so? Private MS. On the last page, ‘either’ and the final question are in pencil.

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 31 May 1923 Dear Mrs Richards, I hope to get to Bigfrith by 1 o’ clock on Saturday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Richards, 208 (nearly complete).

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 22 June 1923 Dear Hall, I am sorry if I have kept you waiting, but I have been three weeks in the country. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Private MS.

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 2 July 1923 My dear Bridges, Thanks for the enquiries, and also for what you say of my poems. The title of the next volume will be Posthumous Poems or Chansons d’Outre-tombe.1 Before the end of the month I hope to go abroad: till then I am here, as I do not think myself quite well enough to stay with people, and I am taking periodical inoculations; but I should be quite able to look after you properly if you could find time to stay as my guest in Trinity, and we should all be pleased and honoured. I expect to be back again before 1 ‘Songs from beyond the Tomb’, by analogy with Chateaubriand’s Mémoires d’Outre-tombe (1849–50).

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24 July 1923

the end of August, and by then I ought to be quite well. There is nothing now to prevent me from running over to Oxford for the day, except on a Thursday, if you could not find time to come here. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 108–9. Maas, 213–14.

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 5 July 1923 My dear Bridges, I am not likely to go abroad before the 31st ,—if then; for they are making such a fuss about my passport that I apprehend war with France is imminent; so there would be plenty of time for you to favour me with a visit here. If you have not yet slept in our Guest Room, emblazoned by Sir William Harcourt1 with the emblems of his descent from the Plantagenets, I think you ought. But if not, I certainly should be pleased to pay you a visit in September. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 110. Maas, 214.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 24 July 1923 My dear Richards, This proceeding of the Weekly Scotsman, with its mutilation and misprint, is intolerable.1 As to the Westminster, it did, to my surprise, set a piece from A Shropshire Lad for translation a few weeks ago; and I thought perhaps your embargo had been confined to the other book. But I am told by those who read the paper that the translations have never appeared; so I suppose you have terrorized it somehow. 1 1827–1904. Son of William Vernon Harcourt and descended from the twelfth-century Robert de Harcourt, whose wife was a cousin of Adela of Louvain, second wife of King Henry I. Statesman; elected Honorary Fellow of TCC in 1904. 1 On 21 July it printed The Deserter (LP XIII). There was no apology.

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Letters 1872–1926

I shall cross to Paris on the 31st by the Handley Page2 from Croydon at 4. 30. I shall stay at the Continental for about 3 days, and then, I think, go by train to Le Mans and engage a car there, which will be cheaper than in Paris. My idea is to follow the south coast3 and come back by the north. Thanks for all your maps, books and other aids. If we are in Paris together, I probably should not be free in the evenings but should be during the day. I am afraid I cannot come up to town this week. The Poet Laureate is paying me a visit on Thursday. I suppose I gave Christabel Marillier permission,4 but I forget, and it does not matter. Boosey5 have suddenly enriched me with £6 for gramophone rights, Vaughan Williams I think.6 Your not sending me a cheque is not inconvenient to me but it is demoralising for you, especially as you ought to be wallowing in wealth from the enhanced sale of A Shropshire Lad. The American advance you obviously should have sent straight on to me. I read through the Bookman you sent me a week or two ago, and it may have improved my mind, but I did not make out why you sent it.7 I hope you will keep your end up with Frank Harris. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 208–9; Maas, 214–15 (both incomplete). Excerpt from autograph MS reproduced in facsimile in Verlyn Klinkenborg, British Literary Manuscripts. Series II: from 1800 to 1914. Catalogue. (1981), opposite p. 112.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Hˆotel Continental | Paris 18 Aug. 1923 My dear Kate, Your letter reached me here yesterday on my return from a motor tour of a fortnight in Britanny.1 The weather has been most obsequious; blazing hot all the time while motor-travel could temper it, and turning 2 Aircraft. One crashed at Boulogne in 1920, and there would be other crashes: two in the English Channel (1926, 1929), one at Abbeville (1928). 3 Of Brittany. 4 For her setting of Loveliest of trees (ASL II), published in 1923. 5 Messrs Boosey & Hawkes, music publishers. 6 Gervase Elwes’s fine recording in March 1917 of Vaughan Williams’s song cycle On Wenlock Edge greatly increased the cycle’s popularity: Banfield (1985), 236. 7 In ‘Two New Composers’, The Bookman, 381 ( June 1923), 170–1, Watson Lyle reviewed settings by C. W. Orr of ASL XXXIX (’Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town), II (Loveliest of trees), XLVII (The Carpenter’s Son), and VI (When the lad for longing sighs). 1 For ‘Brittany’.

547

10 September 1923

cool now that heat would be a nuisance. Britanny is much less wild than I supposed, and much like parts of England, the neighbourhood of Midhurst for instance, though not so hilly. The churches and cathedrals are better than I had any idea of, and extraordinarily numerous. You would be more interested in the varieties of the female head-dress, which is different for every district. Finisterre is an impressive headland, and provided a fine sunset, and also a Scotch mist. The coast scenery in general is extraordinarily superior to the English in its mixture of land and water, and the islands and rocks. Carnac is almost as unimpressive as Stonehenge. Together with your letter I have one from some photographers, who say that they are taking, ‘for press purposes’, photographs of ladies and gentlemen who are in the habit of flying between London and Paris, and they want to take mine, as they ‘understand that I have also had that distinction’. I was delayed a day because the weather of July 31 was too dangerous for the aeroplane to start; but on August 1 I had the best voyage I have ever had. We crossed the Channel 7000 feet high, higher than the piles of clouds which lay over both shores, and both coasts were visible at once, which I have not found before. I am better, but not well. I spent the first half of June at Woodchester, and went over to Cheltenham to see J. R. Polson,2 whom I had not met for 30 years, and who seems very well and flourishing. I expect to return to Cambridge on the 28th . Love to all on the premises. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS 50 5 – 7 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 61 Prior Park Road | Bath | Angleterre’. Memoir, 149–50 (incomplete); Maas, 215.

TO H E R B E RT T H R I N G Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Sept. 1923 Dear Sir, I am obliged by your letter of the 6th inst. with its enclosures, and I enclose an application for membership of the Society of Authors. As regards the British Broadcasting Company, if what they want to broadcast are readings from my poems, I refuse my consent. In respect of 2 James Ronald Polson (b. 1859), was AEH’s contemporary at The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove, which he attended 1870–8. He studied medicine at Queen’s College, Birmingham, and practised as a doctor in Worcester.

548

Letters 1872–1926

musical settings I should not interfere nor exact any payment, but leave the decision in the hands of the composers. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Secretary The Society of Authors BMC MS.

TO H E R B E RT T H R I N G Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Sept. 1923 Dear Sir, I am flattered by the infatuation of the British Broadcasting Co., but I cannot entertain their proposal. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G E O RG E S U TC L I F F E Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Sept. 1923 Dear Sir, If you will be good enough to send the book here I shall be pleased to sign it. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘G. Sutcliffe Esq. | 1 Poland Street | Oxford Street | W. 1’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Sept. 1923 My dear Richards, I have seen a reply which your firm sent to Longmans when they asked if they might include two pieces from Last Poems in Bridges’ selection of poetry for schools.1 It is quite the sort of answer which I should wish you 1 The Chilswell Book of English Poetry compiled and annotated for the use of schools by Robert Bridges, Poet Laureate (published in 1924 by Longmans, Green & Company). It contained ASL XXXVII, XXXI, and XL, and LP XXXII and III.

549

7 October 1923

to write, though in point of fact I do not unconditionally prohibit the use of Last Poems as I do of A Shropshire Lad; but I have given Bridges my permission to include the two poems in question.2 I had better also tell you that I believe that he, (being Poet Laureate, and an unscrupulous character, and apparently such an admirer of my verse that he thinks its presence or absence will make all the difference to his book), intends to include three poems from A Shropshire Lad, though I have not given him my permission, because he thinks he has reason to think that I shall not prosecute him. Well, I shall not; and you will please turn a blind eye too. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS MA 3570 R.V. Autographs Misc. English. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’ Richards, 53; Maas, 216.

TO G E O RG E S U TC L I F F E Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Sept. 1923 Dear Sir, I return the book with my signature added, and with my compliments on its elegance. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘George Sutcliffe Esq. | 1 Poland Street | Oxford Street | W. 1’.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Oct. 1923 My dear Withers, I was glad to receive your letter and the gift of your book,1 with which I will make more acquaintance when I have finished reading Main Street,2 which I am doing at the request of an American, and find that it takes some time. I was hoping that you would carry out your threat of coming here 2 Acknowledged by Bridges in a letter to AEH, 25 Sept. 1923: The Selected Letters of Robert Bridges, ed. Donald E. Stanford, 2 (1984), 811–12. AEH’s letter is missing. 1 See AEH to Withers, 16 May 1923, n. 3. 2 Novel by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1920.

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Letters 1872–1926

this term and sampling our port, which at present is 1900 and very good. Although it seems that this is not to be, I am glad that you are progressing, and that Insulin is not a fraud.3 I am not well yet, though nearly so, I hope; but I hoped that at the beginning of August, and went abroad, and was attacked anew the very first day. However, I had what was on the whole a good time touring about Britanny4 in a motor, which mitigated what would otherwise have been the excessive heat. I found the country less wild than I expected, the stonehenges no more impressive than I expected, but the churches and cathedrals better than I had ever supposed to exist in that corner of France. Just at this moment I have sciatica in a mild form. Palgrave had to do without Swinburne,5 so I think Binyon can afford to do without me.6 My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. It is kind of you to invite me, but with two maladies on me I am likely to be staying at home most of this term. SCO MS.

TO M R CA S TE LLO Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Oct. 1923 Dear Castello, I return the book embellished with my signature. The omission of a comma and a semicolon which you note on p. 521 constitute the chief merit of this edition in the eyes of bibliophiles. One can no more keep printers in order than Job could bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades.2 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. University of North Carolina MS.

3

4 See AEH to Withers, 16 May 1923, n. 1. For ‘Brittany’. F. T. Palgrave’s anthology The Golden Treasury (1861; 2nd series, 1897) contained no work by Swinburne. See The Swinburne Letters, ed. Cecil Y. Lang, 6 (1962), 103 n. 6 The Golden Treasury of Modern Lyrics, ed. Laurence Binyon (1924) contained no work by AEH. 1 Of the first edn. of LP. 2 Job 38: 31: ‘Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?’ 5

551

21 October 1923

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Oct. 1923 My dear Kate, One of these enclosures concerns you; the other, though I do not suppose it refers to our family, you might perhaps send on to the genealogical cousin whose Christian name I forget. I hope I am now about right again, and I hope you and yours are well. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 8 .

TO A . S. F. G OW Thanks; but it is a mere reprint of the Aldine.1 The ed. princeps2 which I am after fetched £60 the last time it was up at auction. Yours A. E. Housman. Yes, I think I am fairly right at last. 17 Oct. 1923 Trin. Coll. Camb. TCC Add. MS c. 112 19 : p.c. addressed ‘Andrew Gow Esq. | 2 Common Lane | Eton’.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Oct. 1923 Dear Gow, Regiomontanus’ is the edition I want, and I did authorise Sotheby’s1 to bid for me up to £40 (the highest price it had yet fetched) on the occasion when it was bought for £60; but that was rather an act of extravagance on my part, as I can really get all I want out of it by paying a visit to the British Museum when I am about to produce a volume. Books that I want more, if you should happen to see them, are on the opposite page; I should be ready to pay any price which is likely to be asked for them. Do not

1 1

Edn. of Manilius. London auctioneers.

2

Regiomontanus (c.1472): see the next letter.

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Letters 1872–1926

bother to keep a look out for them: it is very kind of you to make the offer you do. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Manilius, Scaliger ed. 1600 ’’ E. Burton ed. 1783 ’’ T. Creech transl. 1697 or 1700 Paulus Alexandrinus, Witebergae, 1586 Salmasius, de annis climactericis, 1648 Procli in Ptolemaei Quadripartitum enarrationes, accedunt Porphyrii introductio etc., Basileae, 1559. [The full title is longer.]2 TCC Add. MS c. 112 20 . Maas, 417–18. The square brackets round the last sentence are AEH’s. Envelope addressed ‘Andrew Gow Esq. | 2 Common Lane | Eton’.

TO H . W. G A RRO D  , | . 2 Nov. 1923 Dear Mr Garrod, Many thanks for the gift of your Wordsworth,1 which I am reading with great interest and finding in it many things which I did not know. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘H. W. Garrod Esq. C.B.E. | Merton College | Oxford’.

TO P RO F E S S O R K A R L B R E U L Trinity College 2 Nov. 1923 Dear Professor Breul, It will give me great pleasure to dine with you at the King’s Audit on Nov. 15 at 8 o’ clock. Will you give me the further pleasure of dining with me at the same hour at our Audit feast on Thursday Dec. 6? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. 2 1

AEH acquired Scaliger’s edn. and Creech’s translation: Naiditch (2003), 126, 128. Wordsworth: Lectures and Essays (1923).

553

29 November 1923

TO E . V. LU CA S Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Nov. 1923 Dear Lucas, Thanks for your letter, which is the second I owe to the poet in the Times, whom I judge from his versification to be a very gallant soldier.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Berg MS. Tipped in on end-paper of copy of Introductory Lecture (1937 reprint) which bears Lucas’s signature. Maas, 216.

TO F. C. OW LE TT Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Nov. 1923 Dear Mr Owlett, I thank you for the magazine and article which you have sent me. When you find yourself in Cambridge I shall be pleased to see you; and if you send me a copy of A Shropshire Lad I shall be pleased to sign it. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO F. C. OW LE TT Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Nov. 1923 Dear Mr Owlett, I am going to Oxford to-morrow, and I am afraid that on Tuesday I may not be back in time to have the pleasure of seeing you. I think that there is a gallery at the Union1 from which non-members can hear the debates. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Eton MS: with ASL (1903) inscribed ‘A. E. Housman | 19 Nov. 1923’ on the half-title. Envelope addressed ‘F. C. Owlett Esq. | 82 West Hill | Sydenham | S. E. 20’. 1 On p. 17 of The Times, 1 Nov. 1923, appeared An Armistice Day Anthem by the Master of the Temple, the Revd William Henry Draper, MA. Its scansion leaves much to be desired. 1 The Oxford Union Debating Society.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO A . S. F. G OW No reference is required. It was not I who wrote about the passage in C. R., but a plagiarist knowing of my emendation and suppressing my name. A. E. H. 14 Dec. 1923 Trin. Coll. Camb. TCC Add. MS c. 112 21 : p.c. addressed ‘Andrew Gow Esq. | 2 Common Lane | Eton | Bucks.’

TO S I R CH A RLE S WA LS TO N Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Dec. 1923 My dear Walston, Thanks for your letter and its enclosure; but the pride and ample pinion of the Theban eagle1 are not more out of my reach than his readiness and fluency. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1923 My dear Withers, I am glad that Insulin has behaved well and not failed as these new infallible remedies do fail on occasion. I am sorry that it has not yet brought you to the level of drinking audit ale, because this year’s brew is quite good: last year’s was a powerful explosive, and filled our cellars with the shards of bottles till we sent it back to its brewer,1 for use in case Yarmouth were bombarded again;2 but there its strength ended, and you could probably have drunk it with impunity.

1 Pindar. Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy. A Pindaric Ode, 114–17: ‘Though he inherit | Nor the pride nor ample pinion, | That the Theban eagle bear | Sailing with supreme dominion | Through the azure deep of air.’ 1 See AEH to Withers, 16 May 1923, n. 2. 2 A minor bombardment of Yarmouth was carried out by a Zeppelin in Jan. 1915, a major one by German cruisers in 1916.

28 December 1923

555

I return you all good wishes for the new year, and I hope there may be nothing to prevent me from availing myself of your kind invitation in the warm months. I was pleased to see a very favourable review of your book3 not long ago in one of the weeklies. There is nothing the matter with me except too much alcohol and too little exercise, as usual in the winter. With kind regards to Mrs Withers I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 75 (excerpt); Maas, 216–17. 3

See AEH to Withers, 16 May 1923, n. 3.

1924 TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Jan. 1924 My dear Kate, This post-card comes in the nick of time to make me answer your letter. I am quite well now, except for a slight goutiness; but that is chronic, my friends, so do not grieve for me.1 I have been here since I came back from Britanny2 at the end of August, except that a month ago I went to Oxford to read a paper and stayed a week-end with the Poet Laureate3 on the top of Boar’s4 Hill there. He is an amazing old man: at 79 he gets up at 5 in the morning, lights his own fire and makes his coffee, and does a lot of work before breakfast. He has a large number of correct opinions, and is delighted when he finds that I have them too, and shakes hands with me when I say that the Nuns’ Priest’s Tale5 is Chaucer’s best poem, and that civilisation without slavery is impossible. I am very sorry to hear of the break in Jerry’s6 career, which seemed to be proceeding so famously; and it is a pity that the wretched country of India should be deprived of his services. I do not yet know how much Denis7 was fined at Cambridge over the motor-car affair. I am glad you and Edward are so comfortable. I like the notion of coming to Bath some time this year. I believe the Pump-room hotel, which used to be a good one, is opened again; and that, I suppose, is not so very far from you. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 9 – 10 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 61 Prior Park Road | Bath’. T.s. extract, Lilly MSS 1. 1. 10. Memoir, 150 (incomplete); Maas, 217. 1 ‘ ‘‘Do not repine, my friends,’’ said Mr Pecksniff, tenderly. ‘‘Do not weep for me. It is chronic.’’ ’: Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. 9, following a drunken Sunday dinner at Todgers’s. 2 3 4 For ‘Brittany’. Robert Bridges. For ‘Boars’. 5 For ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’. 6 Her youngest son ‘Jerry’ was on his first leave from civil service work in India, and AEH entertained him as his guest at TCC: see HSJ 7 (1981), 7, 9. 7 Her second son, Arthur Denis Symons: see List of Recipients.

557

11 January 1924

TO A . S. F. G OW Trin. Coll. Camb. 9 Jan. 1924 Dear Gow, I am glad you are to be here at the end of next week. I am writing because you are lodged in the inner Guest Room, and I want to entertain the Family1 at dinner in the outer room on Friday Jan. 18, which I cannot do without your permission, for which I hereby sue. Will you yourself make one of the party? unless you prefer to dine in Hall. It is at 8 o’ clock. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I am writing with a sprained wrist. TCC Add. MS c. 112 22 . Maas, 218.

TO H . F. B. B R E T T- S M I T H 1 Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Jan. 1924 My dear Sir, I am obliged by your note and also by your poem. I would have written before if I had not sprained my wrist. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. MS inspected at Sotheby’s, London, 23 May 2004. Envelope addressed ‘H. F. B. Brett-Smith Esq. | Grantley Dene | Boscombe | Hants.’

1 Exclusive dining-club of resident Cambridge graduates, limited to twelve persons, which met on alternate Fridays in term-time. Members took turns to give a dinner. AEH, a connoisseur of food and wine, was elected a member in May 1919, and left the contents of his wine cellar to it in his will. Gow was not a member at this time, but became one later. Membership included A. C. Benson, R. V. Laurence, S. C. Roberts, and Sir J. J. Thomson, who notes in his Recollections and Reflections (1936), 314–15, 316, that AEH was ‘very seldom absent’ from the dinners and that ‘the dinners which he gave as a member … had, like everything he did, the air of distinction’. See S. C. Roberts, The Family (1967) for further information. 1 Oxford don notable principally for initiating, 1910–20, a collection of Restoration plays and dramatic literature.

558

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Jan. 1924 My dear Richards, I am going to write to Henry Holt & Co. to tell them to send my royalties direct to me in future.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2’, and marked ‘Private’.

TO P RO F E S S O R J. S. P H I L L I M O R E The month was April, the year 1901 or thereabouts. It1 was first published in a school magazine in 1884. Yrs A. E. Housman. Trin. Coll. Camb. 7 Feb. 1924. Private MS: p.c. addressed ‘Professor J. S. Phillimore | The University | Glasgow’.

TO A RT H U R S T J O H N A D C O C K Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Feb. 1924 Dear Sir, For many years I have been refusing permission to print poems from A Shropshire Lad in anthologies, and I am sorry that I cannot make an exception in your case. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. A. St John Adcock Esq. BMC MS. 1 Late in 1923 or early in 1924, Richards had failed to send American royalties to AEH, and this letter marks a change in their relationship: Naiditch (2005), 28, notes that from now until 30 Sept. 1924 ‘no letter from Housman to Richards himself is known; Housman’s letters are only to the firm’. 1 AEH’s parody Fragment of a Greek Tragedy, which was in fact first published in The Bromsgrovian,  2.5 (8 June 1883), 107–9. Among reprintings was that in The Cornhill Magazine,  10 (April 1901), 443–5. See Poems (1997), 531–2.

559

16 February 1924

TO A RT H U R S T J O H N A D C O C K Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Feb. 1924 Dear Sir, You are at liberty to print in your anthology1 one poem from my Last Poems. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. A. St John Adcock Esq. BMC MS.

TO G E O RG E RO S T R E VO R H A M I LTO N Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Feb. 1924 Dear Sir, You are at liberty to include in your anthology my Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries, but for many years I have been refusing permission to reprint poems from A Shropshire Lad. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. G. Rostrevor Esq. Bodleian MS Eng. lett. c. 272, fo. 34.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Feb. 1924 Dear Gow, I am very much obliged to you for your present of Creech’s Manilius,—the 1st edition too.1 The copies in the University Library require the Librarian’s signature to be taken out. Several of Ellis’s2 books have wandered to me through second-hand booksellers.

1 1 2

The Bookman Treasury of Living Poets (1926). It contained Sinner’s Rue (LP XXX). 1697 verse translation by Thomas Creech (1659–1700). Robinson Ellis. See List of Recipients.

560

Letters 1872–1926

I have a sprained wrist, in spite of which I hope to shake hands with you on March 2. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, with The Five Books of M. Manilius (1697).

TO A . S. F. G OW [Trinity College] Frontinus de aquis 13 anno post urbem conditam octingentesimo Kalendis Augustis The formula in inscriptions is P. R. C. ANN. anno urbis conditae is chiefly Pliny. A. E. H. 2 March 1924 Waseda MS, Gow e 64–1 (Gow P3/1), with Kühner, Ausf. Gram. 1 (Han. 1912), 838–9.

TO L I LY T H I C K N E S S E [Trinity College | Cambridge] 10 March 1924 Dear Mrs Thicknesse, Last year a French school-ma’m wrote to me wanting to translate A Shropshire Lad and asking what share of the proceeds I should expect. I replied that I should take nothing; but then mine is a character of unusual and almost disagreeable nobility. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Memoir, 206; Maas, 218.

561

18 March 1924

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 14 March 1924 Dear Sirs, I have never laid down any general rule against the inclusion of poems from Last Poems in anthologies. The rule regarding A Shropshire Lad still holds good. It is true that the Poet Laureate has printed three poems from it in his recent anthology,1 but he does not pretend that I gave him permission to do so. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 211; Maas, 218.

TO F. C. OW LE TT Trinity College | Cambridge 18 March 1924 Dear Mr Owlett, Gilbert Murray introduced me some 12 years ago to Mrs Taylor’s1 poems, and I admired the beauty and richness of their ornament. I do not put her first among living women poets in this country: I will not provoke your wrath and scorn by saying whom I do; especially as you have on your side ‘names from which there would be no appeal’. But there are no such names really: contemporary criticism is always fallible: think of Lamb and Shelley. It is very unreasonable for people to be depressed by unfavourable reviews: they should say to themselves ‘do I write better than Wordsworth and Shelley and Keats? am I worse treated than they were?’ I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Robert H. Taylor Collection). White (1950), 405; Maas, 219.

1 See AEH to GR, 23 Sept. 1923, and note. In The Chilswell Book of English Poetry (1924) Bridges makes acknowledgement of ‘the living authors who have allowed their poems to be printed’ and thanks them ‘individually for their generosity’; but he mentions neither AEH nor GR. 1 Rachel Annand Taylor: see AEH to Murray, 9 Dec. 1909, n. 1.

562

Letters 1872–1926

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College | Cambridge 24 April 1924 My dear Cockerell, Thanks for Middleton Murray’s1 article, returned herewith, which is worth reading; but he pauses over the silliest and most disgusting thing, the representation of Hardy as conceited and arrogant.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.).

TO TH E E DI TO R O F THE TIMES [Trinity College | Cambridge Before 8 May 1924] , ‘‘   ,’’ I., 97. Sir,—This poem was not printed in Keats’s lifetime, and his manuscript has been lost; but in the copy made under the direction of Woodhouse1 lines 97–101 of the first canto run as follows:— When in mid-way the sickening east wind Shifts sudden to the south, the small warm rain Melts out the frozen incense from all flowers, And fills the air with so much pleasant health That even the dying man forgets his shroud. When an east wind shifts to the south, whether ‘‘in mid-way,’’ whatever that may be taken to mean, or ‘‘in mid-day,’’ as Lord Houghton printed,2 the result which is here described does not necessarily nor even usually 1

For ‘Murry’s’. John Middleton Murry in ‘Wrap me up in my Aubusson Carpet’, The Adelphi, 1. 11 (Apr. 1924), 951–8, attacks the writings of George Moore, berating him in particular for his envy of Hardy. Moore claimed that Hardy, with false pride, would like to sit next to Shakespeare and Aeschylus in the next world. 1 Richard Woodhouse (1788–1834). ‘A nearly lifelong friend and legal and literary adviser to Keats’s publishers Talyor and Hessey, [he] made or directed various clerks in making no fewer than 182 of the surviving transcripts of Keats’s poems, and he was undoubtedly responsible for others that are now lost’: The Poems of John Keats, ed. Jack Stillinger (1978), 748. 2 Richard Monckton Milnes, first Baron Houghton (1809–85), educated at TCC, and friend of Tennyson, Hallam and Thackeray; established the Philobiblon Society, 1853; created baron, 1863. He published ‘Another Version of Keats’s ‘‘Hyperion’’ ’ in Biographical and Historical Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, 3 (1856–7; date on spine, 1857), and edns. of Keats’s poetry in 1854, 1871, 1876, and 1883. 2

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22 May 1924

follow. In order that rain may melt out incense from flowers, both flowers and incense must be there; and this condition is not fulfilled in any month between the autumnal and the vernal equinox. Such flowers as bloom in that half of the year are mostly scentless. Keats wrote ‘‘in mid-May,’’3 as in the Ode to a Nightingale he wrote ‘‘mid-May’s eldest child’’; and for confirmation the next lines are these:— Even so that lofty sacrificial fire, Sending forth Maian incense, spread around Forgetfulness of everything4 but bliss. A.E.H. TLS, 8 May 1924, 286; Maas, 219–20.

TO D. S. RO B E RT S O N Trinity College 22 May 1924 Dear Robertson, It is very good of you to send me your papers on the MSS of Apuleius. I had skimmed them in the C. Q.1 and have now looked at them more attentively, and I find your argument both successful and interesting. I was wrong when I told you that the bad handwriting would disqualify the written essay: I had wandered into the regulations about the Hare Prize2 on the same page. Perhaps you will let me know, verbally or otherwise, that you have received the essays. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

3

AEH was the first to propose the emendation. Strictly, ‘every thing’. AEH is using Milnes’s 1857 reading. 1 ‘The Manuscripts on the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. I’, CQ 18. 1 ( Jan. 1924), 27–42, and ‘The Manuscripts on the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. II’, CQ 18. 2 (Apr. 1924), 85–99. 2 Awarded annually at Cambridge University for a dissertation on a subject, proposed by the candidate and approved by the Faculty Board of Classics, which falls within the scope of the Faculty of Classics. 4

564

Letters 1872–1926

TO T H E O D O R E S P I C E R - S I M S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 27 May 1924. Dear Mr Spicer-Simson, I am glad to hear from you and it is kind of you to let me know of your return. I am going to France next week, but expect to be back before June 20, and I shall then be spending most of my time here till August, so that if you come to Cambridge before you leave the country you would probably find me here and I should be greatly pleased to see you. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Princeton MS: Gen. MSS. Bound (oversize), Spicer-Simson Am 17277, p. 85.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 27 May 1924 My dear Withers, I am going to France next week, but I expect to be back by June 20, and at any date in the month after that I should be free and joyful to come and stay a day or two. I am sorry you do not speak as if you were quite well yet. Ravenna, Perugia, and Siena are places I have not seen, and people who find out that, always assure me that they are the best in Italy. My kind regards to Mrs Withers: your successful daughter1 I do not think I have met, but still I congratulate her. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 83 (excerpt).

TO M E S S R S H E N RY H O LT & CO Trinity College | Cambridge | England 2 June 1924 Dear Sirs, I wrote to you last January requesting that, in the future, payments due from you to me should be made direct and not through Messrs Grant Richards Ltd.1 1 Audrey, who had been accepted to read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Somerville College, Oxford. See List of Recipients. 1 See AEH to GR, 12 Jan. 1924.

565

2 July 1924

By the terms of our agreement settlements of accounts up to each January and July are to be had on the 25th day of April and October respectively subsequent. A payment made by you to me on April 25 would in the natural course of things have reached me before now, and I therefore infer that none was made and that none was due, there having been no sale of my Last Poems in America between July 1923 and January ’24. I shall be obliged if you will inform me whether I am right. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Henry Holt & Co. Princeton MS (Henry Holt Papers, 58).

TO M A RY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 27 June 1924 Dear Mrs Withers, I am safely returned from a delightful stay, and I hope that you are not suffering from your strenuous afternoon. It was a great pleasure to me to find your husband so far on the way to recovery. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 2 July 1924 Dear Sirs, Mr Ramsay is at liberty to print the two poems with his Latin verses, but not to substitute a new title for Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 211.

566

Letters 1872–1926

TO I VO R G U R N E Y / Trinity College | Cambridge 22 July 1924 Dear Sir, You have my permission to publish your settings, with the words, of the eight poems included in your Song Cycle The Western Playland,1 and also of any others, with the restriction that no omission of lines must be made in any poem.2 I have always refused to allow the printing of the words of poems in concert programmes, and to this prohibition I must adhere. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Gloucester Library MS.

TO E D M U N D G O S S E Trinity College | Cambridge 24 July 1924 My dear Gosse, It would be kind of you if in some odd moment you would look through these translations and say what you think of them. They are by a Dane in America, H. Troller Steenstr˘up who wants to translate my poems and says that perhaps I am acquainted with Mr Edmund Gosse, who is excellently well versed in Danish, and might induce him to compare the original with the translations to decide if he is qualified for the work.1 I assure you that my request is not prompted by rancour at receiving this morning a circular from you asking for a contribution to the W. P. Ker Memorial, when I had sent one more than a week ago. I daresay you thought it insufficient, or perhaps it was embezzled by Gregory Foster,2 who signed the receipt.

1 The Western Playland (and of Sorrow), a song cycle for baritone voice, string quartet, and piano (composed 1919; published 1926). It consisted of Reveille (ASL IV), Loveliest of Trees (ASL II), Golden Friends (ASL LIV), Twice a Week (ASL XVII), The Aspens (ASL XXVI), Is my team ploughing? (ASL XXVII), The Far Country (ASL XL), and March (ASL X). Gurney had set other poems by AEH to music in Ludlow and Teme (1919). 2 This was observed. Apart from the addition of titles to six poems, there were alterations such as ‘through’ for ‘thorough’ in XVII 1 and ‘in clover clad’ for ‘with clover clad’ in XXVI 19. 1 2 The translation was never published. See List of Recipients

567

30 July 1924

Please give my kind regards to Mrs Gosse. I see that Philip3 has been writing a successful book.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL MS Ashley B. 903, fos. 47–8. Maas, 220–1.

TO C . A . A L I N G TO N Trinity College | Cambridge 24 July 1924 My dear Headmaster, In consequence of your flattering request I have been looking at my verses,1 and I think them so much inferior to the Loves of the Triangles that I am not willing to have them published. Do not tell me that there is much more vanity than modesty in this, because I know it already. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11223 . Gow, 22 n. (excerpt); Maas, 220.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 30 July 1924 My dear Kate, Thanks for your letter. I think of coming to Bath on Monday Aug. 18 and staying for 3 weeks. As you kindly offer to see about rooms, I shall be glad if you will. I think you said that the hotel made out of the old Bath College would be the nearest to you, and the situation at any rate is pleasant. But I shall want a sitting room as well as a bed-room, and it must

3

4 Philip Gosse: see List of Recipients. The Pirates’ Who’s Who (1924). 1 Beginning ‘See on the cliff fair Adjectiva stand’: Poems (1997), 265–7. AEH included them in a paper on Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) which he read to the UCL Literary Society before the close of the term in Mar. 1899. He gave the paper again, on 29 Nov. 1907 at UCL and at Eton in 1922: Naiditch (1988), 147. The Loves of the Triangles, by George Canning and others, is a parody principally of The Loves of the Plants (1789), the second part of Darwin’s The Botanic Garden, and was published in The Anti-Jacobin (16 and 23 Apr. and 7 May 1798). AEH’s verses were published in The University College Gazette, 2. 20 (2 Feb. 1899), 34, and Naiditch (1988), 147, notes that the issue in fact contains references to events of 3 and 14 Mar. AEH refused publication similarly to E. V. Lucas, and to Geoffrey Tillotson in 1935: Tillotson, Essays in Criticism and Research (1942), 159. See the letter to G. M. Trevelyan, 18 Oct. 1929.

568

Letters 1872–1926

depend on whether they can furnish that.1 I am not sure if lodgings might not be better than an hotel, and I suppose they might be got even nearer to you. I do not limit you to any particular price, and I am prepared to go even to the Empire (or Imperial) if necessary. I hope by now you are both, or all, safe home from Wales, and the better for your holiday. I have managed to get sciatica, but it is passing away. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 11 – 12 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 61 Prior Park Road | Bath’. Maas, 221.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 6 Aug. 1924 Dear Witter Bynner, Many thanks for your friendly letter and flattering poem.1 I cannot write sonnets myself, but I suppose the next best thing is to be the cause of sonnets. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/18. Bynner/Haber (1957), 23; Maas, 221.

1 AEH stayed at the Spa Hotel, Bath, ‘for a change of air while he finished some writing on which he was engaged. A writing-room was provided for him with a pleasant outlook that pleased him well and did him good’: More Memories of A.E.H. by Mrs E. W. Symons (1936), 4. 1 Published in The New Republic, 2 July 1924; To A. E. Housman: While Shropshire rises, lyrical and sweet, | Lived in and loved in, more than merely read, | A rainfall on the gable overhead | Becomes your rhythm. In the hollow street, | Alternate passers-by and lulls repeat | Your changes. I can hear the happy tread | Of lovers, and the silence of the dead, | Motionless under newer lovers’ feet. | So subtile, deep and true you consecrate | Your song, decking with laurel and with bay | The deathful face of youth, that Shropshire hills, | When I am ageing and the hour is late, | Will shine again with dawn and hush my clay | And quit me clean of these maturing ills.

569

2 September 1924

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S The Spa Hotel | Bath 27 Aug. 1924 My dear Bridges, I am glad you are safe home from America,1 where I hope you have lit a candle or sown seed. They are terribly docile, but have not much earth, so it is apt to wither away.2 I am here till Sept. 8, when I shall greedily be returning to urgent and agreeable work. But as you are kind enough to ask me, will you put me up for that night? It is half way home and will be a pleasant halt. I could get to you before 1 o’ clock, and should be moving on about 2 o’ clock on the next day. Do not get up a dinner party for me, because I have no proper clothes. My kind regards to Mrs Bridges. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 117–18. Maas, 221–2.

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N The Spa Hotel | Bath 2 Sept. 1924 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, It is very good of you to write to me, and I am glad to see that you are at Oakridge again, which I know you like better than London. But I am afraid there is no chance of my seeing you there this year. I am now at the end of my holidays; in a few days I shall be going to Robert Bridges at Oxford, and thence back to Cambridge and my proper pursuits. I have not been at Woodchester this year, except for one afternoon. My June holiday I took in France, at the time of the Presidential election, when I hoped to witness a French revolution; but on the crucial day it rained continuously and damped their spirits.1 I am sorry your daughter’s health 1 Where he had been a visiting lecturer at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for three months from 22 Mar. 1924. He received honorary degrees at Michigan and Harvard. 2 Mark 4: 5–6 (the parable of the sower): ‘And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth and … because it had no root, it withered away.’ 1 The Radicals and Socialists who held the balance of power following the parliamentary elections of May 1924 refused to take office under the presidency of Alexandre Millerand. He resigned, and on 13 June the National Assembly elected Gaston Doumergue as his successor.

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Letters 1872–1926

is such a trouble.2 I have no doubt William will bring home some grave and weighty studies of Alps and Swiss peasants rendered invisible by rain. There has been a good deal of invisibility in England for the last month, but I hope you are well and none the worse for it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 42.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Sept 1924 Mr Williams may be allowed to use the poem as he wants to. A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO J. B. P R I E S T L E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Sept. 1924 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your book,1 parts of which I had read with pleasure in periodicals. I can easily swallow all the flatteries brewed by you and F. L. Lucas;2 but I wish people would not call me a Stoic.3 I am a Cyrenaic;4 and 2 The Rothensteins’ eldest daughter Rachel suffered from a chronic illness. In the summer of 1923 and again early in 1926 her father took her to Leysin and Rapallo for sun and warmth: Rothenstein, Since Fifty: Men and Memories, 1922–1938 (1940), 27, 48. 1 Figures in Modern Literature (1924), a collection of essays on nine authors, including AEH, repr. from The London Mercury. For the 1922 essay on AEH, see Critical Heritage, 136–53. 2 1894–1967. Essayist and critic. Fellow of KCC, 1920–67. He published an essay on AEH, ‘Few, but Roses’, in New Statesman and Nation, 23 (20 Oct. 1923) 45–7; repr. in Dial, 71 (Sept. 1924), 201–8, in Lucas’s Authors Dead and Living (1926), and in Critical Heritage, 178–86. 3 Priestley had described him as ‘a Stoic, but one not disdainful, in some moods, of the opposite camp’, and noted that his mood could harden into ‘Senecan despair’. Lucas quoted from Matthew Arnold’s To a Gipsy Child by the Sea-shore: ‘Is the calm thine of stoic souls, who weigh | Life well, and find it wanting, nor deplore’. Stoicism was a school of philosophy founded at Athens c.300 . It advocated living in harmony with Nature (or divine reason), which controls everything, and maintained that everything else, including death, is indifferent. 4 A follower of the school of philosophy probably founded (at Cyrene) by the grandson of the pupil of Socrates, Aristippus. Its doctrines were that immediate pleasure is the only end of action, but that pleasures must be carefully selected so as not to prove painful; that knowledge is based on sensation; and that the present moment is the only reality.

22 September 1924

571

for the Stoics, except as systematisers of knowledge in succession to the Peripatetics,5 I have a great dislike and contempt. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman Texas MS. Maas, 222.

TO TH E E DI TO R O F THE TIMES Sir,—In to-day’s Illustrated London News there are reproduced in facsimile the four lines which Dr. Max Funke says that Dr. di Martino-Fusco allowed him to copy from the MS. shown to him. When a few slight and necessary corrections have been made, they will run as follows:— Ubi multitudo hominum insperata occurrit audire Gallum de sancti Martini virtutibus locuturum. This reference to Dr. di Martino’s patron saint cannot plausibly be assigned even to the prophetic books of Livy. The Provost of Eton1 may know where the words come from—I do not; but clearly they are an abridgment of what Sulpicius Severus relates in his Dialogus II. (III.), 1, 5:— Quid, inquam, tam subito et insperati tam ex diversis regionibus tam mane concurritis? Nos, inquiunt, hesterno cognovimus Gallum istum per totum diem Martini narrasse virtutes, et reliqua in hodiernum diem, quia nox oppresserat, distulisse: propterea maturavimus frequens auditorium facere de tanta materia locuturo. German scholars, who have had the facsimile before them ever since September 12, must have found out this more than a week ago. Yours faithfully, A. E. HOUSMAN. Trinity College, Cambridge, Sept. 20. The Times, 22 Sept. 1924, where the letter appeared under the heading ‘NOT LIVY’. Maas, 418. Misdated ‘1923’ in Classical Papers, 1266.

TO TH E E DI TO R O F THE TIMES Sir,—I can now complete the identification of the supposed excerpt from Livy. In Vol. XXXII. of the ‘‘Mémoires de l’Institut National de France (Académie des Inscriptions),’’ at the end of a paper (pp. 29–56) 5 1

The Aristotelian school of philosophy at Athens. M. R. James: see List of Recipients.

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Letters 1872–1926

read in 1884 by Léopold Delisle, there is printed a facsimile (Plate III.) of a page from a manuscript now at Quedlinburg, but written early in the ninth century in St. Martin’s own abbey at Tours. There may be seen the four lines transcribed by Dr. Funke: the hand is very similar, the divisions identical, the text a trifle more correct. They constitute the first item in a table of contents prefixed to the dialogue of Sulpicius, which I quoted in my former letter.1 Yours faithfully, A. E. HOUSMAN. Trinity College, Cambridge, Sept. 22. The Times, 24 Sept. 1924, 13, where the letter appeared under the heading ‘NOT LIVY.’. Maas, 419. Misdated ‘1923’ in Classical Papers, 1266.

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Sept. 1924 My dear Bridges, I adjure you not to waste your time on Manilius.1 He writes on astronomy and astrology without knowing either. My interest in him is purely technical. His best poetry you will find in I 483–531, where he appeals to the regularity of the heavenly motions as evidence of the divinity and eternity of the universe. He has nothing else so good, and little that is nearly so good. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 115–16. Maas, 222.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Oct. 1924 My dear Richards, The publishers of Lovat Fraser’s drawings should not be allowed to print lines as legends, but I do not suppose they will want to: they will number the drawings as the poems are numbered, and their inappropriateness would only be emphasised by quotation. 1

The identification was also made by F. W. Hall in The Times on 24 Sept. 1924. Bridges had written three days before to say that he had been persuaded to get a copy of AEH’s Manilius. He had enjoyed the prefatory matter and had been assured that the notes would carry him through the text ( TCC MS, with Adv. d. 20. 11). 1

573

5 October 1924

There is no occasion for writing to the papers. I do not want to say anything against the drawings, which are probably all right as works of art, and some of which seemed pretty even to me. As matters stand, it would cause me embarrassment to stay or dine with you.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO J O H N S PA RROW Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Oct. 1924 Dear Sir, Judging from the context I should say that seeing the record cut is one of the unpleasant things which the athlete escapes by dying young; and this may help to determine the meaning.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘John Sparrow Esq. | The College | Winchester’. Maas, 223.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Oct. 1924 My dear Richards, Certainly I will not have the two books published in one volume;1 and as this is what the Florence Press asks, the answer is simply no. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 211; Maas, 223.

1

See AEH to GR, 12 Jan. 1924, and note. ASL XIX, To an Athlete Dying Young, 13–14: ‘Eyes the shady night has shut | Cannot see the record cut’. On ‘cut’, see the letter to Martin, 22 Mar. 1936. 1 AEH remained firm on this issue: see letters of 4 Jan. 1925 to Henry Holt & Co and to GR; of 2 Feb. 1925 to Henry Holt & Co; of 9 Feb. 1925 to Rudge; of 1 Feb. 1929 to Finberg; of 12 Apr. 1931 to Bynner; and of 26 Sept. 1934 to Martin. 1

574

Letters 1872–1926

TO A . C . P E A R S O N Trinity College 12 Oct. 1924 My dear Pearson, I am very grateful for the gift of your Sophocles.1 To what you say in your note I must reply that if your judgment is not worth more than mine you ought not to be editing Sophocles nor sitting in the Greek chair. From turning over your pages I should say that it is rather about Nauck’s conjectures than mine that I should differ from you. The two first places I look at to form an opinion of an editor are O.T. 597 and 795, and I give you a good mark at the one and a bad one at the other. Your own emendations, some of which are very neat, I have already seen, or most of them. I might be tempted to a good deal of discussion but that I must really stick to my desk and finish my Lucan. One observation: O. C. 1212 πάρεκ was proposed before Verrall by Badham,2 Euthydemus p. 93. If this is the end of the Oxford series, I think it comes to a very distinguished close. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. KCC MS Misc. 34/31. Maas, 419. A facsimile of part of the letter, with a transcription in which ‘judgment’ is rendered as ‘judgement’, appears as no. 65 in Modern Literary Manuscripts from King’s College. Cambridge: an Exhibition in Memory of A. N. L. Munby (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1976).

TO J. N. K E Y NE S Trinity College 28 Oct. 1924 My dear Registrary, I gather from this gentleman’s attempt at translation that by education he means not the process but that which it confers; so perhaps his two sentences may be rendered as over the page. I strongly hold the opinion that the Public Orator is the proper person to molest on such occasions, though possibly he may not. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. 1

Sophoclis fabulae (Oxford 1924). Charles Badham (1813–84), Professor of Classics and Logic in the University of Sydney (1867–84), published an edn. of Plato’s Euthydemus and Laches in 1865. 2

575

7 November 1924

1. Nulla sine moribus doctrina, or nihil doctrina sine moribus proficit. 2. Non discendi sed agendi causa vivimus (or vivitur). (Finis vitae, though correct, would be ambiguous). TCC Add. MS c. 112 24 . Maas, 420.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Nov. 1924 My dear Richards,] The misprints are all copied from a publication of the Cambridge University Press.1 Thanks for The Thirteenth Caesar,2 though I am finding it dull. On the other hand I have just tried the first bottle of the Fernando VII sherry from Thame3 and found it excellent. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 211.

TO F. M. CORN F OR D Trinity College 7 November 1924 Dear Cornford, I am ready to sign your report, but my recollection is that we were appointed to suggest forms of declaration1 not merely for Scholars but Fellows and the Master. If I am right, and if you agree with me that the existing declarations do not want altering, would you add a paragraph to say so? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 58427, fos. 102–3. 1

‘Obscure’ (Richards, 211). See AEH to Hamilton, 15 Apr. 1925. The Thirteenth Caesar, and other poems by Sacheverell Sitwell, published by GR in 1924. 3 See AEH to GR, 28 Dec. 1922, and n. 1, and also AEH to GR 22 June 1927 and 14 Dec. 1931. 1 Oaths, in Latin, sworn by the Master, Fellows, and Scholars on being admitted to TCC. 2

576

Letters 1872–1926

TO M E S S R S M AC M I L L A N & C O Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Nov. 1924 Dear Sirs, In the last twenty years I have produced several editions of Latin classics, which are printed at my expense, offered to the public at less than cost price, and sold for me by a publisher on commission. I am just completing an edition of Lucan, which I wish to produce in the same way. The printers of my last three books, Messrs Robert Maclehose1 & Co. of the Glasgow University Press, are prepared to undertake the work; and Mr Charles Whibley2 has suggested to me that you may be willing to act as publishers for me on the usual terms, and to be the channel of my communications with the printers. As in 1895 you refused to publish another book of mine, A Shropshire Lad, under similar conditions, I did not think this likely; but he assures me that you are now less haughty.3 If so, I will send you the text and notes, which are already complete and constitute the bulk of the work, that you may transmit them to Messrs Maclehose and obtain an estimate of the cost. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Macmillan & Co. BL Add. MS. 55274, fos. 145–6. T.s. copy, Lilly MSS 3. 1. 10. Letters to Macmillan, ed. Simon Nowell-Smith (1967), 242; Maas, 223–4.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Dec. 1924 My dear Kate, I enclose, with all its mysterious contents, an envelope which I have received this morning. I suppose you sent your priceless extracts inside the books when you returned it to the Library. A merry Christmas to both of you, much though you dislike the festival. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 13 . 1 2 3

For ‘MacLehose’. Essayist, critic, and journalist (1859–1930). The Lucan was published by Basil Blackwell in 1926.

577

28 December 1924

TO P E A RC E H I G G I N S Trinity College 28 Dec. 1924 Dear Mr Pearce Higgins, The poems which seem to me to stand out as particularly good are The Eternal City and Love’s Loneliness, of which I like the latter better, and indeed very much. This preference is perhaps partly due to its not being a sonnet. The sonnet is a form of verse which is oftener a substitute than a vehicle for poetry; and though you write it with ease and accomplishment, and have many good lines, I do not think it altogether a good sign that you should be so ready to use it. Moreover the ability to make sonnets even as well as you do is not in our time rare. ‘Everyone writes so well nowadays’ said Tennyson;1 and the average of proficiency has risen since then. Blank verse is a much tougher job, and there I think you do not succeed. The Masque is drawn out thin, and the plot I find not only slight but rather irritating in its artificial delays. The anapaests of Necessity are very untidy, and the lines are of three different lengths. You will not expect minute criticisms; but to take Charge, which is among the best pieces, the 3rd line is weak and the 11th is from William Watson. I demurred when your father2 asked me to look through your poems, because I am always afraid of hurting young poets’ feelings, and one of them once wrote back to say that he had put his verses in the fire; but your father assured me that you would not mind, and that my criticisms would probably be less hostile than his own, so I hope no bones are broken. I was sorry to miss seeing more of you on Christmas day, but I had a guest of my own to look after. You must delete Aegisthus’ appalling suggestion about Hecuba,3 who was 80 if she was a day. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. T.s. copy in SJCO MS 341. Graves, 239 (excerpts). 1 Not quite. William Allingham: A Diary 1824–1889, ed. H. Allingham and D. Radford (1907), 18 Feb. 1867 (reporting Tennyson on Queen Victoria): ‘ ‘‘She was praising my poetry: I said ‘‘Every one writes verses now. I daresay Your Majesty does.’’ ’ I owe this source to Christopher Ricks. 2 Alexander Pearce Higgins (1865–1935). BA and LLB, Cambridge, 1891; LLD, 1904; Whewell Professor of International Law, London University, 1919–23; KC, 1919; Whewell Professor of International Law, Cambridge, 1923–35; Hon. Fellow of Downing College, 1923; Fellow of TCC, 1926; FBA, 1928. 3 In Greek myth, Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and his daughter Pelopia, and lover of Clytemnestra, whom he helped kill Agamemnon and his concubine Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba.

578

Letters 1872–1926

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 31 Dec. 1924 My dear Withers, I am glad to have what I suppose is tolerably good news of your health, and to receive your Christmas reproaches. It is true that I do not write to you, but then there are few people to whom I do, and never willingly. You write with ease, elegance, and evident enjoyment, whereas I hate it. Like Miss Squeers, I am screaming out loud all the time I write, which takes off my attention rather and I hope will excuse mistakes.1 I will remember you at midnight, when I shall be drinking to absent friends in stout and oysters, which are very salubrious and which I take medicinally to neutralise the excesses of Christmas. When you give Mrs Winslow’s soothing syrup to a baby, ‘the little darling wakes up as bright as a button’;2 and so do I on New Year’s day. The Poet Laureate’s joke was made subsequently but independently by a scholar here in the form ‘all my eye and Beatus Martinus’.3 I was in Paris in June at the Presidential Election, when the French Revolution which I had hoped to witness was spoilt by the rain, and at Bath in August, where the rain would have spoilt an English Revolution had Bath been never so Bolshevik. George Saintsbury4 lives there now, and is to be recognised, I hear, by the shabbiness of his clothes and especially of his top-hat, which nevertheless, when rain comes on, he protects with oil-cloth. My kind regards to Mrs Withers, and a happy New Year to both of you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 73 (excerpt); Maas, 224. 1 ‘I am screaming out loud all the time I write and so is my brother which takes off my attention rather and I hope will excuse mistakes’: Fanny Squeers in Dickens’s Nicholas Nickelby, ch. 15. 2 AEH mentions the children’s medicine in The shades of night were falling fast, 7: see Poems (1997), 210. See also letters of 31 Dec. 1926 to Withers and 30 Dec. 1929 to Jeannie Housman. Naiditch (2005), 6, notes advertisements for the syrup, which was first marketed in 1849, in the Illustrated London News, 19 Nov. and 24 Dec. 1898, and in the ‘Bromsgrove Messenger’, 21 June 1873. Another appears in the same newspaper below the first printing of AEH’s poem The Death of Socrates, 1 Aug. 1874, with the assurance that ‘the little cherub awakes ‘‘as bright as a button’’ ’. Naiditch also notes that the syrup contained morphine. 3 See letters to the editor of The Times, 22 and 24 Sept. 1924. ‘All my eye and Betty Martin’ is slang for ‘nonsense’. 4 George Edward Bateman Saintsbury (1845–1933). Literary critic, historian, and authority on wine. Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at Edinburgh, 1895–1915; FBA, 1911.

1925 TO S I R JA M E S G. F R A Z E R Trinity College 1 Jan. 1925 My dear Optime Maxime,1 (for I have looked it out in Cagnat’s Épigraphie Latine2 and find that this is what it means): my best congratulations to you on your birthday present, and many happy returns of the day. Tell Lady Frazer that I think even she must be enjoying a brief moment of contentment. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS Frazer 4 72 .

TO S I R E R N E S T RU T H E R F O R D Trinity College 1 Jan. 1925 Dear Rutherford, This is a sad day for poor old England, and will put new and unnecessary pep into the All Blacks;1 but I am afraid there was no avoiding it. When Geikie’s death left an O.M. vacant,2 everybody expected it would be yours, and if a Trinity prime minister3 had failed to do his duty he would have been unpopular in Trinity. Long may you live to enjoy your honour. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7653/H187. 1

‘Best and Greatest’, as in the cult title for Jupiter: Oxford Latin Dictionary, optimus 7. René Louis Victor Cagnat, Cours Élémentaire de L’Épigraphie Latine (Paris, 1885). AEH owned a copy of the 1898 edn.: Naiditch (2004), 149. 1 The national rugby team of New Zealand, Rutherford’s native country. 2 Sir Archibald Geikie (1835–1924), Murchison Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at Edinburgh, 1871–81, was knighted in 1891 and awarded the OM in 1913. 3 Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947). Educated at Harrow and at TCC (third class in history, 1888). Prime Minister, 1923–4, 1924–9, 1935–7. 2

580

Letters 1872–1926

TO M E S S R S H E N RY H O LT & CO Trinity College | Cambridge | England 4 Jan. 1925 Dear Sirs, I have received a press-cutting from the New York Times of 7 Dec. 1924 which reads as follows: ‘A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems have recently been published by Henry Holt & Co. in a limp leather edition, so that it is now possible to buy the complete works of this poet in a uniform de luxe edition.’ I beg that you will inform me without delay whether this statement is true.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Henry Holt & Co. Princeton MS (Henry Holt Archives).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Jan. 1925 My dear Richards, I am obliged to write to you about the following matter, because I do not know how I stand. I have received a press-cutting from America which says that Henry Holt & Co have published A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems together in one volume.1 I have written to ask them if this is true: if it is, I shall take Last Poems away from them, supposing that I can. But I find that in my agreement with them there is no clause empowering me to withdraw from them my license to publish, as there is in my agreement with you. Before I go to a solicitor, perhaps you can give me a notion of what my rights are.

1 It was; but, as Richards, 212, points out, the two vols. were boxed, not bound, together. The format was also adopted in the edn. of 1929 from the Alcuin Press, who deliberately also issued a few copies bound together: Naiditch (2005), 98. On AEH’s opposition to a single vol., see the letter to GR, 5 Oct. 1924, and note. 1 AEH’s misunderstanding. See the note on the previous letter.

581

12 January 1925

Thanks for your novel,2 though neither it nor any of them are as good as Caviare.3 I enclose the menus regionales4 which you wished to have returned, and I do not wonder, as they make one’s mouth water. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Can I make them destroy the combined book? LC-GR t.s. Richards, 212; Maas, 225.

TO H E R B E RT T H R I N G Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Jan. 1925 Dear Sir, My subscription to the Society of Authors does not, I presume, entitle me to ask for your official assistance in the following matter; but if you would consent to act as my solicitor, or recommend to me some other solicitor competent to deal with the case, I should be grateful. My book Last Poems is copyrighted in the United States and published there by Messrs Henry Holt and Co of 19 West 44th Street, New York. I learn that they have lately issued, in a single volume, these poems together with the contents of another book of mine, which is not copyrighted in the United States, A Shropshire Lad. This they have done without asking my leave, and against my desire. I wish therefore, if I can, to do two things: to make them withdraw this volume, and to transfer Last Poems to another American publisher. I do not send you my agreement with Messrs Holt (which does not seem to contain anything exactly bearing on the case) till I have your reply. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 225–6, which was based on the MS once in the possession of the Society of Authors and now missing.

2 Every Wife: An Amusement (1924). ‘His opinion … I expected, for he had been lukewarm about its predecessors’: Richards, 213. 3 Published in 1917. 4 For ‘régionales’. ‘The menus which were issued in connexion with the Section Gastronomique Régionaliste of the Paris Salon d’Automne, 1924: they were the Menus des Journées Régionales, a series of luncheons and dinners which visitors to the Salon could eat on certain fixed days, drinking with them the wines of the districts chosen. Housman from his various French journeys already knew most of the dishes’: Richards, 213.

582

Letters 1872–1926

TO H E R B E RT T H R I N G Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Jan. 1925 Dear Sir, I beg to acknowledge the return of the publisher’s agreement which I sent you; and beyond that I have only to thank you for your opinion and excuse myself for troubling you. I am yours truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 226, which was based on the MS once in the possession of the Society of Authors and now missing.

TO E R N E S T H A R R I S O N [Trinity College c.16/17 Jan. 1925] I do not /think/ that the Greeks imagined that the acronychal rising of a star was particularly bright, and if they did they were of course quite wrong. But a star is brighter /near/ the horizon than when it is higher, and I should say /that/ this is why παμφαίνων is used in Hes. op. 567 /Hom. Il. 5. 6./, and that πρῶτον signifies simply emergence into sight /(προλιπὼν ῥόον ᾿Ωκεανοῖο)/ and does not conflict with the fact that an ἐπιτολὴ ἑσπερία is, // a last and not a first appearance.1 BMC MS. Draft in ink written on verso of Harrison’s note, dated 16 Jan. 1925. Maas, 420.

TO M E S S R S H E N RY H O LT & CO Trinity College | Cambridge | England 2 Feb. 1925 Dear Sirs, I am much obliged by your letter of the 16th Jan. and by the books you have been kind enough to send me, from which I see that the press-cutting gave me a false alarm. I have no objection at all to the issue of the two books as companion volumes (which seem to me, though I am no judge,

1 Harrison had asked on behalf of his co-editor of the CR, W. M. Calder, whether Hesiod, Works and Days, 567, meant ‘shining for the first time in full radiance rises for the last time’, i.e. whether the Greeks thought that the acronychal rising of a star is the brightest.

583

3 February 1925

to be very pretty): what I should have objected to, and have not allowed in England, is the combination of the two sets of poems in a single volume. If you reprint A Shropshire Lad I should be obliged if you would make two alterations which have been made in England since 1922:— 1 No. XXXVIII line 10 for ‘Thick’ read ‘Loose’. No. LII line 9 for ‘long since forgotten’ read ‘no more remembered’. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. In No. XXXIV line 3 there ought to be no inverted comma.2 The inverted comma in line 1 is right. Printers cannot understand this. Messrs Henry Holt & Co. Princeton MS (Henry Holt Archives).

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 2 Feb. 1925 Dear Sirs, I wish you would rap these people over the knuckles.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Tipped-in in Martin Secker’s presentation copy of Grant Richards, Housman 1897–1936 (1941).

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Feb. 1925 Dear Hall, I am quite willing that my name should appear in the appeal for subscriptions towards Cave’s portrait,1 and I enclose cheque for five guineas. I am to meet him next week for the first time. 1

See AEH to GR, 22 Apr. 1922, and notes. In The New Mistress, after ‘you are not wanted here.’ There should be no inverted comma because the entire poem, including the quotation in ll. 1–3, is supposedly uttered by the soldier, and the inverted commas should be closed only at the end. 1 ‘Response to application to Richards press for use of a poem’: note written on the MS in an unidentified hand. 1 Of SJCO, where AEH, like Cave, had been an undergraduate. On George Cave, see List of Recipients. 2

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Letters 1872–1926

I am busy finishing off my Lucan, and also writing a review,2 a job which I always regret undertaking, as it always absorbs a disproportionate amount of time, because I am so fearfully conscientious. When it is completed, if it ever is, I ought to turn to at Manilius V, or the unfinished window in Aladdin’s tower unfinished will remain.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4. Maas, 226.

TO W. E . RU DG E Trinity College | Cambridge | England 9 Feb. 1925 Dear Sir, I am obliged and flattered by your letter of Jan. 22. I am personally willing that you should publish, as you wish, an edition of A Shropshire Lad or Last Poems or both, provided that the two are not included in one volume.1 As to A Shropshire Lad you do not need my consent, as it is not copyright in America. As to Last Poems, I suppose it would be proper to consult my American publishers, Messrs Henry Holt & Co. I must make it a condition, in the case of Last Poems, that the proofs are sent to me for correction; and though I have no right to make conditions in the case of A Shropshire Lad, I shall be obliged if you will follow the same course, as the last American edition I saw was full of errors. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. As you are good enough to offer me a copy of Mr Spicer-Simson’s book,2 I should be very glad to have it. Lilly MSS 2. 1. Maas, 227.

2 Of A. C. Pearson’s edn. of Sophocles in CR 39 (1925), 76–80 (Classical Papers, 1093–8). AEH praised the edn. as ‘much the best critical edition of Sophocles now in existence; the most complete and the most judicious’, but the review was largely taken up with detailed criticisms. 3 In The Arabian Nights, Aladdin’s belvedere, built by the genie of the lamp, had twentyfour windows set in frames of precious stones, ‘and one window remained unfinished at the requirement of Aladdin that the Sultan might prove him impotent to complete it’. 1 See AEH to GR, 5 Oct. 1924, and note. 2 Men of Letters of the British Isles: Portrait Medallions from Life (1924). AEH’s copy is now at BMC.

585

22 February 1925

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Feb. 1925 Dear Mackail, With optandum1 you require something like quicquam, which Estaço2 obtained by writing dicere quid. With optandam of course you can supply uitam from uita; but yet the MS reading is optandus. Because Catullus once elides que at the end of a verse it cannot safely be inferred that he would elide anything else. I have seen nothing better than Munro’s magis aeuom | optandum hac uita,3 though it is not all the heart could desire. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.4. Maas, 420–1.

TO S I R J O S E P H J. T H O M S O N Trinity College 22 Feb. 1925 My dear Master,1 I take up my pen in a rather sorrowful mood because I recognise the compliment implied in the Council’s offer of the Clark Lectureship, and am grateful for their friendliness and for yours, and therefore I cannot help feeling ungracious in making the answer which nevertheless is the only answer possible. I do regard myself as a connoisseur; I think I can tell good from bad in literature. But literary criticism, referring opinions to principles and setting them forth so as to command assent, is a high and rare accomplishment and quite beyond me. I remember Walter Raleigh’s Clark lecture2 on Landor:3 it was unpretending, and not adorned or even polished, but I was thinking all the while that I could never have hit the nail on the head like that. And not only have I no talent for producing the genuine article, but no taste or inclination for producing a substitute. If I devoted a whole year (and it would not take less) to the composition of six lectures on literature, 1

In Catullus 107. 8. Achilles Statius (1524–81), whose edn. of Catullus was published in 1566. 3 H. A. J. Munro’s proposal appeared in The Journal of Philology, 9. 8 (1880), 185. 1 Thomson was Master of TCC. 2 On 3 June 1911, the last in the series Prose Writers of the Romantic Revival by Sir Walter Raleigh (1861–1922). 3 Poet and essayist Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864). 2

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the result would be nothing which could give me, I do not say satisfaction, but consolation for the wasted time; and the year would be one of anxiety and depression, the more vexatious because it would be subtracted from those minute and pedantic studies in which I am fitted to excel and which give me pleasure. I am sorry if this explanation is tedious, but I would rather be tedious than seem thankless and churlish. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS Letters c. 1 193 ; also TCC Add. MS c. 11225 (t.s. copy). Gow, 20–1 (incomplete); Maas, 227–8.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 3 March 1925 My dear Richards,] I have not read this through, but I have dipped into it, and it will not do. It is sometimes surprisingly close to the original, but at other times the formal French phrases crop up; and my verse really will not go into French verse. The worst is that he sometimes does not understand the English: for instance in VIII ‘‘a love to keep you clean’’ is translated ‘‘amour, qui garde propre ta maison’’.1 [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 213; Maas, 228.

TO H . B. P E T T I T T Trinity College | Cambridge 12 March 1925 Dear Mr Pettitt, If you like to send me the books I shall be pleased to sign them. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Colby College MS. Envelope addressed ‘H. B. Pettitt Esq. | Cupola House | Paglesham | Rochford | Essex’.

1

The translation was not published.

587

15 March 1925

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 14 March 1925 My dear Kate, I was very sorry to have your news of Jerry’s misfortunes. I suppose he is now back, and you have seen him, and I hope that the voyage and absence from India has already done him good. I should have written to you before, but I am so languid with a month of bronchitis that I neglect most things, correspondence especially. I have gone on lecturing, which I daresay did me no good; and now that term is over matters may mend. The Eton Librarian I suppose was Mr Broadbent,1 whom I have often met. When he and the Earl of Oxford & Asquith2 were undergraduates together they were supposed to be about equally able; but it was a great mistake. He is rather a figure of fun, with the largest and most bloodshot eyes I ever saw, and produces Greek and Latin verses which should be pointed but are not. Love to all. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. 1. Maas, 228–9.

TO U N I V E R S I T Y C O L L E G E , LO N D O N, APPOINTMENTS COMMITTEE Trinity College | Cambridge 15 March 1925 Mr Lawrence Solomon was my assistant for some ten years when I was Professor of Latin in University College, London, having entire charge of the lowest class and taking part of the work of the highest. He was an excellent colleague and a most efficient teacher; and I was particularly grateful to him for succeeding, where I always failed, in making the students write decent Latin prose. A. E. Housman. T.s. copy in UCL Applications Greek 1925.

1 Henry Broadbent (1852–1935). Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 1874; Assistant Master at Eton, 1876; Librarian, 1920. 2 The statesman Herbert Asquith was created Earl of Oxford and Asquith in 1925.

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Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 25 March 1925 Look at this.1 A. E. H. BMC MS.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 26 March 1925 Dear Gow, If anyone knows what Catull. 104 4 means, I do not; and the commentators are no good. But I see no reason to think it corrupt. I wish you would make a correction on my p. xv: the date of Creech’s translation1 should be 1697: 1700 was the second edition. No, I am not well, though in my case it is bronchial tubes and not a leg. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 26 . Maas, 421.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 31 March 1925 My dear Richards,] If you think you can bully the malefactors into sending 5 guineas each to the Literary Fund, do so by all means. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 213.

1 1

Note on the MS in Richards’s hand: ‘Reynolds’s Newspaper’. Of Manilius.

589

15 April 1925

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 15 April 1925 My dear Witter Bynner, There is no need for you to apologise, but writing an introduction1 is what I would not do for anyone, or rather, it would be more accurate to say, I could not. I am sorry that the publishers attach so much weight to such a thing. I hope you are well and flourishing. New Mexico must be one of the more romantic of the States. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/19. Envelope addressed ‘Witter Bynner Esq. | Box 1061 | Santa Fe | New Mexico | U. S. A.’. Bynner/Haber (1957), 24; Maas, 229.

TO G E O RG E RO S T R E VO R H A M I LTO N Trinity College | Cambridge 15 April 1925 Dear Sir, In my Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries as printed in your book The Soul of Wit five alterations have been made, one of which is quite ruinous; and I shall not allow its inclusion in an American edition unless it is corrected. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. G. Rostrevor Hamilton Esq. Bodleian MS Eng. lett. c. 272, fo. 36.

1 To Bynner’s Caravan (1925). ‘He had been emboldened to ask for the introduction after hearing from Louis Ledoux that Housman told him he thought as highly of Bynner’s verse as of any other American poet’s’: Bynner/Haber (1957), 24 n., where it is also noted that AEH’s seven-page preface to Nine Essays by Arthur Platt (1927) is the only introduction to another person’s work that AEH ever wrote.

590

Letters 1872–1926

TO G E O RG E RO S T R E VO R H A M I LTO N Trinity College | Cambridge 18 April 1925 Dear Sir, If my Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries is printed as it stands in my book and not in the publication of the Cambridge University Press from which you took it, I make no objection to its inclusion in your American edition. It is copyright in the United States, and the publishers are Henry Holt & Co, New York. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. G. Rostrevor Hamilton Esq. Bodleian MS Eng. lett. c. 272, fos. 38–9.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 22 May 1925 Dear Sir, The first edition of A Shropshire Lad was 500 copies. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 May 1925 My dear Withers, I am sorry to hear no better account of your health, though glad that your tour was a success. As to your kind invitation, June I am spending in Gloucestershire; but if you could have me to lunch on my way there, on Tuesday the 2nd , that would be very delightful. Death and marriage are raging through this College with such fury that I ought to be grateful for having escaped both. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 75 (extract); Maas, 229, misdated 29 May.

591

24 June 1925

TO R I D G E LY TO R R E N C E Trinity College | Cambridge | England 1 June 1925 Dear Sir, I return you many thanks for the gift of your Hesperides,1 which I have read with admiration for its poetic impulse and for the accomplishment of much of its verse. It has also more substance than most modern poetry. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Frederick Ridgely Torrence Collection, II. 41, folder 7). Envelope addressed ‘Ridgely Torrence Esq. | c/ The Macmillan Company | 64 Fifth Avenue | New York | U. S. A.’, and redirected to 107 Waverly Place.

TO M A RG A R E T WO O D S Trinity College | Cambridge 24 June 1925 Dear Mrs Woods, I am sorry for this delay in answering your letter, which has been caused by my absence from Cambridge. On the line which you suggest I should propose the inscription BREVEM LVCEM EXTINCTAM EXCIPIAT FOVEATQVE AETERNA.1 I have written it in capitals as it should be written, and I hope the stonecutter will not defile it with the letter U, which is not a capital. I am very glad to be of any service, and I hope that you are well. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1 1

Published in 1925. ‘May the eternal light take in and watch over the brief light that has gone out’.

592

Letters 1872–1926

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 27 June 1925 Dear Gow, I understand that the Council will shortly invite you to return to the College and offer you a post on the teaching staff, and I earnestly hope that you will accept it. I have always gone about saying that you ought never to have been allowed to leave Cambridge, and I am delighted at the chance of getting you back.1 I know of course that you have been successful in your present profession, and I suppose that you are on the eve of having a house, which means what may be called opulence; but it will never allow you the leisure which you ought to have if you are to lay out your talents properly and enter into the joy of the Lord.2 Eton no doubt is a very pleasant society, but Cambridge is not bad, even after our lamentable loss of Benson.3 If you resent all this as impertinent interference, I am quite prepared to support that. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 27 . Maas, 229–30.

TO P RO F E S S O R F R A N C I S H . F O B E S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 27 June 1925 My dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me the Fragment of a Greek Tragedy.1 I am no judge of typography, but I suppose yours to be in the best tradition. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Johns Hopkins University MS, L. L. Mackall Papers 35 (t.s. copy). Cited in letter from Fobes to Mackall, 21 September 1936.

1

Gow returned to TCC in 1925, having left to be an Assistant Master at Eton in 1914. Matt. 25: 21, 23: ‘enter thou into the joy of thy lord’. 3 A. C. Benson, Master of Magdalene College since 1915, died in 1925. 1 Professor Fobes had produced a private reprinting at the Snail’s Pace Press, Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1925. 2

593

5 July 1925

TO TH E E DI TO RS O F THE CLASSICAL REVIEW [Trinity College | Cambridge Summer 1925] Sirs, No, it would not be helpful. If Professor Mair asks such questions and makes such statements after reading what I wrote, he would still ask and make them after reading what I do not intend to write.1 I am conscious that this is the tone which would be adopted by some scholars, whom I could name, if they knew that they were wrong and did not want to confess it; but it ought to be understood by this time that I am not of that brood. A. E. Housman. CR 39. 7/8 (Nov.–Dec. 1925), 214.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 5 July 1925 My dear Kate, I can easily spare you £200, and I enclose a cheque for the amount. I rejoice with you over Denis’s success, and heartily congratulate him on it, as it seems very creditable to him. I am glad too to have such good news of Jerry’s health. My three weeks at Woodchester consisted of quite perfect weather; only motoring home in a cold wind has given me rather a cold in one eye, not so bad as last year. The Wises do not seem to alter. The younger of the two Trollopes1 whom you met there last year has been at death’s door with eczema, and having recovered appears to be going off her head. I shall probably go to France towards the end of August. Love to all your circle. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS. 1 A. W. Mair, whose letter preceded AEH’s on pp. 213–14 of the same issue, questioned the reading of Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, 794–6, that AEH had proposed in a review of A. C. Pearson’s edition in CR 39.2/3 (May–June 1925), 76–80: ‘ … one cannot argue with a mere dogmatic assertion. It would be helpful if Professor Housman would (1) translate the passage with the reading τεκμαρούμενος, (2) explain why either of Jebb’s renderings is inadmissible, (3) suggest a reason for the supposed corruption, and (4) tell us how he knows that the words found in Libianus are the very words of Sophocles.’ 1 Neighbours of the Wise family at Woodchester.

594

Letters 1872–1926

TO DA NFORD BARNEY Trinity College | Cambridge | England 21 July 1925 Dear Mr Barney, I am obliged and flattered by your letter, but it is out of the question for me to promise contributions to your journal or any other. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Yale MS (Za Barney 6). Envelope addressed ‘Mr Danford Barney | 58 West 49th Street | New York | N. Y. | U. S. A.’, and redirected to York Harbor, Maine.

TO E U G E N M I L L I N G TO N - D R A K E Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Aug. 1925 Dear Mr Millington-Drake, I have signed the volume1 and returned it to Best & Co. I remember with great affection and gratitude one who had half your name, Herbert Millington, my old headmaster at Bromsgrove. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Eton MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Aug. 1925 My dear Richards, It1 was not ‘originally published at 5s.’ but at 2/6; even the 2nd edition, though much inferior, was only 3/6. I have just been stopped in the street by an American lady who was yearning for the last work of your Mr Mais in the window of a shop whose door was locked. She seemed to want me to break the glass for her, but I persuaded her that there were other shops in the town. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 213–14; Maas, 230. 1 A copy of LP for a collection of books relating to World War I (the Macnaughton Library), which was given to Eton in 1938. 1 ASL.

595

19 August 1925

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Aug. 1925 My dear Laurence, On the 27th I am going abroad for about a month, leaving behind me a nearly completed and in great part printed edition of Lucan with Basil Blackwell of Oxford. If the French kill me with one of these lethal railways of theirs, J. D. Duff of this college is to be asked to finish it and see it through the press. Love to Clemence: I hope you are both flourishing. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. It occurs to me that I ought also to tell you something which my executors should know. Grant Richards has not paid me a penny of royalties on Last Poems, and has intercepted the first year’s royalties from the American publishers. He also owes me £750 which I lent him four or five years ago. BMC MS. Memoir, 179–80; Maas, 230 (both incomplete).

TO M A RY CLA RE RYA N Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Aug. 1925 Dear Mrs Ryan, I am sorry to have to say that I possess no ex libris plate;1 and indeed I am not a person of culture, and treat my books badly. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Mary Clare Ryan | 1151 North Hew Hampshire | Los Angeles | Calif. | U. S. A.’

1

‘Plate’ should be in roman, but AEH underlines it as well as ‘ex libris’.

596

Letters 1872–1926

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Aug. 1925 Dear Sirs, Composers may be allowed to set poems from Last Poems as well as from A Shropshire Lad without fee; but in both cases it should be stipulated that only entire poems are to be set, with no omissions. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 214.

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Aug. 1925 Dear Duff, To-morrow I am going to France, and as I cannot fly to every spot I wish to reach I shall probably perish in a railway accident; in which event you will receive a request from my executors that you would be so good as to finish off my Lucan; and I hope you will not refuse. The text, notes, and appendix are in print and corrected; the MS of the preface is in the printers’ hands; I enclose the table of MSS and the title-page; and nothing remains to be done but the index, which I cannot compile till the book is in pages. This of course is a nasty job, and when the engine is on the top of me I shall console myself with the thought that I have escaped it. I hear from Hicks1 that you have been reading that neglected poet Silius, whom his contemporaries would have done well to imitate, at least in straightforwardness. I hope you are having other enjoyments. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS a. 22589(2) .

1

Robert Drew Hicks (1850–1929), Fellow of TCC since 1876.

597

6 October 1925

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Paris, 19 Sept. 1925 My dear Laurence, The parody of me is the best I have seen, and indeed the only good one.1 I don’t know if Hugh Lunn is the author of The Harrovians:2 if so, I am told that I once sat next to him at a feast at Jesus College, and that he was drunk, and afterwards acknowledged the fact and expressed regret for his forward behaviour; but I suppose I was drunk too, for I remember neither it nor him. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 180 (first sentence only).

TO H . E . BU T L E R Trinity College | Cambridge 2 Oct. 1925 Dear Butler, I cannot possibly decline the kind and flattering invitation of the Professors’ Dining Club,1 and the 16th will suit me quite well. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305. Maas, 231.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Oct. 1925 My dear Richards, Thanks for your offer, but I have so little room for the books I already possess that I am very chary of acquiring more; and your father’s studies and mine did not lie much along the same lines; and in view of my age I am rather narrowing my reading than widening it. 1 Parody by Hugh Kingsmill [Lunn] (1889–1949), beginning ‘What, still alive at twentytwo, | A clean, upstanding chap like you?’ It is printed in Memoir, 180, and in Richards, 345. 2 The author of The Harrovians (1913) was in fact Kingsmill’s younger brother, skiing pioneer Arnold [Henry Moore] Lunn (1888–1974), who was educated at Harrow and at Balliol College, Oxford. 1 At UCL.

598

Letters 1872–1926

At Pau there is a very good bourgeois restaurant called, I think, Dupon, successeur Rolland, in the place du Casino, nowhere near the present Casino. Truite à l’Americaine (with écrévisses) is the best thing I came across. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Somebody, I hope it was not you, told me that the local dish of Carcasonne was something called Soufassou, but on the spot they denied all knowledge of it and wanted to make me eat cassoulet instead, which is a plat of Toulouse, hardly deserving its reputation. I twice fed on the isard, the chamois of the Pyrenees; not very good. LC-GR MS. Richards, 214–15.

TO H . E . BU T L E R It is very good of you to offer to put me up on the 16th and I shall gladly avail myself of your kindness. Yours A. E. Housman. 7 Oct. 1925 Trin. Coll. Camb. SJCO MS 305: p.c. addressed ‘Professor H. E. Butler | University College | London W. C.’

TO M RS H . E . BU T LE R Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Oct. 1925 Dear Mrs Butler, Enfeebled though I am by the jolting of the Great Eastern Railway, I must write a line to thank you for your hospitality and say how much I enjoyed my stay. I hope your youngest son brought the first day of his second year to a happy close. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305. Maas, 231.

599

5 November 1925

TO R. Y. LO G A N Trinity College 1 Nov. 1925 Dear Mr Logan, Mr W. R. M. Lamb, 51 Church Road, Richmond, Surrey, is willing to review Dr Butler’s life for you.1 You should tell him what length you want the review to be. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Tipped-in in Logan’s copy of 1st edn. of LP (1922).

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 5 Nov. 1925 Dear Gow, ἑσπερίοις in Theocr. VII 53 means vespertinal, and he neglects to say whether it is the vespertinal rising or setting that he means; Horace carm. III 1 28 orientis Haedi neglects to say whether he means the vespertinal or the matutinal rising; Virgil Aen. IX 668 pluuialibus Haedis neglects both. But all three mean the same, the vespertinal rising of the Kids about the autumnal equinox, which was or was supposed to be stormy. I say ‘about’, because the actual time differed with the latitude and with the progress of centuries; and moreover there is ambiguity even in the terms ἐπιτολή and δύσις themselves, as they may be either ἀληθιναί or φαινομέναι, a distinction concerning which you have no lust to hear nor I to tell. Verse 54 signifies the beginning of the matutinal setting of Orion, early in November, when the sea was becoming unfit for navigation. It is equivalent to the setting of the Pliades. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 20177 .

1 For The Trinity Magazine, of which Logan was editor. Lamb wrote to him at the address ‘C. Great Court | Trinity College | Cambridge’ on 5 Nov. 1925 agreeing to do the review.

600

Letters 1872–1926

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Nov. 1925 Dear Sir, I am obliged and flattered by your proposal; but A Shropshire Lad has been reprinted in a form which I presume to be suitable for collectors by the Riccardi Press, and that is a sufficient concession to a class of people who do not seem to me to deserve encouragement. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Reproduced in reduced facsimile in Christie’s New York catalogue, 22 Nov. 1985, above item 55.

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Nov. 1925 Dear Sirs, I should be obliged if you could tell me how many copies of my edition of Juvenal remain unsold.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Nov. 1925 Dear Sir, The Professorship of Latin1 was founded in 1869 in honour of B. H. Kennedy, sometime headmaster of Shrewsbury School and afterwards Regius Professor of Greek, the fund being chiefly subscribed by his friends and former pupils. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. 1 1

47. Which AEH held at Cambridge.

601

28 November 1925

TO T. R. G LOVE R Trinity College 26 Nov. 1925 Dear Glover, 1. The next meeting of the Examiners for the University Scholarships etc. will be in my rooms on Dec. 14 at 2. 30. I understand that the Vice-Chancellor’s clerk forgot to send you notice of the first meeting. 2. In your absence I made notes of the proceedings. Would you wish me to send them to you or to enter them in the Minute Book myself? 3. Can you give me the reference to a correspondence, which I think you initiated, about the line on Benjamin Franklin, eripuit fulmenque Ioui sceptrumque tyrannis?1 I thought it was in the Cambridge Review, but have failed to find it there. Yours very truly A. E. Housman CUL Add. MS 7874 50 .

TO T. R. G LOVE R Trinity College 28 Nov. 1925 Dear Glover, I am returning herewith the University Scholarships minute-book and the documents which Charlesworth1 handed to me along with it. Thanks for the information about the Franklin verse. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7874 51 .

1 The French economist and statesman Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727–81), Franklin’s friend and occasional rival for the affections of Madame Helvétius, wrote the famous epigram about him: eripuit cœlo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis (‘he snatched lightning from the sky and the sceptre from tyrants’). 1 Martin Percival Charlesworth (1895–1950). Cambridge classical scholar. First classes in both parts of the Classical Tripos, 1920–1; BA, 1921. Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, 1923. University Lecturer in Classics, 1926–31, and Laurence Reader in Classics (for Ancient History), 1931–50. He was the author of Trade Routes and Commerce of the Roman Empire (1924), and editor of the Cambridge Ancient History, vols. 7–12 (1928–39).

602

Letters 1872–1926

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Nov. 1925 Dear Gow, Thanks for your instructive memorandum. Genders over the leaf. Yours A. E. Housman. Lucr. VI 28 736 806 820 Manil. II 715 III 20 56 174 IV 257 Pers. VI 40 Mart. IX 67 1

recta … cursu albos … ningues terra … ipso quodam … parte sua … corpore magno … classe summo … ratione praedicta … ordine iuncta … pisce crassa … unguine toto … nocte.

I omit examples like Manil. III 195 materno … aluo, where the vowel is the same. TCC. Add. MS c. 112 28 .

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Nov. 1925 Dear Sirs, The 5th book of my Manilius is not likely to be published before 1929. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 215.

603

18 December 1925

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Dec. 1925 My dear Richards, Mr W. L. Williams1 may have In the morning for use in his First Steps to Parnassus.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N [Trinity College | Cambridge] 8 Dec. 1925 My dear Laurence, An American named Keating wrote to me the other day and said he had bought a signed copy of A Shropshire Lad for £80. I suppose this is one of your commercial successes. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Memoir, 180.

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Dec. 1925 My dear Bridges, I am very grateful for your kindness in sending me your new poems1 to cheer my Christmas. Though some of them were not new to me, or not quite; and I was amused to read in verse on pp. 69–722 what I had heard from your lips in prose. 1 [William] Emrys Williams (1896–1977). Staff Tutor in Literature, Extra-Mural Department, London University, 1928; Secretary, British Institute of Adult Education, 1934–40. Publications include The Craft of Literature (1925) and Plain Prose: The Elements of a Serviceable Style (1928). AEH gets his middle initial wrong. 2 Published in 1926. 1 New Poems (1925). 2 The bizarrely comic narrative poem A Dream, in which St Peter at the entry-court of heaven refuses admission to heaven, on the grounds that everything has changed since they ‘took in a batch of those French poets’.

604

Letters 1872–1926

Along with your novelties I am glad to see you using the old and beautiful stanza, now unjustly despised because so often ill managed, of XVIII, which ought not to be left to Laura Matilda.3 You will probably condemn my judgment if I say that what most affects me is the last verse4 on p. 63. My kind regards to Mrs Bridges, and all wishes for a happy Christmas. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 8. 39–40. Maas, 231.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Dec. 1925 My dear Kate, There is not the least hurry about repaying me the £200.1 You are at liberty to look upon me as one of the ancient Gauls, who were quite willing to lend money on a promise to pay it back in the next world; such was their belief in the immortality of the soul, until Christianity undermined it. I am very glad to hear good news of Jerry’s health. Your last letter but one was written before he had seen his Board and been pronounced well. I myself am all right, and am staying here for the vacation, as I almost always do. Thanks for your article: the account of the Scotch grammarian is very interesting. There is a great Cambridge book by the late John Venn2 corresponding to Alumni Oxonienses, the name of which I will put into this letter before I close it; but I am not sure if it is exactly what you want.

3 Poem XIV (To His Excellency): ‘One of all our brave commanders, | Near of kin and dear my friend, | Led his men in France and Flanders, | From the first brush to the end.’ ‘Laura Matilda’ was the pseudonym of Horace and James Smith when they used the stanza for Drury’s Dirge in their Rejected Addresses (1812): for further information, see D. M. Low and George de Fraine, N&Q 197 (1952), 547–8, and R. L. Moreton, ibid. 569. AEH used the stanza for ASL IV, XXXV, LP VIII, and AP I, and the metre for MP XLVI. See AEH to Mackail, 25 July 1922. 4 Of The Sleeping Mansion: ‘But I long since had left it; | what fortune now befalls | finds me in other meadows | by other trees and walls.’ 1 See AEH to KES, 5 July 1925. 2 1834–1924. Cambridge logician and mathematician; Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, 1857–1923.

605

25 December 1925

This is the only winter I have known since the February of 1895. I laugh at young folk who think they had winters in 1900 or 1916 or such dates. Happy Christmas to both of you, much though you dislike it. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Alumni Cantabrigienses.3 Private MS. The title of Venn’s book is added in pencil.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Dec. 1925 My dear Withers, I am very sorry to hear of your breaking down after you had been enjoying yourself so much in Italy, and I hope the gradual improvement you report will go steadily on. Lewis lately got /pleurisy/ and was carried off by his doctor to the /nursing home/, but there is /quite good/ news of him, and he may manage to beat, as he is determined, the longevity of his predecessors in the Chair.1 I am well enough: I believe I answered your letter in September and told you I had been in the Pyrenees. I have a book just coming out,2 but it is one of my serious works, and you will not want to read it; nor will any mad American millionaire pay £80 for it, as one did the other day for an autographed first edition of A Shropshire Lad.3 My brother, who has commercial talents, had bought the last six copies in 1898 and got me to sign them. I hope you will be consoled for the stiff price which, I gathered, you paid for your own copy. I close this letter in order to go and dress for our domestic Feast, and as I guzzle and guttle I shall wish that you were here and had not taken leave of these agreeable vices. With kind regards to Mrs Withers I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 232.

3

2 vols. (1922–54), Part 1 (1922) covering the earliest times to 1751. William James Lewis (1847–1926), had been Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge since 1881. See AEH to Withers, 22 Dec. 1922. One predecessor, William Hallowes Miller (1801–80), was Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge for forty-eight years. 2 His edn. of Lucan (1926) 3 See AEH to LH, 8 Dec. 1925. 1

606

Letters 1872–1926

TO H E N RY F E S T I N G J O N E S Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Dec. 1925 Dear Festing-Jones,1 A happy new year to you, and thanks for Little Blue Book No. 306.2 The text does not seem to be so corrupt as it sometimes is in American editions. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Wellesley MS. Tipped-in in Jones’s complimentary copy of the first edition of LP (1922).

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Dec. 1925 My dear Laurence, Thanks for your Christmas present.1 I like Blind Man’s Buff the best of the stories. Farvingdon I read when it came out, perhaps in Quilter’s magazine.2 At our last Feast I had the new Dean of Westminster3 next me, and he said he had long been wanting to thank me for the amusement he had derived from my writings, especially about Queen Victoria and her Ministers. So if I bring you money, you bring me fame. Now that Hagley4 is burnt down it is curious to think that I never saw it; though it cannot have been much to see.5 A happy new year to both of you. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Somerset County Library, Street, MS (copy at BMC). Clemens (1936), 4 (incomplete); Maas, 232–3, with ‘Hughley’ for ‘Hagley’. 1

AEH inserts a hyphen in the name. An edn. of ASL by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (1889–1951). 1 His book Odd Pairs: A Book of Tales (1925). 2 AEH is mistaken. The Universal Review (1888–90), ed. Harry Quilter, in 1890 contained three contributions from LH, but not The Defence of Farvingdon, which he wrote in 1895. 3 The Very Revd William Foxley Norris (1859–1937). 4 The eighteenth-century house Hagley Hall, Hagley, Worcestershire, was heavily damaged by fire on Christmas Eve, 1925. 5 It was, and is. 2

1926 TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Jan. 1926 My dear Kate, I am obliged to write to you, as otherwise you may be perplexed by communications from the London Library. I am taking steps to have you made a life member; but as you cannot be elected before Feb. 8 (if then), the Librarian suggests sending you a receipt ‘subject to the Committee’s Approval’ which will entitle you to full privileges and enable you to make use of the Library at once in your own right. Finally you will have to sign a form. Make hay while the sun shines, for perhaps the Committee will not approve of you.1 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 14 – 17 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 61 Prior Park Road | Bath’ and postmarked 18 Jan. Memoir, 79; Maas, 233.

TO R E G I NA L D S T J O H N PA R RY Trinity College 17 Jan. 1926 My dear /Parry/, (please forgive) There is at least one address of Platt’s, besides the Prelection,1 which well deserves to be published:2 a most interesting and entertaining discourse on Aristotle, delivered on some public occasion at University College.3 If Mrs Platt has not the manuscript, it is probably in the possession of the secretarial department or the Union Society. 1

They did approve, and upon payment of a fee of £25. 4s. she became a life member. On chs. 45–8 of Plato’s Phaedo. Delivered at Cambridge in 1921 when Platt was a candidate for the Professorship of Greek. 2 In Nine Essays by Arthur Platt, published by Cambridge University Press in 1927. 3 ‘Science and Arts among the Ancients’, delivered at the Opening of Session at UCL, Oct. 1899. 1

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Letters 1872–1926

His other remains are likely to be papers read to the students’ Literary Society, some of which I heard, and they were very good to listen to. How they would look in print I do not feel quite sure; but they were full of good stuff, apart from the fun. I should not enjoy writing an introduction, but I would do it for his sake, and in the interests of scholarship and literature.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS. 7735 1 . Maas, 233.

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 21 Jan. 1926 Dear Duff, This is an advance copy. The copy which you should receive from the publisher in a week or so you might send to me in exchange. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Tipped-in on the flyleaf of a copy of Housman’s 1926 edn. of Lucan, which bears the inscription ‘J. D. Duff from A. E. Housman’ on the half-title.

4 AEH did write an affectionate biographical preface to the vol., repr. in Selected Prose, 154–60, and in Ricks (1988), 344–8.

609

22 January 1926

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Jan. 1926 Dear Mr Roberts, About a week ago I heard from the Vice-Master of this college1 that the Press was thinking of printing Platt’s prelection and perhaps some more of his remains; and he asked me some questions, which I answered. Yesterday I had a letter from Mrs Platt to say that she was having some of his MSS typed and proposed to send them /(in that form)/ to me; and I told her that they should go to you. But this morning Edward Platt2 sends me the MS of the prelection, which I now hold at your disposal. It has not been typed. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 2 . Maas, 234.

TO T. R. G LOVE R Trinity College 22 Jan. 1926 Dear Glover, I enclose, for your minute-book, notes of to-day’s meeting of the Examiners for the University Scholarships. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

1

Reginald St John Parry.

2

The Platts’ son.

610

Letters 1872–1926

TO A . D. NO CK Trinity College | Cambridge | England 27 Jan. 1926 Dear Nock, To say seriously that the stars follow the moon’s course is of course absurd, as they move in the opposite direction;1 so I surmise that this is an ornate expression of Genesis I 16,2 that the Moon is confused with Night (they both ride in a coach and pair) as in Ovid fast. VI 235 and Luc. I 218, and that then one may compare Eur. Ion 1151 ἄστρα δ’ ὡμάρτει θεᾷ, Theocr. II 166, Tibull. II  87 sq. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. If the moon’s δρόμος is her visible motion from her rising in the east to her setting in the west, the herd of stars may seem to be following a great leader, if the observer is not sharp enough to notice that they are always overtaking her. The Harvard Theological Review, 45. 1 ( Jan. 1952), [1]; Maas, 421.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Jan. 1926 My dear Richards, The Headmaster of Winchester can have XXXVI from Last Poems, and if he wants a title he can call it Revolution,1 which may be of use, as most readers do not seem to see that it is a parable. I hope your negotiations may turn out as you hope, but you are apt to be sanguine. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 215 (incomplete); Maas, 234.

1 Nock had asked AEH the meaning of τὰ ἄστρα τῷ τῆς σελήνης ἀκολουθοῦντα δρόμῳ (‘the stars as they follow the course of the moon’) in the Epistle to Diognetus, 7. 2. 2 ‘And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also’. 1 The poem appeared with the title on page 63 of the Winchester College. Sixth Book. Lines Book (P. and G. Wells, Winchester, 1926). This, the first addition of the title, was the only change (apart from the correction of two misprints) that AEH made to the text of LP. See AEH to the Richards Press Ltd., 17 May 1928, where he asks for the title to be added in a reprint of LP.

611

3 February 1926

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 31 Jan. 1926 Dear Witter Bynner, Many thanks for your remembrance of me and your lively and various book.1 I think perhaps A Song of the Winds2 was what I liked best. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Harvard MS Eng 1071/20. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | c/ Mr Alfred A. Knopf | Publishers | New York | U. S. A.’ and redirected to 50 W. 45th Street. Bynner/Haber (1957), 25.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Feb. 1926 My dear Richards, A Shropshire Lad is still prohibited to anthologists. What you probably have in mind is that the Poet Laureate, having ascertained that I should not prosecute him, put three poems from it into his selection for schools.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Stanford University MS (Cecil H. Green Library). Scribner’s cat. 132 (1946) prints a facsimile. Richards, 215–16.

1

Caravan (1925). I used to go on windy days | Where many birds were light along the sea, | And light as wings down watery ways | The winds were wandering free | That blew the nights and blew the days, | And blew the clouds and ships and birds and me. || Lost are the early winds that caught me, | Low are the winds that used to blow so high; | Leaving the calm that bitter years have taught me; | Only the peace remains that comes to men who die … | Joy was an early wind and wonder, | Love was a wind that lifted me on wings; | Far is the rim they all have drifted under: | Faint is their melody that wanders back and sings: || I used to go on windy days | Where many birds were light along the sea, | And light as wings down watery ways | The winds are wandering free | That blew the nights and blew the days, | And blew the clouds and ships, and the birds and me. 1 See AEH to GR, 23 Sept. 1923, and n. 1. 2

612

Letters 1872–1926

TO L I L LY F R A Z E R Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Feb. 1926 Dear Lady Frazer, Thanks for your card; but I am told that if I show myself at the Queens’ Society1 they will worry me to read them a paper myself. They must be quite impudent enough, for I do not suppose that Sir James volunteered his. Besides, an undergraduate went into Heffer’s2 the other day and asked when my Posthumous Poems would be published; so, as I am a sexagenarius, I am afraid of becoming an Argeus, and I especially avoid Queens’, because they have a pons sublicius.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Maas, 234–5 (incomplete).

TO H . M . A DA M S 1 Trinity College 3 March 1926 Dear Adams, I enclose the MS of A Shropshire Lad. XXXV is missing, and after XXXVI the numeration differs a good deal from the final order, because while the book was printing I took out five pieces and put in the three now numbered XXXIV, XXXVII, and XLI, which are together at the end.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R. 1.31. Lilly MSS 2. 1. 10 (t.s. copy). The Manuscript Poems of A. E. Housman, ed. Tom Burns Haber (1955), 120–1; Maas, 235.

1 At Queens’ College, Cambridge. The Society invited senior members of the university to speak on their research or on a topic of general interest in which they were expert. 2 Cambridge booksellers. 3 The Argei were effigies of twenty-seven men made of rushes which were cast by Vestal Virgins from the Sublician Bridge into the Tiber. They are mentioned in Ovid’s Fasti, 5. 621–34, and Frazer gives an account in his five-vol. edn. (1929), 4. 73. One theory of the origin of the practice was that in ancient times men over sixty years of age (called ‘Depontani’) were thrown from the bridge into the river. There has been a bridge crossing the river from the President’s Lodge of Queens’ College since 1749. 1 Librarian of TCC, 1924–57. 2 For an account of the changes in the Trinity MS, see Poems (1997), Introduction, xx–xxiii, supplemented by Naiditch (1995), 92–3, and Naiditch (2005), 70.

613

18 March 1926

TO H E N RY F E S T I N G J O N E S Trinity College 11 March 1926 Dear Jones, The sentence is explanatory of κατὰ τρόπον, ‘in their proper order’. The moon is in the first and lowest of the eight concentric spheres, the sun in the fourth, the fixed stars in the eighth and outermost. Scaliger’s ipso ambitu means ‘the actual circumference’ of the universe, which is what the eighth sphere is. τὰ κοῖλα means the concavity of the inmost sphere, by which we are surrounded. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS Letters c. 1 189 .

TO G A I L L A R D L A P S L E Y Trinity College 14 March 1926 Dear Lapsley, I am very grateful for the glimpse. Yours A. E. H. Yale MS.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 18 March 1926 Dear Gow, The only additions which I can think of are on the next leaf.1 But ‘Notes on the text of the ’Αθηναίων πολιτεία’ should be subtracted: there is only one, extracted from a private letter, and it was made simultaneously by others. And the notes on Apoll. Sid. are on his prose, and so belong rather to Miscellanea than to Poetae minores. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. 1 Gow had begun in 1925 to prepare the list of AEH’s publications that would eventually appear in Gow, 65–137. See AEH to Gow, 4 June 1926.

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Letters 1872–1926

J. P. X pp. 187–196 Horatiana. Athenaeum, May 1899, letter on the new fragment of Juvenal. Academy 1891, two letters on the Antiope of Euripides. Times Literary Supplement 1924, letter on Keats’ Fall of Hyperion. Proceedings of the Classical Association vol. XVIII (Aug. 1921) pp. 67–84 On the Application of Thought to Textual Criticism. Introductory Lecture, Univ. Coll. Lond. Oct. 3 1892. TCC Add. MS c. 112 29 .

TO A . S. F. G OW [Trinity College | Cambridge] Further addenda Berl. Phil. Woch. 1910 p. 476, Αἴτια Καλλιμάχου. Berl. Phil. Woch. 1912 p. 1490 (signed J. N. Madvig† and transcribed from Madvig opusc. ed. 2 p. 735 n. 2). C. R. 1916 p. 128 (signed D. Erasmus). Will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?1 A. E. H. 19 March 1926 TCC Add. MS c. 112 30 .

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 6 April 1926 Dear Sir, My poems are not arranged in order of date in either volume. Hell Gate was finished in April 1922 by the filling up of gaps, but it was conceived and partly written in 1906 or a little later.1 I have some times thought of attaching the dates to the poems, so far as I can remember them. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Private MS. 1

Macbeth, 4. 1. 133. ‘Begun 1905’, AEH told Cockerell in 1936 (Richards, 437). LH, Memoir, 269, records only ‘five lines’ on Nbk C 81, which is the first (and the only pre-1922) trace of the poem, and it could belong to 1905 or 1906. No MS has been found of this first draft. The evidence of the Nbks is that the second and third drafts date from 30 Mar.–10 Apr. 1922, and that the fourth draft is dated 10 Apr. 1922 by AEH on the last page. 1

615

23 April 1926

TO T H E E A R L O F OX F O R D A N D A S QU I T H Trinity College | Cambridge 22 April 1926 Dear Lord Oxford, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your address on Scaliger,1 a short report of which I had been interested to read in the papers. One statement which both you and Sandys2 have made in reliance upon Mark Pattison,3 that Scaliger in the Manilius of 1579 passed from textual criticism to chronology, is not true. There is hardly a word about chronology in the book, which is in fact his greatest work in textual criticism; and this study continued to occupy him long after the Emendatio temporum of 1583, for the second edition of Manilius in 1600, when he had at last got hold of a good manuscript, was much enlarged and in great part rewritten. Pattison had never read the book; he was a spectator of all time and all existence,4 and the contemplation of that repulsive scene is fatal to accurate learning.5 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS Asquith 35, fo. 192. Maas, 236.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 April 1926 My dear Withers, I was just thinking of writing to you about Lewis’s1 death. He left Cambridge only about a fortnight or three weeks before, and seemed in his usual health, but for the last twelvemonth he had been aging, and his 1 Scaliger, Asquith’s Presidential Address to the Scottish Classical Association, delivered at Edinburgh, 20 Mar. 1926. 2 Sir John Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship (1903–8), 2. 202. 3 1813–84. Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, 1861–84. In his review of Jacob Bernays’ 1855 biography of Scaliger, which appeared in the Quarterly Review, 108 (1860), 34–81, and was reprinted in his Essays (1889), 132–95, Pattison states that Scaliger’s Manilius ‘was, in fact, but an introduction to a comprehensive chronological system which he brought out in 1583 in his De Emendatione’ (Essays, 162). Scaliger’s De emendatione temporum revolutionized received ideas about ancient chronology. 4 As Plato required the philosopher to be: The Republic, 6. 486 ( Jowett translation). 5 ‘An echo of Scaliger’s remark on Pliny (quoted by Asquith): ‘‘Fere omnia tractavit: nil exacte’’ [‘He dealt with nearly everything: nothing precisely’]’: Maas, 236 n. Plato thought that the philosopher who considered all time and all existence could not ‘think much of human life’. 1 W. J. Lewis.

616

Letters 1872–1926

articulation had grown very indistinct. At Godalming, where he was staying with his sister, he had an attack of what the doctors called false angina pectoris, but he had got better, and on the morning of the day when he died he wrote a letter; in the afternoon he went to his bedroom to sleep, and was found dead. The cause of death was given as a clot in the lungs. He was buried from Oriel, and our Vice-Master2 went over to represent the College: the other Lewis3 and Hicks were also there. You do not give definite information about your own health, but I hope no news is good news. I expect to be away for the first half of June, and again for about a month from July 26; but outside those periods I know of nothing to keep me from your arms. I remember no spring so early as this, not even 1893. With kind regards to Mrs Withers I am Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 236–7.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 8 May 1926 Dear Scholfield, Mattaire’s1 Opera et fragmenta ueterum poetarum Latinorum, 1713, though obsolete, is a book which a University Library ought to have, and I have sometimes wanted to consult it. The ed. princeps of Manilius (Regiomontanus’) is interesting to scholars as well as bibliophiles, for its merit and authorship, and Jenkinson,2 when I was trying to buy a copy for myself, offered to buy one for the Library out of some fund which he said was available; but I did not feel justified in taking advantage of that, and the copy I was after sold for £60. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 1 . Maas, 237.

2

Reginald St John Parry. ‘Thomas Crompton Lewis (1851–1929); Fellow of TCC, 1877; employed in the Indian Education Service, 1881–1906; thereafter lived in Cambridge and served on the Board of Indian Civil Service Studies’: Maas, 237 n. 1 2 For ‘Maittaire’s’. F. H. Jenkinson: see List of Recipients. 3

617

1 June 1926

TO T H E D I R E C TO R , S T U D E N T S ’ RO O M , BRITISH MUSEUM Trinity College | Cambridge 27 May 1926 Dear Sir, I shall be obliged if you can renew the enclosed ticket. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 45982 W, fo. 95. Envelope (fo. 96) addressed ‘The Director | Students’ Room | Department of MSS | British Museum | London W. C.’

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R Trinity College | Cambridge 1 June 1926 My dear Ashburner, I am glad to hear there is a chance of your coming to England this year, and I hope I may see you. Next week I shall be nearer to you than I have been for a long time, as I shall be in Venice from the 7th to the 10th to see my gondolier, who is dying, or thinks so.1 I don’t know if I shall catch Horatio.2 Your industry is laudable, and I suppose it is high time that Malalas3 was edited again. My note about the mandarins is not from any poetic source—I cannot now remember whether it was a traveller or a French encyclopedia—and any traces of metre must be my own native woodnotes wild.4 Everybody who opens the book lights first upon that passage, and tells all his acquaintance. 1 This was to be AEH’s last visit to Venice, and the last time he saw his gondolier Andrea: see the letter to KES, 23 June 1926, and MP XLIV 21–2 (written 10–30 Apr. 1922): ‘Andrea, fare you well; | Venice, farewell to thee’. Andrea died in 1930: AEH to KES, 11 Dec. 1930. Withers, 79: ‘while he [Andrea] lived Housman wrote to him, and in turn received reports of his condition … Housman told me when he died, and told me with considerable acerbity, how the relatives were pestering him to continue his gratuities, and copiously lying. The pleas were at first fawning, then suddenly passed to anger and vituperation. He too was angry, and I think very sore that a benefaction that had proved so useful to the recipient, so pleasant to himself to make, should end in mendacity and squabbling.’ 2 Horatio Brown: see List of Recipients. 3 John Malalas (c.491–578), author of Syrian origin whose Chronographia is a compilation of history from the creation to his own times. 4 Milton, L’Allegro, 134: ‘his native wood-notes wild’. AEH’s note on Lucan 8. 402 ends Sinarum proceres accipimus quinas feminas simul inire, pene et ambarum manuum pedumque pollicibus (‘We are told that the Chinese mandarins had five women at a time, with their penis, their thumbs, and their big toes’). Evidently someone had observed that Sinarum proceres made the first half of a hexameter.

618

Letters 1872–1926

I was sorry to see the death of dear old Rotton.5 I had seen nothing of him since I came here in 1911, but I heard from Godalming that he was not quite master of his household. Guy le Strange6 seems very well and lively. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 281–2. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 19.

TO D. S. MACCOLL Trinity College | Cambridge 2 June 1926 My dear MacColl, My name may be added to an appeal to the Prime Minister asking for an inquiry into the bridge question generally, including Charing Cross, before Waterloo Bridge is condemned.1 My own admiration for Waterloo Bridge, as for other buildings of that age and style, is temperate, but I perceive that it is esteemed by competent judges. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Glasgow University MS (MacColl Collection H386).

5 Sir John Rotton, who died on 9 Apr. 1926 at the age of 88. He was a member of the Council of UCL (1869–1906) and Vice-president of the Senate (1878, 1882). He served as legal assistant to the Medical Department of the Local Government Board (1869–76), becoming its Legal Adviser (1883). He was knighted in 1899. 6 1854–1933, Orientalist. After his wife’s death in 1907 he settled in Cambridge, becoming a member of Pembroke College. By 1912 he was almost totally blind. Publications include Palestine under the Moslems (1890), Baghdad under the Abasssid Caliphate (1900), and The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (1905). 1 Waterloo Bridge in London, designed by John Rennie, was opened on 6 June 1817 to commemorate the Duke of Wellington’s victory in the second battle of Waterloo. In 1923 two of its piers settled alarmingly and a temporary bridge was built alongside. After a long controversy whether to restore or to reconstruct, the bridge was demolished in 1936 and a new bridge was built, 1937–42.

619

4 June 1926

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 2 June 1926 My dear Kate, I should write to tell you that I am going abroad on Saturday for a fortnight or three weeks: first on a short visit to Venice, where my poor gondolier1 says he is dying and wants to see me again, and then to Paris. Laurence was here a month ago and seemed well and thriving, as I hope are you and Edward. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 18 . Memoir, 150 (incomplete); Maas, 237.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 4 June 1926 Dear Gow, I am very much taken aback, and my feelings are mixed; but, however deeply I may deplore the misdirection of so much industry, it is impossible not to be touched and pleased by the proof of so much kindness and friendliness, and I thank you for it.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11231 . Gow, 55 (excerpt); Maas, 238.

1

See AEH to Ashburner, 1 June 1926, n. 1. Gow, vi: ‘In the year 1925 Housman allowed me to collect from parcels in his rooms such offprints of his articles as were still available. They numbered nearly a hundred, and tempted me to compile a complete list. This list Housman himself revised, and the resulting typescript proved useful, so that in the following year, partly for that reason and partly as a compliment to Housman, three friends, Mr E. Harrison, Professor D. S. Robertson, and Mr A. F. Scholfield, joined me in printing a hundred copies of it.’ A corrected, rearranged, revised, and updated list forms the second part of Gow’s 1936 memoir of AEH. 1

620

Letters 1872–1926

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 5 June 1926 Dear Scholfield, I take a double pleasure in the gift I received yesterday from you and Gow and others, because it evinces both friendly feelings and a scholarly interest in the infinitely little. Yours A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 2 . Maas, 238.

TO D. S. RO B E RT S O N Trinity College 5 June 1926 Dear Robertson, I am necessarily very grateful for what I received yesterday from you and your amiable associates, and no such words as περιεργία1 or ματαιοπονία2 shall escape from my pen. Yours A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 23 June 1926 My dear Kate, I got back safe yesterday, after three days’ beautiful weather in Venice and a very dull time in Paris till just the last. My gondolier was looking pretty well, as warmth suits him, but he is quite unable to row and gets out of breath if he goes up many stairs. He is being sent by the municipal authorities for another three months’ treatment in hospital, as they still find bacilli in his blood, and I suppose he will go steadily down hill.1 I was surprised to find what pleasure it gave me to be in Venice again. It was like coming home, when sounds and smells which one had forgotten 1 1

2 Meddling in others’ affairs. Labour in vain. See AEH to Ashburner, 1 June 1926, n. 1.

621

24 June 1926

steal upon one’s senses; and certainly there is no place like it in the world: everything there is better in reality than in memory. I first saw it on a romantic evening after sunset in 1900,2 and I left it on a sunshiny morning, and I shall not go there again. I enclose a notice about the Woodchester pavement,3 which you may wish to see. I shall be there from July 31 to August 7. I did not know of our grandfather’s4 christening feat. It must have been just when he was leaving Stroud for Woodchester, and I suppose he wanted to clear things up. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 19 – 21 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 61 Prior Park Road | Bath’. Memoir, 151 (incomplete); Maas, 238–9.

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 24 June 1926 Dear Cockerell, Many thanks for your gift of Bridges’ handwriting book.1 The most magnificent specimen, to my thinking, is Nairne’s;2 the ugliest, with nothing but legibility to commend or excuse it, 33.3 When we do lose Bridges, it will be some small consolation that we shall hear no more of his swan-geese. I don’t see that S. Butler had any title to inclusion except as brother-in-law.4 /(really something less)./ On the other hand Elizabeth

2

See AEH to Lucy Housman, 15 Oct. 1900. A spectacular Roman mosaic pavement of the hall of a villa, discovered in the churchyard. It was opened up in 1880, 1890, and 1926 (and subsequently), and consisted of a square of nearly 49 feet surrounded by a strip of red brick tesserae and bordered with a wide labyrinth fretted pattern. See AEH to KES, 14 Nov. 1926. 4 The Revd John Williams (1779–1857), who became Rector of Woodchester in 1834. 1 English Handwriting. Roger Fry and E. A. Lowe were responsible for the first collection of 34 facsimiles (1926), Bridges and Alfred J. Fairbank for a further collection of 31 (1927). There are copies in the National Art Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 2 Alexander Nairne (1863–1936). Theologian; Canon of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, 1921–36; Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, 1922–32; author of The Faith of the Old Testament (1914). The handwriting sample is from an 1883 letter to Bridges. 3 An extract from a letter written by Gerard M. Hopkins to Richard Watson Dixon in 1886. 4 Samuel Butler (1835–1902). Bridges’ elder brother George (1836–60) was married to Harriet Fanny Butler (1834–1918), Butler’s sister. 3

622

Letters 1872–1926

Daryush5 is a credit to both of her parents, and I hope she is now out of jail.6 I have not succeeded in finding the feline element in 13.7 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 2 July 1926 My dear Hall, I am very much complimented by the wish of the College to have a drawing of me, and I gratefully accept the proposal that I should sit to Mr Dodd.1 I expect to be here from the 11th to the 24th of the month. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 7 July 1926 My dear Withers, I am very much grieved to hear that you are laid up, and I suffer on both sides of my nature, the altruistic and the egotistic. I hope it is not very serious and will not last long. My gondolier, who had summoned me to his death-bed, was quite revived by the summer weather: pray follow his example. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 239. 5 1887–1977. Daughter of Robert Bridges. Her poems appeared in Charitessi 1911 (1912), and in her own collections Verses (1930) and Verses, Third Book (1933). In 1923 she married Ali Akbar Daryush, a government official in Persia, where she lived till her return to England in 1927. 6 Apparently a jocular reference to purdah (whereby women were excluded from public view). 7 A letter written by Cockerell to Mrs Bridges in 1925. 1 Francis Dodd (1874–1949), commissioned in 1926 by SJCO to make a portrait drawing of AEH. It is reproduced opposite the title-page of Gow. Dodd executed portraits of naval and military commanders (1914–18), which are now in the Imperial War Museum. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1923. ARA, 1927; RA, 1935.

623

21 July 1926

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 17 July 1926 Dear Roberts (for members of the Family need not throw one another’s titles in their teeth): if you were able to come to tea on Tuesday the 20th , that would suit me well. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Photograph in Maas, after p. 202.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 21 July 1926 Dear Scholfield, It appears that the Library has a rule by which no more than 5 books can be had out for a person in statu pupillari. I do not know if this is ever widened, but, if so, it might properly be done for W. H. Semple, a research student in St John’s College, who is studying Apollinaris Sidonius under my direction and finds that 5 books are not enough to work with and that the books he wants are not to be found elsewhere than in the Library. He is a graduate of Belfast, and has acted for three years as assistant to the Professors of Latin and of English there. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 1123 . Maas, 239.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 21 July 1926 The name of the author is one I do not know, and I do not gather from the title that it has to do with antiquity in particular; but the subject is of interest and the price small, so that I should think it might be bought.1 A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 1124 . 1 A note written on the MS, apparently in Scholfield’s hand, refers to R. O. Frick, Le Peuple et La Prévision du Temps (Basel, 1926).

624

Letters 1872–1926

TO J. W. M ACK A I L coniux is rather commoner in inscriptions, but coniunx occurs earlier, and is rather commoner in the earliest MSS; Priscian and the other grammarians generally inculcate coniunx, though they mention the other. A. E. H. 24 July 1926 Trin. Coll. Camb. TCC MS R.1.92: p.c. addressed ‘Dr J. W. Mackail | 6 Pembroke Gardens | Kensington | W. 8’. Maas, 422.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 25 July 1926 Dear Sir, I do not feel able to refuse your request, and I have copied and signed two poems. If I do not say that I hope this will do the good you expect, it is because I have one thing in common with Keats and am incapable of hope.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Newcastle MS. G. B. A. Fletcher, Durham University Journal, 38 (1946), 93; Maas, 240.

TO A . S. F. G OW Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove [26 July–3 Aug. 1926] Dear Gow, I accede to the kind and flattering request of the Memorials Committee. I shall be back on the 21st and shall then be continuously at home. Mr Gleadowe1 had better not write to me before, as for the last week of my absence I shall have no fixed address. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS a. 23230(1) . ‘[1926]’ pencilled on MS. The date is narrowed down by P. G. Naiditch in HSJ 20 (1994), 40. 1 Keats to Mrs Samuel Brawne, 24 Oct. 1820: ‘if ever there was a person born without the faculty of hoping I am he.’ 1 Reginald [Morier York] Gleadowe (1888–1944), Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, 1928–33, had been commissioned by TCC to do a portrait of AEH.

625

21 September 1926

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Thanks to you and the Syndicate for your action in the matter of W. H. Semple. A. E. Housman. 21 Aug. 1926 Trin. Coll. Camb. TCC Add. MS c. 1125 : p.c. addressed ‘The Librarian | University Library’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH.

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Sept. 1926 My dear Hall, Many thanks for the photographs. I much prefer Dodd1 to Rothenstein, who never gets a likeness of anyone, being presumably too great an artist. I enclose the list of Adversaria. Some years ago your Librarian, Stevenson2 I think it was, asked me for copies of the Adversaria themselves. The offprints were then in packages on a top shelf, and I had not the courage to tackle them; but Gow has sorted them out, and I now have a set, not complete however, which I mean to send when I have found time to correct misprints and such things. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Maas, 240.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Sept. 1926 My dear Withers, This is very good and delightful news about your health, and apparently the consequence of shingles! Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take: The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head.1 1 2 1

See AEH to Hall, 2 July 1926. William Henry Stevenson (1858–1924), Fellow and Librarian of SJCO, 1904–24. Verse 3 of William Cowper’s hymn God moves in a mysterious way.

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Letters 1872–1926

I hope Sussex and Kent will give the finishing touches. Do not miss Boxgrove,2 four miles from Chichester, with its black marble. I have seen some good ones too: Coventry for the first time, Southwell, Newark, and Tideswell. I have been spending a month in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, winding up with a motor-tour through Derbyshire, which was new to me. Consequently I have had my full allowance of running about, and am now settled down to work in this quietest of Cambridge months; so that I shall put off availing myself of your kind invitation. The peaches in the bowling-green are ripe, and a good crop, as they generally are; and the younger fellows of the College, in spite of their aversion from port, stay after dinner to eat them in the Combination Room. Now that Lewis is gone, I don’t know whom to send you news of. I think that the Master of Magdalene,3 though his home is Croughton and I believe he is there now, is not an acquaintance of yours, though quite a desirable one. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 12 (excerpt); Maas, 240–1.

TO M RS B LI NK H O RN Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Sept. 1926 Dear Mrs Blinkhorn, I am obliged and flattered by your letter, but I lecture only under compulsion, and for literary criticism I have neither talent nor inclination, so that I hope you will not mind my declining your kind invitation as I have declined others. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

2 3

Church. AEH and Withers shared an interest in church architecture: Withers, 84–93. A. B. Ramsay.

1 October 1926

627

TO P RO F E S S O R E D UA R D F R A E N K E L [Trinity College | Cambridge] Eduardo Fraenkelo s.d. A. E. Housman. accepi, uir doctissime, beneuole missam censuram tuam nec minus beneuole scriptam. laudes nimias esse intellego, partim etiam falsas, nam quod in IX 766 extat scripsisse Lucanum nec dixi nec credo. reprehensionum, qui hominibus insitus est amor sui, ne unam quidem iustam esse agnosco, nisi quod recte interpungis IX 491; omninoque uos censores in eo errare soletis quod uobis me magis circumspecti uidemini, estis autem multo minus. occurrit exemplum in ipso limine positum; ego enim id, quod tu p. 501 refutandum sumis, non dixi, sed, quid dicerem, accurate definiui praemissis uerbis ‘Of these manuscripts’,1 quos quinque numero inter se comparare, nulla ceterorum ratione habita, instituebam. item quae p. 504 de ‘Housm. S XVIII’ scripsisti non scripisses2 nisi paginae XVII oblitus esses. sed haec ne longius excurrant subsistam, si prius gratum donum pensare conatus ero admonitione. igitur cauendum est ne nunc odio liborum3 MZ non minus peccetur quam antea amore; sunt enim nullis secundi. multum mali feci cum Manilii Gemblacensem interpolatum esse ostendi coram hominibus qui Charybdin uitare non possent nisi ita ut ad Scyllam4 confugerent. Oct. I an. 1926. TCC MS, with Adv. c. 20. 25.

Adam Gitner has provided the following translation: ‘A. E. Housman greets Eduard Fraenkel. I received, most learned colleague, the review you kindly sent and no less kindly wrote. I understand your praise to be excessive and indeed partly false, for what stands in 9. 766 I neither said nor believe Lucan wrote. Of your criticisms (as self-love is innate to men) I do not acknowledge even one as just, except that you rightly punctuate 9. 491. You critics are altogether in the habit of mistakenly supposing yourselves more prudent than I am, but you are much less so. An example occurs at the very beginning, for I did not say what you undertake on p. 501 to refute; what I said I carefully defined in the prefatory words ‘Of these manuscripts’, which manuscripts, five in number, I set out to collate, no account being taken of the others. Likewise what you wrote on 1 AEH quotes the phrase from the introduction to his edn. of Lucan (1926), vii. Fraenkel’s review of the Lucan appeared in Gnomon, 2. 9 (Sept. 1926), 497–532. It is reprinted in his Kleine Beitr¨age Zur Klassischen Philologie (1964), 2. 2 3 For ‘scripsisses’. For ‘librorum’. 4 In Greek myth, Scylla was a man-eating monster who lived in a cave in the straits of Messina between Sicily and Italy, with the whirlpool of Charybdis opposite. To be between Scylla and Charybdis is to be faced with two equally dangerous courses of action.

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Letters 1872–1926

p. 504 about ‘Housman S XVIII’ you would not have written unless you had forgotten p. XVII. However, I shall cease lest the matter run out at length, if I first repay the nice gift with an admonishment. Accordingly, one must now beware of going wrong from the hatred of manuscripts MZ no less than previously from the love of them; they are inferior to none. I did a great harm when I showed that the Gemblancensis manuscript of Manilius had been interpolated in the presence of men who could not avoid Charybdis but by flying to Scylla. October 1, 1926.’

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Oct. 1926 My dear D’Arcy Thompson, It is very kind of you to send me your forthcoming note on Merops,1 as well as the article on Ciris, which naturally I read when it came out.2 I do not think it likely that Seruius or Donatus, whichever one calls him, would have commented as he does on apiastrae if he had already written apiarios. Moreover as barbaros is both in Seruius and in ‘Probus’ it must be as old as 400 A. D. or thereabouts, and such a corruption, if it is one, is not likely to be so old. I do not see why the Italian rustics should not have called these birds barbari, savages, Huns, for devouring the industrious, chaste, and lucrative bee. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. St Andrews MS 23594.

1 2

‘Merops Aliaeque Volucres’, CQ 20. 3/4 ( July–Oct. 1926), 191–2. In CQ 19. 3/4 ( July–Oct. 1925), 155–8.

629

12 October 1926

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Oct. 1926 Dear Hall, Very many thanks for the new photograph,1 which is even better than the old. We have just elected two Fellows, a classic2 and a mathematician,3 as in the good old days. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS. Maas, 241.

TO L I L LY F R A Z E R Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Oct. 1926 Dear Lady Frazer, Many thanks for your kind effort on behalf of my proper feeding.1 You look very benign in the picture, and I hope the interior corresponds, and that you and Sir James are well. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS Frazer 18 92 .

1

Of the portrait by Dodd. R[obert] M[antle] Rattenbury (1901–70). Admitted to TCC as Entrance Exhibitioner, 1920; awarded first class in each part of Classical Tripos, 1921, 1923; BA, 1923; Lecturer in Classics at Cambridge, 1932–52. 3 L[lewellyn] H[illeth] Thomas. (1903–92). Admitted to TCC as Entrance Scholar, 1921; Senior Scholar, 1922; awarded first class in each part of Mathematical Tripos, 1922, 1924; Smith’s Prizeman, 1926; Ph.D., 1927. 1 At the Frazers’ house in Queen Anne’s Mansions, St James’ Park, London, S. W. 1 (BL Add. MS 55142, fo. 70). 2

630

Letters 1872–1926

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Oct. 1926 Dear Roberts, A report of mine, some twenty years ago, decided the Syndics1 not to accept a treatise of Richmond’s2 on the pagination of the archetype of Catullus’ MSS;3 and, as A. W. Ward,4 who was his grandmother or some such relation, had gone and told him that I was the referee, he knew to whom he was indebted. He bore me no ill will, and has an almost embarrassing respect for me; and I am not willing to risk the chance of doing him another ill turn. He is an active and competent chaser and collator of MSS, but I seldom agree with his criticism or interpretation. That should not count against him, as I should have to say the same of several scholars whose works are printed by University Presses, and they would naturally say the same of me. If it is not impertinent, I suggest that H. E. Butler might be asked for his opinion. I daresay the Syndics, or some of them, know enough about the passions which seethe in the world of classical scholarship to understand that there is one person to whom the work should not be submitted.5 I asked the Syndics through their Secretary that my former report, which was very elaborate, might be returned to me, if that were legitimate: as it did not come, I suppose it was not. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 241–2, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing.

1 Since 1698, a committee deputed to make publishing decisions at Cambridge University Press. 2 O. L. Richmond: see List of Recipients. 3 The treatise on Catullus remained unpublished. Cambridge University Press published his edn. of Propertius in 1928. 4 Adolphus William Ward (1837–1924), Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1900–24; editorin-chief of The Cambridge Modern History, 1901–12, and co-editor, with Alfred Rayney Waller, of The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1907–16; President of the British Academy, 1911–13; knighted, 1913. Ward was chairman of the Syndics, 1905–19. 5 Identified by Maas, 242 n., as J. S. Phillimore. See List of Recipients.

631

15 October 1926

TO A . C . P E A R S O N Trinity College 14 Oct. 1926 Dear Pearson, Is it good Greek to say τοῖν δυοῖν Κάστωρ μὲν ἱππεὺς ἦν, Πολυδεύκης δὲ πύκτης, or τῶν ᾿Αθηναίων Θεμιστοκλῆς … Περικλῆς … ᾿Αλκιβιάδης? The corresponding genitive, without alter … alter or the like, is good Latin, though apparently not Ciceronian. Hunt1 has just sent me some new Callimachus from the next Oxyrhynchus volume,2 and I am making a manful pretence of knowing the language; but you see I require your assistance. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. KCC MS Misc. 34/31. Maas, 422.

TO A . C . P E A R S O N Trinity College 15 Oct. 1926 Dear Pearson, The particular case is this. Callimachus, descanting on his favourite theme that small things are often better than great ones, has a couplet which I have filled up thus: [τοῖν δὲ] δ[υ]οῖν, Μίμνερμοσ ὅτι γλυκὺσ ἄ[μμε τὸ μεῖον] [βιβλίον] ἡ μεγάλη δ’οὐκ ἐδίδαξε γύνη, ‘we have learnt the sweetness of Mimnermus from the smaller of his two books, not from the portly Nanno’:1 that he did write two is stated by Porphyrion at Hor. epist. II 2 101. Now in an ill-written and ill-preserved scholium there are traces of the name of the other book, and it may turn out to be μέλισσαι. It therefore occurs to me that he may have written, more smartly, ἄ[μμε τὸ μικρὸν θηρίον] (see Theocr. XIX 5 sq, τυτθὸν θηρίον ἐντὶ μέλισσα), and, though I feel inside me that the genitive is right enough, I have no /quite/ parallel passage.

1 A. S. Hunt (1871–1934), Fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford, and Professor of Papyrology, 1913–34. 2 Part XVII of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (1927), which contained a fragment from the prologue to the Aetia. 1 Hunt chose to leave the missing words blank, though he thanks AEH in his preface for ‘several illuminating suggestions’.

632

Letters 1872–1926

Thanks for your letter. The number of good Greek scholars whom I have deceived into thinking that I know Greek is mounting up, and I add your scalp to Platt’s and Headlam’s.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. KCC MS Misc. 34/31. Maas, 422–3. The square brackets in the text are AEH’s.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 18 Oct. 1926 Dear Roberts, I return the eight papers by Platt, in which I have made a few small corrections. The Prelection1 you will probably soon receive from Harrison2 or Parry.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 3 .

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Oct. 1926 Dear Hall, I still have by me the famous bone of contention.1 When the Board of Management offered to have it inserted, I declined, because I thought it would be humiliating to Arnold; but that obstacle no longer exists. Its length, 20 foolscap pages of my handwriting, may be greater than what you are in want of. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4. Maas, 242.

2

See AEH to Postgate, 22 Feb. 1908, and n. 1. Public lecture delivered in 1921 by Platt as a candidate for the Regius Professorship of Greek at Cambridge. 2 3 Ernest Harrison. Reginald St John Parry. 1 See AEH to Hall, 15 Jan. 1923, and note. 1

633

21 October 1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Oct. 1926 My dear Richards, I think I ought to be included among your creditors.1 It is all very well to say that I shall not lose the £750 if you can help it, but it may easily turn out that you can’t help it. I am glad to hear of Geoffrey’s2 success. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Oct. 1926 My dear Richards, Do what you like about the ‘‘Curwen Editions’’ and When I was oneand-twenty, provided that I am not required to sign an agreement. These musical people are more plague than profit.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 216 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Oct. 1926 My dear Richards, I do not want to take the books away from your firm.1 The vis inertiae,2 no longer regarded as a true cause in the physical world, governs me all the same. 1 Richards had gone bankrupt again. Though AEH was owed £1014. 11. 8 for sales and royalties on LP and the edns. of Juvenal and Manilius, and he took legal action to protect his interests, there is no evidence of personal animus towards Richards for failure to pay unpaid royalties: J. D. Tunnicliffe and M. Buncombe, ‘A. E. Housman and the Failure of Grant Richards Limited in 1926’, HSJ 11 (1985), 101–6; Naiditch (2005), 27–8. Tunnicliffe and Buncombe, 102, point out that AEH’s annual stipend as Professor of Latin was £1,000 at the time. 2 The Richards’s son. 1 This concerns ‘a request for permission to make a gramophone record’: Richards, 216. 1 According to Richards, 216, AEH is ‘writing in the expectation that I was on the verge of new financial difficulties’. 2 Force of inertia.

634

Letters 1872–1926

I expected something of this sort, because it was hinted by a publisher who wrote to me a few weeks ago asking for A Shropshire Lad. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 216; Maas, 242 (both incomplete).

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Oct. 1926 Dear Hall, I enclose the MS. I am sorry you are quitting the C. Q., but I should think you must now be very tired.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Oct. 1926 Leave out. A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. 1: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2.’

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Oct. 1926 Dear Sir, If you like to send me the first edition of Last Poems I will write my name in it; but I warn you that I shall also insert the two missing stops on page 52 and thereby, I imagine, destroy its value for bibliophiles. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Note on MS indicates its removal from a copy of LP (1922) bearing AEH’s signature on the half-title and his corrections on p. 52. 1

Hall had been co-editor of CQ since 1911, and stayed on till 1930.

635

29 October 1926

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 29 Oct. 1926 Dear Roberts, Your order for Platt’s Essays is logical in itself, but in some cases it visibly conflicts with the order in which they were composed. In particular, FitzGerald, which is the earliest of all, ought not to come after Cervantes nor near Cervantes, because in FitzGerald he speaks of himself as knowing hardly any Spanish, whereas when he wrote Cervantes he knew it quite well. Plato on the Immortality of the Soul (a title which will have to be altered) rightly stands last, and I should like to put first Arts and Science among the Ancients, which is the most carefully written and was delivered before a large public; then between them the Literary Society essays, whose chronology I roughly know, in an order nearly that of their date, which can best be managed by sandwiching ancient and modern subjects. I give the list over the page. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. 1. Arts & Science among the Ancients. 2. FitzGerald. 3. Lucian. 4. La Rochefoucauld. 5. Aristophanes. 6. Cervantes. 7. Julian. 8. Poetry and Science. 9. Plato on the Immortality of the Soul.1 CUL Add. MS 7735 4 . Maas, 243.

1 In a letter to Roberts of 1 Mar. 1927, AEH requested that 3 and 5 be reversed. With this exception, the order proposed here was adopted.

636

Letters 1872–1926

TO E DW I N M A R K H A M Trinity College | Cambridge | England 31 Oct. 1926 Dear Mr Markham, The poems which you wish to include in your anthology1 seem to be from A Shropshire Lad, which is not copyright in the United States of America, so that I have no right either to withhold my consent or to give it. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Kent State University MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Nov. 1926 My dear Richards, Heinemann write to me saying that they are thinking of taking over your assets and asking particularly for A Shropshire Lad. Before I answer them I should like to have anything you may wish to say on the subject. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 216 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Nov. 1926 My dear Richards, I do not understand this, for I did not seek to withdraw any permission. They can make their record if they like: all I want is not to have to write letters. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s.

1 The Book of Poetry, collected from the whole field of British and American Poetry, ed. Edwin Markham, 7 (1926) included seven poems from ASL, three from LP, and a chorus from Fragment of a Greek Tragedy.

637

14 November 1926

TO M E S S R S G R A N T R I C H A R D S LTD [Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Nov. 1926] x 1 Yes, it is. A. E. H. Especially as he says re when he means about.2 PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Note written at the foot of a letter to AEH from Thomas Keighley of Ashton-under-Lyne. Richards, 216.

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R K Whewell’s Court | Trinity College 12 Nov. 1926 My dear Ashburner, I am rejoiced to hear from le Strange that you will dine with me on Sunday. You will be in good time if you come to my rooms at 7. 50. On issuing from your hotel, turn to the right and follow the main street for rather more than half a mile, till you have passed Sidney and have Jesus Lane on your right and the tower which I inhabit on your left. 1896 port, which I gather you do not despise, will be offered to you, and the sherry and Madeira are not beneath notice. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 283–4. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 20.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Nov. 1926 My dear Kate, I knew it was a long time since I had written to you, but did not realise how long, and fancied that I wrote when I came back here at the end of August. The week at Woodchester was fine: the pavement,1 which I had seen the last time it was opened, 35 years ago, attracted great numbers and was kept open for a second week. I was dragged in to make speeches 1 The answer to Keighley’s question ‘Is this decision irrevocable?’ Permission had been refused to print the words of Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge song cycle in the programme of a concert at Stockport. 2 Keighley : ‘In reply to my enquiry re printing the words in the concert programme … ’ He had used the same expression in a previous letter to Richards. 1 See AEH to KES, 23 June 1926, and note.

638

Letters 1872–1926

explaining it, as there were few local orators to do so, and the visitors were very ignorant and very grateful. I had pleasant motor journeys from Bromsgrove and back by different routes. Basil was not well enough to come with me. The two stays at Tardebigge were quiet and agreeable. Then I spent the inside of a week motoring about Derbyshire, which was new to me, and in parts very picturesque indeed, especially Dove-dale, of which I walked the best ten miles. September I passed here in pleasant and peaceful work. Your house looks nice and I am glad you are so content with it. Laurence was here in the summer, to arrange for performing his plays here this term; but as I have heard no more about it I suppose it fell through. We have good store of coal in the college, which we eke out with wood, and I am not stinted. I am glad your sons are going on well, and I hope your husband is. Send the Shropshire Lad for signature by all means: I am used to it. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 22 – 3 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 61 Prior Park Road | Bath’. T.s. extract, Lilly MSS 3. 1. 10. Maas, 243–4.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Nov. 1926 My dear Richards, I have been told that the scheme for the carrying on of your business by the creditors has fallen through,1 and therefore I suppose I shall have to close with one of the offers made by publishers for A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 216 (excerpt).

1

This proved not to be the case, and GR told AEH so in a letter of 15 Nov. 1926 (PM t.s.).

639

24 November 1926

TO H . E . BU T L E R Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Nov. 1926 Dear Butler, The University Press here is bringing out a collection of Platt’s papers, and I have undertaken to write a preface; and, for purposes of plagiarism, I want to get hold of your obituary in the Times1 and Chambers’ in the College Magazine.2 If you have them and would lend them to me, I would return them faithfully. I feel sure that I really have them myself, but if so I cannot lay my hands on them. If you have not the Times notice, could you give me the date? That wretched publication Whitaker’s Almanac3 does not. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305. Maas, 244.

TO H . E . BU T L E R Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Nov. 1926 Dear Butler, Many thanks for the obituary notice: as you call it a copy I infer that I may keep it, and will do so unless you reclaim it. Do by all means send me the sonnets etc. which you mention. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305.

1

On 17 Mar. 1925, 17. R. W. Chambers’s note on Platt appeared in The University College Magazine, 3. 5 ( June 1925), 258–60. In the biographical preface to Nine Essays by Arthur Platt (1927), AEH quoted Chambers’s account of the giraffe at London Zoo rubbing its head on Platt’s bald head, and adapted a passage from Lawrence Solomon’s memoir of Platt in the University College Magazine 3. 6 ( June 1925), 260, as Naiditch (1995), 128, shows. 3 For ‘Almanack’. 2

640

Letters 1872–1926

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Nov. 1926 My dear Richards, Thanks for your letter; but I don’t think it has anything to do with Messrs Few & Wild,1 or any bearing on my presentation of my claims against the Company, which I made at the request of Sir Maxwell Hicks.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO M E S S R S G E O RG E A L L E N & U N W I N LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Dec. 1926 Dear Sirs, I am obliged and flattered by your letter of the 6th ;1 but one of the publishers who have written to me about the future of my two books is a young man personally known to friends of mine, and whom I should like to help; and my inclination is to transfer them to him. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs George Allen & Unwin Ld. Reading MS (Allen & Unwin Archive 14/3)

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 12 December 1926 Dear Roberts, I enclose the preface I promised for Platt’s book, and also, what is more valuable, a list which I have compiled of his writings. 1 J. E. Few and A. H. Wild, Cambridge solicitors, who had represented AEH’s interests by writing on 26 Sept. to Hicks pointing out that AEH was owed £1014. 11. 8 up to 6 Sept. 1926 and another £5. 12. 3 up to 31 Oct.: LC-GR1 MS. Hicks confirmed the figures, and said he had paid the £5. 12. 3 on 8 November: J. D. Tunnicliffe and M. Buncombe, ‘A. E. Housman and the Failure of Grant Richards Limited in 1926’: HSJ 11 (1985), 103. AEH was never paid the much larger sum. 2 Receiver and Manager in respect of Richards’s business. 1 Expressing a desire to take over publication of ASL and LP, and offering advance payment for the privilege.

641

17 December 1926

Is there to be a portrait? It would be a great addition, and there is an excellent photograph.1 I feel sure that it will be necessary for me to see the proofs of Platt’s essays. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 5 . Maas, 244–5.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 14 Dec. 1926 Dear Roberts, I have Platt’s photograph, but in a large size: if that makes no difference to the reproducer I can send it. I enclose what appeared in the University College Magazine.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 6 .

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Dec. 1926 My dear Richards, I suppose the new arrangement1 is satisfactory to you, and if so I am glad of it; and for my own part it is a relief not to have the bother of making new arrangements. But when the arrangements are complete I am going to exact royalties on A Shropshire Lad for the future as well as on the other book. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 217; Maas, 245.

1 1 1

The volume included a photograph. See AEH to Butler, 21 Nov. 1926, n. 2. For the carrying on of Richards’s business.

642

Letters 1872–1926

TO S I R F R E D E R I C K M AC M I L L A N Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Dec. 1926 Dear Sir Frederick Macmillan, I am much obliged by your amiable letter.1 The Lucan however was published last January, and is now nearly sold out, which testifies to such efficiency in the publisher as even you could hardly surpass. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS. 55275, fos. 218–19. T.s copy, Lilly MSS 3. 1. 10. Letters to Macmillan, ed. Simon Nowell-Smith (1967), 243; Maas, 245.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 31 Dec. 1926 Dear Roberts, Thanks for the return of the photograph. I think there should be nothing under the portrait but ‘Arthur Platt’.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 7 .

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS My new edition of Lucan sells just twice as fast as A Shropshire Lad did. Trinity College | Cambridge 31 Dec. 1926 My dear Withers, I am very glad to have such good news of your health, though I wish the good were nearer to best than it is; and I shall look forward to seeing you here when you pass through to Norfolk in the spring. My own health 1 Following AEH’s proposal that Macmillan act as publisher of his edn. of Lucan (AEH to Messrs Macmillan and Company, 16 Nov. 1924), and Macmillan’s refusal three days later, Sir Frederick Macmillan wrote to AEH on 22 Dec. 1926 offering to publish the edn. after all: ‘I remember thinking at the time that this was possibly a case in which it would be wise to relax our rule, but I expect that what decided us not to do so was a phrase in your letter describing us as ‘‘haughty’’—an adjective that seemed then, as it still does, singularly inappropriate … It may be that it is too late, but this letter will at all events convince you that the quality of humility has not been omitted from our composition’ (Letters to Macmillan, 243). 1 The words (in capitals) were printed under the photograph of Platt in Nine Essays.

643

31 December 1926

is good, but for the excess in eating and drinking which attends this sacred season. To-night however I am going to take my medicine, which will consist in 3 dozen oysters and as many more as I can get, with stout in proportion; after which (as it says in the advertisements of Mrs Winslow’s soothing syrup) the little darling wakes up as bright as a button.1 Now that Lewis is gone, I don’t know if there is any one in Cambridge of whom I ought to send you news. Mr de Navarro, as I daresay you know, has been having neurasthenia, for which I prescribed Bynogen,2 and his son bought him a bottle, with what result I do not know. My kind regards to Mrs Withers, and good wishes for the New Year to her and you and all your household. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 76 (excerpt). 1 2

See AEH to Withers, 31 Dec. 1924. Nerve food for convalescents and invalids.

THE LETTERS OF

A. E. H O U S MA N

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THE LETTERS OF

A. E. HOU SM A N VOLUME II

 

ARCHIE BURNETT

C LAREN D ON PRES S · OX FO R D

1

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford   Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York  Archie Burnett 2007

The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts ISBN 978–0–19–818496–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

CONTENTS

  LE T T E RS 1927–1936

1

L E T T E R S U N DAT E D O R A P P ROX I M AT E LY DAT E D

534

Index of Recipients

541

General Index

551

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LETTERS

1927–1936

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1927 TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Jan. 1927 My dear Kate, I have sent your question to the Professor of Anglo-Saxon,1 and I enclose his answer. Apparently your daughters-in-law take after you and Lady Macbeth in bringing forth men children only.2 I agree that Gerald is yellowish-brown:3 it is the name of my only god-child,4 so I ought to know. Ida Northcote’s youngest son made a call upon me a few mornings ago: he seemed a nice boy enough. I did not ask him to tea or anything, as conversation would not have flowed. I wish you and yours a happy new year; and certainly the first two days were very good, but to-day it rains. I am bearing up against the sacred season, though I might be better if I ate and drank less. My edition of Lucan, of which you have not heard, but which appeared last January, has been selling just twice as quick as A Shropshire Lad did; and I am glad that some interest is taken in my serious works. I have suffered during the year from having to sit to two artists who were commissioned to make drawings of me for my two colleges.5 Each thinks that the other has done it badly, and indeed I can hardly be like both. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS.

1 H[ector] M[unro] Chadwick (1870–1947), Elrington and Bosworth Professor of AngloSaxon at Cambridge, 1912–41. 2 Macbeth, 1. 7. 72: ‘Bring forth men-children only’. KES had four sons, and her three grandsons were Robert Edward Symons, Michael Symons, and Gerald Symons (b. 8 Dec. 1926). 3 ‘I wrote to A.E.H. that, to me, most names possessed colours’: KES’s note pencilled on the MS. 4 Gerald Jackson. 5 The portrait by Dodd for SJCO, and the portrait by Gleadowe for TCC.

4

Letters 1927–1936

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Jan. 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, Many thanks for your photograph of Keats’s grave. When I was in Rome I failed to find it, though I found Shelley’s. As to your enquiry about my lectures, none of them have been published, and they are all very dry. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Newcastle MS. G. B. A. Fletcher, Durham University Journal, 38 (1946), 93; Maas, 245–6.

TO T H E M A NAG E R , T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Jan. 1927 Dear Sir, In answer to your letter of the 8th inst., no application for permission to print poems from A Shropshire Lad is to be entertained. Applications as to poems from Last Poems should be referred to me. But I cannot expect you to know which poems belong to which, and therefore, unless the applicant actually mentions Last Poems, all applications may be refused. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Jan. 1927 My dear Richards, I have written my name in the book.1 Once or twice long ago I did copying exercises, but I have left off that. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082. William White, ‘More Housman Letters’, Mark Twain Quarterly, 5.4 (Spring 1943), 13 (nearly complete) 1

A note written on the MS identifies ASL.

5

16 January 1927

TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Jan. 1927 Dear Mrs Rothenstein, The evening before I got your letter I had been at the Cornfords’1 and we had been talking about you and your family, and I was glad to hear from them that William was much better and also your eldest daughter. I congratulate you also on your second daughter’s scholarship,2 and hope you will enjoy yourselves in Italy. Your story about the sycamores is just like what has happened in the Woodchester valley. On the east side there used to be a belt of beeches half way up the hill, dividing the downs from the fields, and making a piece of scenery which in its way was as beautiful as anything anywhere; and now the greater part of them are down and the whole look of the place changed. You might tell William that he has lost his monopoly in my features, as I have been drawn this last year for my two Colleges by two artists named Dodd3 and Gleadowe.4 The two drawings are very unlike, but neither of them makes me look so nasty as the portrait which this College bought from William, and so prevented him, to my great relief, from exhibiting it any more in public and from adding malignant touches from time to time, as he used to do when he was out of temper. But I have a beautiful and forgiving nature, and I wish him as well as you a happy new year in response to your wishes for me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS 1148 (740) 43. Maas, 246.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 16 Jan. 1927 Dear Roberts, 1. I have received from the Press 4 sheets of the proofs of Platt’s book, and so has Harrison. I think we had better wait till we have the whole proofs, and then correct them all at once. 1

See List of Recipients. ‘Betty Rothenstein (later Mrs Ensor Holiday) had won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art’: Maas, 246 n. 3 See AEH to Hall, 21 Sept. 1926, and note. 4 See AEH to Gow, 26 July–3 Aug. 1926, and note. 2

6

Letters 1927–1936

2. Miss Platt has written to say that the family wish to see the proofs. They had better see only the revise. The address they want it sent to is Edward Platt Esq. 18 Wessex Gardens Golder’s1 Green N. W. 11. Perhaps you would be kind enough to make a note of this and of the request. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 8 .

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Jan. 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, You pursue me with very flattering attentions, and I am much obliged by your invitation; but I do not give lectures anywhere or for anyone, except those which I am obliged to give here. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Jan. 1927 Dear Mackail, Virgil’s besetting sin is the use of words too forcible for his thoughts, and the moritura of Aen. XII 551 makes me blush for him whenever I think of it; but I think that the defence of ulta uirum2 put forward by Servius and elaborated by Donatus is not bad, and that it has some support from Virgil’s phrase I 363 sq. auari Pygmalionis opes. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.6. Maas, 423. 1

For ‘Golders’. ‘At regina … flebat et ardentem generum moritura tenebat’ (‘But the queen … wept, and clung to her fiery son, ready to die’). 2 In Aeneid, 4. 656. Mackail’s edn. was published in 1930. 1

7

22 January 1927

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 20 Jan. 1927 Dear Gow, As I have Lucian Mueller’s first edition1 in duplicate, perhaps you would like one of the copies. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11232 .

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Jan. 1927 My dear Richards, It is very good of you and Mrs Richards to make me the offer of your car, and I thank you. But the purpose for which I chiefly wanted one is now served by the number of motor omnibuses which take one out into the surrounding country and enable one to start walks at a distance, and for some time past I have ceased to think of a car. I do not know what the readers of the Literary Supplement will do without your chat.1 My kind regards to Mrs Richards. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 218 (incomplete).

1 Among the publications of Mueller (1836–98) are edns. of six Roman poets and a work on metrics. AEH certainly owned copies of his edn. of Phaedri fabularum Aesopiarum libri quinque (1877) and Ueber A. Nauck’s Phaedrusstudien (1880): Naiditch (2003), 138. 1 Richards, 218: ‘my weekly advertisements in the Times Literary Supplement that had been running without a break for some ten years were to cease. The Scotch legal gentleman who had become the dictator in my business did not believe in them.’

8

Letters 1927–1936

TO J. R. WELLS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Jan. 1927 Dear Mr Wells, I shall be pleased to see you if you come to Cambridge. You would be likely to find me at home any morning except Wednesday or Friday, and most evenings between 5 and 7. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS.

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 2 Feb. 1927 Dear Mr Clemens, Although the office of honorary Vice-President of the Mark Twain Society is a reward beyond the merits of any efforts which I may have made to write poetry, it is a token of kindness on your part, and one for which I offer the Society my thanks.1 The elegy on Stephen Dowling Botts2 in Huckleberry Finn3 is one of the poems I know by heart. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Columbia MS (Special MS Collection, Housman Box). Facsimile in Clemens (1936), 8, and in Cyril Clemens, An Evening with A. E. Housman (1937), 5–6. Clemens (1947), 255; Maas, 246–7.

1 Clemens was Mark Twain’s third cousin twice removed, and president of the International Mark Twain Society. 2 For ‘Bots’. 3 The poem by young Emmeline Grangerford in ch. 17 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884): Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec’d: And did young Stephen sicken? | And did young Stephen die? | And did the sad hearts thicken, | And did the mourners cry?  No; such was not the fate of | Young Stephen Dowing Bots; | Though sad hearts round him thickened, | ’Twas not from sickness’ shots.  No whoopingcough did rack his frame, | Nor measles drear with spots; | Not these impaired the sacred name | Of Stephen Dowling Bots.  Despised love struck not with woe | That head of curly knots, | Nor stomach troubles laid him low, | Young Stephen Dowling Bots.  O no. Then list with tearful eye, | Whilst I his fate do tell. | His soul did from this cold world fly | By falling down a well.  They got him out and emptied him; | Alas it was too late; | His spirit was gone for to sport aloft | In the realms of the good and great.

9

5 February 1927

TO M R E DG E Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Feb. 1927 Dear Mr Edge, I thank you for letting me see the letter which I return. If you receive many like it, you should be a happy man. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Feb. 1927 My dear Richards, The photograph,1 which to my untutored eye is very magnificent, has arrived, and if you see Mr Ward I hope you will convey my thanks to him. Thanks also for the Burgundy list and map. I still have a fair amount of the pre-war vintages; and I am told that they do not now take proper care about making the wine, the war having greatly increased the demand among lower classes than used to drink it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 40 n. 1 (excerpt), 218–19.

TO T H E M A NAG E R , T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Feb. 1927 Dear Sir, The Oxford University Press may include the Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries in their selection, but not Bredon Hill. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 218 (excerpt). 1 ‘A photograph of the Shropshire landscape which Edgar Ward had sent to him at my suggestion’: Richards, 218. Richards, 219, notes that the photograph is reproduced as a frontispiece to S. P. B. Mais’s See England First (1927). The frontispiece also included a quotation of ASL XL 3–4 (‘What are those blue remembered hills, | What spires, what farms are those?’).

10

Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Feb. 1927 My dear Richards, I don’t allow the wireless people to recite my poems, but as I allow the poems to be sung to music there is no reason why the songs should not be broadcast. I daresay the music is spoilt, but that is the composer’s look out; and the words are mostly inaudible. Thanks for Postal Order 3/11. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 219; Maas, 247 (both incomplete).

TO PAU L V. LOVE 1 Trinity College | Cambridge | England 14 Feb. 1927 Dear Sir, The excitement was simply what is called poetical inspiration.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. B. J. Leggett, ‘An Unpublished Housman Letter on the Preface to Last Poems’, Victorian Newsletter, 33 (1968), 48.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Feb. 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, No, I certainly will not undertake to judge essays on my poems, for you or for anyone else. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | 2 Raby Terrace | Willington | Co. Durham’.

1

An American. In the prefatory note to LP AEH spoke of the ‘continuous excitement’ under which in the early months of 1895 he wrote the greater part of ASL. 2

11

26 February 1927

TO M A RT I N S E C K E R Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Feb. 1927 Dear Mr Secker, From time to time I receive from you kind presents of books, which perhaps I do not always acknowledge; but I certainly must thank you for Jew Süss,1 a work much spoken of and one which I have been meaning to read. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Brown University MS. Maas, 247.

TO J. R. WELLS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Feb. 1927 Dear Mr Wells, I should be pleased to see you either on Monday or Thursday morning next week. A little later than 10 o’ clock might be safer than the exact hour. My rooms are in this college, which is about a mile and a half from the station. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS.

TO M E S S R S E L K I N M AT H E W S LT D [Trinity College | Cambridge] Please send me, from your Catalogue 14, 164 Aytoun, Firmilian. A. E. Housman Trinity College Cambridge 26 Feb. 1927 BMC MS: p.c. addressed to ‘Messrs Elkin Mathews Ld. | 4a Cork Street | London W. 1’.

1 Historical novel about eighteenth-century Germany by Lion Feuchtwanger, 1925; translated into English by Edwin and Willa Muir, 1926.

12

Letters 1927–1936

TO H . E . BU T L E R Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Feb. 1927 Dear Butler, I am very much obliged to you and the Librarian, and I am ashamed to trouble you further. But the date of 1917 for the La Rochefoucauld can only be the date of a second reading, for I heard it read myself; it must therefore have been before 1911, and my impression is that it was a good many years before.1 The whole thing is not of great importance, but if I cannot get all the dates I must omit all. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305. Maas, 247–8.

TO J O H N S PA RROW Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Feb. 1927 Dear Sir, The Introductory Lecture was not published, but the Council of University College London had a few hundred copies printed at the Cambridge Press and sent them to people connected with the college.1 I do not know of copies in private possession, but I am told that there is one in the British Museum. I probably sent copies to the President of Magdalen2 and Canon Watson.3 I am yours truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘John Sparrow Esq. | New College | Oxford’. 1 Platt delivered his paper on 31 Jan. 1902: Naiditch (1988), 151. It is reproduced in full in Nine Essays by Arthur Platt with a Preface by A. E. Housman (1927), 66–91. 1 A. E. Housman: A Bibliography by John Carter and John Sparrow, 2nd edn, revised by William White (1982), 1: ‘the Lecture was printed for distribution to the Faculties before whom it was delivered. It was not published or for sale at the time, and less than a score of copies seem to have survived.’ 2 Thomas Herbert Warren (1853–1930), President of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1885–1928. See AEH to Lucy Housman, 21 Oct. 1877, and List of Recipients. 3 The Revd Edward William Watson (1859–1936), educated at SJCO (BA, 1883; MA, 1885), which AEH attended, 1877–81; Professor of Ecclesiastical History at King’s College, London, 1904–8; Canon of Christ Church and Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford, 1908–34; Fellow of King’s College London, 1924.

13

1 March 1927

TO M E S S R S E L K I N M AT H E W S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 1 March 1927 Dear Sirs, I enclose Postal Order for 17/10. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Elkin Mathews Ltd BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS I have just seen an edition of A Shropshire Lad, 1925, with a disgusting misprint, souls’ for soul’s, on p. 99:1 how many more I don’t know. I have said again and again that new editions must be sent to me for correction. A. E. Housman. 1 March 1927 Trin. Coll. Camb. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 219; Maas, 248.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 1 March 1927 Dear Roberts, Herewith the proofs of Platt’s Nine Essays corrected for revise, and manuscript of three extracts for insertion. The Preface and Bibliography will not need to pass through the stage of revise, so I am keeping the proofs of them for the present. Would it be a troublous matter to make Lucian and Aristophanes exchange places?1 That would agree better with what I now find to be the chronological order. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. You may notice that I have not added the date of Julian, but I hope to get it. CUL Add. MS 7735 9 . Maas, 248. 1 1

In LXII 56 (‘When your soul is in my soul’s stead’). See AEH to Roberts, 29 Oct. 1926, and note.

14

Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge] No, don’t make correction in Times. A. E. H. 3 March ’27. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 St Martin’s Street | Leicester Square | W. C. 2’. LC-GR t.s.

TO P RO F E S S O R C . R A L P H B E N N E T T Trinity College | Cambridge | England 6 March 1927 Dear Sir, I do not allow poems from A Shropshire Lad to be included in anthologies published in this country, and therefore I cannot be expected to give my express approval to their inclusion in anthologies published in the United States;1 but I have neither the power nor the wish to prevent it. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Berg MS. Envelope addressed ‘Professor C. Ralph Bennett | Dept. of Historic Literature | School of Applied Arts | The University | Cincinnati | U. S. A.’

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 9 March 1927 My dear Richards, … ] I agree that the edition of A Shropshire Lad which is out of print ought to be reprinted, and, not being avaricious, I do not object to the royalty proposed,1 though I was told the other day by a bookseller that the practice of supplying booksellers with 13 copies when they only pay for 12 has ceased for about ten years. [ … ] I do not send a formal answer to the formal communication till I hear from you further. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 219–20. 1

No anthology edited by Bennett is known to have been published. GR had proposed that AEH now take a royalty on ASL from his firm, now called The Richards Press Ltd.: Richards, 219. See AEH to GR, 15 Mar. 1927. 1

15

15 March 1927

TO M A RY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 11 March 1927 Dear Mrs Withers, It will relieve your kind heart to know that I did not at all feel the need of a rug, and got home without any alloyment of the pleasure of my stay with you. Your attentive handmaids however seem to have retained two pair of boots as a souvenir, and perhaps you will notice them wearing them for ear-rings. With kind regards to both of you I am Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 248.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 12 March 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, Heaven forbid that you should buy Lucanus. It is an edition of a Latin poet, as dry and technical as can be, meant for advanced scholars and mostly written in Latin.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Yale MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | 2 Raby Terrace | Willington | co. Durham’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 March 1927 Dear Richards, Forgive me for not answering earlier your letter of the 5th inst. The Richards Press Ltd is at liberty to reprint A Shropshire Lad in the 3/6 edition, if it will promise me that proofs shall be submitted to me; but they must not at present print a larger edition than 2000 copies, and 1 AEH’s 1926 edn. of Lucan, edited, as he stated in Latin on the title-page, for the use of editors.

16

Letters 1927–1936

it must be understood that I remain at liberty to take the book away from them at any time, on paying the cost of production of existing copies. Without entering on the general question of the terms on which A Shropshire Lad is to be published, I shall be content in respect of this one edition with the royalty offered of fifteen per cent, thirteen copies counting as twelve, this being the royalty which I receive on Last Poems. It will be understood that this does not limit my freedom of action in the future. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 March 1927 My dear Withers, I am shocked to find that yours is among the rather numerous letters which I have left unanswered in the last fortnight, which has been rather busy. Yours is indeed a vexatious experience. That seizure of pain on making a sudden motion is the sort of thing I sometimes had thirty years ago, before I learnt to keep sciatica at bay; but God forbid that I should compare my puny ailments with yours. I hope you are now making up for the backsliding. I am quite well: last week I thought I had a gouty toe, but that was mere conceit, like Bloody Mary’s pregnancy,1 and the doctor said it was a corn, and cut it there and then. As for the visit you kindly propose, any week-end in May except the last would probably suit me. Our crocuses too have been magnificent: two years ago we planted thousands at the near end of our avenue, where there used to be none, and they now eclipse the rest. Bridges does not send me much of his new-fangled stuff,2 because he has given up hopes of converting me to it. He will be sorry for the death of his friend and almost neighbour Wicksteed.3 My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 249. 1 Mary Tudor was expected to give birth at the end of Apr. 1555, but it was a phantom pregnancy. 2 New Verse (1925) and The Testament of Beauty, privately printed and issued in parts from 1927, contained metrical experiments and unorthodox spelling. 3 Philip Henry Wicksteed (1844–1927), Unitarian minister, political economist, and writer.

17

5 April 1927

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trin. Coll. Camb. 28 March 1927 My dear Richards, These proofs1 seem to be all right. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 220 (excerpt).

TO JA M E S G E O RG E L E I P P E RT Trinity College | Cambridge 30 March 1927 Dear Mr Leippert, I suppose I must do what I can to acknowledge your father’s politeness in naming you after me.1 I have not had a photograph taken for many years, but I have looked out an old one of the date when I was writing A Shropshire Lad.2 Do not read books about versification: no poet ever learnt it that way. If you are going to be a poet, it will come to you naturally and you will pick up all that you need from reading poetry. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Rosenbach Museum & Library MS. Goodspeed’s Book Shop, cat. 174 (1928), no. 4865; Notes and Queries, 154 (1928), 289; Maas, 225 (all incomplete).

TO P RO F E S S O R A . Y. C A M P B E L L Francken misunderstood Persis as I said,1 and consequently altered quam ˘ to qua, still scanning Persis. When will mankind begin to understand that I am more careful than they are, not less? A. E. H. 5 April 1927 Trin. Coll. Camb. BMC MS: p.c. addressed ‘Professor A. Y. Campbell | 59 Ashville Road | Birkenhead’. 1

Of the latest edn. of ASL. 2 See ‘Leippert’ in List of Recipients. A carte-de-visite by Van der Weyde, c.1894. 1 Cornelis Marinus Francken in his edn. of Lucan (Leiden, 1896–7), at 8. 229. AEH specifically cited this error in the preface to his own edn. (1926), and famously berated Francken: see Ricks (1988), 408. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 April 1927 My dear Richards, Cynan may be the Welshman whose translations of my poems are superior to the originals, so he had better have what he wants.1 Of course he must not print the English. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 220.

TO MILDRED PLAT T Trinity College | Cambridge 8 April 1927 Dear Mrs Platt, About the Daddy Wordsworth passage1 I felt just as you do, but the only thing I ventured to cut out on the ground that I disapproved was an uncalled-for reference to a living person. When I get the revise (I hope it is the revise which you have got, not the first proof, which was full of blunders) I will consult the Secretary of the Press and see what can be done. I am sorry to hear that Dorothy2 has been so unwell: she used to look the picture of health. I hope you enjoyed Italy. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 249–50.

1 A Welsh poet calling himself Cynan, and describing himself as Crown Bard, National Eisteddfod of Wales, had asked by letter (PM MS) if he might include in a book of his original poems in Welsh his translations of ASL IV, XXI, and XXVII (Reveille, Bredon Hill, and Is my team ploughing?). 1 In Nine Essays by Arthur Platt, with a preface by A. E. Housman (1927), 181: ‘I am really sorry to knock up so often against Daddy Wordsworth, as FitzGerald called him; he was a most respectable old gentleman and he wrote some magnificent poetry, but it is hard to keep from laughing at him.’ Wordsworth was dubbed ‘Daddy’ by FitzGerald while at Cambridge, and he refers to ‘Daddy Wordsworth’ in letters to Bernard Barton (2 Mar. 1842) and Frederick Tennyson (15 Aug. 1850): The Letters of Edward FitzGerald, ed. Alfred McKinley Terhune and Annabelle Burdick Terhune (1980), 1. 263 n., 312, 677. 2 The Platts’ daughter.

19

9 April 1927

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 9 April 1927 My dear Kate, For Hercules, or rather Heracles, as a bather and a discoverer of springs, see Roscher’s Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie vol. I part. 2 pp. 2237–8.1 I don’t know if you read German but you are married to an accomplished linguist. Mr Wilmshurst is one of those conceited ignoramuses of whom I used to see too much in the Patent Office.2 I don’t know about any particular bath made by Minerva, or rather Pallas Athene, for her brother,3 but she was his great friend and patroness. I am very glad that Jerry is doing so well, and I hope Denis’s son is getting better. I am well, and busy on an interesting bit of work. I heard from Jeannie the other day that she and Basil are fairly well, but that does not mean much. I daresay you have received an appeal about the bells in Bromsgrove Church. I expect that at the end of your career they will put up a tablet in the Abbey4 and you will be known to posterity as the learned lady of Bath. I expect your poor husband is frightfully neglected, and the decrease in his weight is due to his pining away. A happy Easter to both of you. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. King Edward’s School, Bath, MS.

1 Standard reference work by Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (1845–1923), published 1884–1937. 2 Where AEH was employed from the end of Nov. 1882 till taking up his post as Professor of Latin at UCL in Oct. 1892. 3 Perseus, whom Pallas Athene helped to kill the Gorgon Medusa, was the goddess’s half-brother. 4 Bath (rather than Westminster) Abbey, on grounds that KES lived in Bath.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO MILDRED PLAT T Trinity College | Cambridge 19 April 1927 Dear Mrs Platt, I will try what can be done about sparing the feelings of the relations of liars.1 I will see that you get back the manuscripts and the Quarto2 when there is no longer any chance of their being required for verification. The people at University College let me see the little book of sonnets:3 the one which Prof. Collie4 speaks of /is I suppose that which/ was written in the spring of the last year of his life, and it is very touching. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. .

UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 250.

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 19 April 1927 Dear Hall, Thanks. I should like to see the treatise, which the author has not sent to me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4.

1 The essay on Lucian in Nine Essays, 111: ‘Also those who had told lies and written them in books were hung up by their tongues, Ctesias the historian and Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville and many others.’ ‘The manuscript evidently mentioned other more recent liars’: Maas, 250 n. 2. 2 Artistic, literary, and musical periodical. Platt’s essay ‘Aristophanes’ originally appeared in vol. 4 (1898), 65–80. 3 Sonnets and Other Poems by J. Arthur Platt, privately printed at the Asphodel Press, Hampstead, for UCL in a limited edn. of 53. Most of the poems are light verses. 4 John Norman Collie (1859–1942). Assistant to (Sir) William Ramsay at UCL, 1887–96; Professor of Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Society College, London, 1896–1902, and of Organic Chemistry at London University, 1902–28. FRS, 1896.

21

25 April 1927

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 22 April 1927 Dear Roberts, Mrs Platt writes to me desiring, I think rightly, to have two sentences of Platt’s modified; so we shall have to see what can be done. I have not yet received the revise, though I suppose that the revise was what was sent to Edward Platt a few weeks ago. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 10 . Maas, 250.

TO J O H N VA R N E Y Trinity College | Cambridge | England 23 April 1927 Dear Mr Varney, My best thanks for the gift of your handsome volume,1 which I have begun to read with much interest and which certainly is full of life. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Berg MS.

TO B R I A N F I N N Trinity College | Cambridge 25 April 1927 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your letter directing my attention to misprints in an anthology.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Brian Finn Esq. MS inspected at Bloomsbury Book Auctions, 11 Nov. 1999.

1

First Wounds (1926), a book of free verse by John Cushing Varney (b. 1888). ‘Mr. Brian Finn’, of Clifton, evidently a devout admirer, had written to Housman, drawing his attention to certain rather important misquotations in an anthology, The Golden Book of Modern English Poetry: 1870–1920’: Richards, 220. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 25 April 1927 Dear Mr Adelman, Thanks for your letter; but A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in the United States and you need no permission from me. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 80 West Eighth Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 26 April 1927 My dear Richards,] I enclose a letter which explains itself. If the facts are as stated, I shall be glad if you will be as disagreeable to Mr Caldwell1 as you can. I think he had my permission to print the poems, but not to misprint them. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 220.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 27 April 1927 Dear Roberts, I enclose the whole of the Platt volume corrected for press, except that I do not know how to correct the portrait, which is spotty. You will see that most of your queries are negatived, which is because we think that Platt meant to write as he did. As to the necessity of the note on p. 2, one of my two partners did not know the meaning of ‘declared’, and queried it.1 At p. 66 Roger Fry’s 1 Thomas Caldwell, editor of The Golden Book of Modern English Poetry, 1870–1920. See AEH to Finn, 25 Apr. 1927. Richards, 220: ‘It proved impossible … as he had been dead for two years!’ 1 ‘They said that science was the one thing needful, that arts had had an unconscionably long innings and it was time they declared.’ AEH’s note read ‘Terms borrowed from the game of cricket’. To ‘declare’ is to close an innings before the usual ten wickets have fallen.

23

2 May 1927

‘average’ will be a great puzzle.2 You are old enough to know who Gunn and Shrewsbury were,3 but the number of those who do is always lessening, and they are on their way to join ‘the celebrated Mrs Rudd’, who was a subject of conversation at General Paoli’s on 28 April 1778,4 and is not in the Dictionary of National Biography. But my true object in adding the notes was to win a smile from Platt’s beatified spirit5 and mitigate the tedium of Paradise. Mrs Platt is Mildred, Miss Platt is Dorothy. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text from that in Maas, 250, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing. Excerpt in S. C. Roberts, Adventures with Authors (1966), 125.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 2 May 1927 My dear Richards, In writing to Dent,1 put the three grave offences in the forefront of the battle, and use the stops and capital letters only as auxiliaries. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 220 (excerpt).

2 ‘The world is too much with us, and we think the average of Mr Fry or the colour of a riband to be more important to us.’ AEH noted: ‘A cricketer of the day’. C. B. Fry (1872–1956) was a famous batsman. Roger Fry (1866–1934), painter and writer on art, would become Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge, 1933–4. A batting ‘average’ is the mean number of runs scored per innings during a season, tour, etc. 3 AEH noted that they were cricketers. William (‘Billy’) Gunn (1858–1921) and Arthur Shrewsbury (1856–1903) were among the most eminent of their day. 4 In Boswell’s Life of Johnson, where Johnson expresses the wish that he had gone to visit her fifteen years previously. Margaret Caroline Rudd (fl. 1767–79) was the mistress of Daniel Perreau, who with his brother Robert was accused of forging a bond for £7,500. They tried to shift the blame on to her, but she was acquitted and they were sentenced to death. 5 AEH in his biographical preface to Nine Essays recalls that Platt ‘would squander long summer days on watching the game of cricket’: Selected Prose, 159; Ricks (1988), 348. 1 J. M. Dent & Sons, publishers of The Golden Book of Modern English Poetry: 1870–1920, which included four poems from LP. Richards, 220: ‘Dent made the alterations desired.’

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Letters 1927–1936

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 2 May 1927

Dear Mr Wilson, I have often written my name in my books, and I am quite prepared to do it for you, even though, as I find, you are a rival poet. I am sorry I could not dissuade you from buying the Lucan.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | 2 Raby Terrace | Willington | Co. Durham’.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 4 May 1927

Dear Roberts, I have made a very necessary correction on the title-page. The essays are not edited by me but by three persons of whom I am one:1 if I had been sole editor I could not have allowed p. 1782 to appear. The portrait in its present condition makes Platt look much more battered than he was. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text from Maas, 251, which was based on a private MS that is now missing.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 7 May 1927

My dear Richards, As to Is my team ploughing Mr Orr1 must be warned that he is not to omit part of the poem, as I am told Vaughan Williams did.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 221. 1

AEH’s edn., 1926. Maas, 251 n., conjectures plausibly that the two others were Parry and Butler. The title page did not name the editors, but stated ‘With a Preface by A. E. Housman’. 2 Where it is stated: ‘Professor Housman has now left us so long that he may be permitted to speak of him in this Society as what he is, the most exquisite poet of our own times.’ 1 The composer C[harles] W[ilfred] Orr (1893–1976). Banfield (1985), 238, identifies him as ‘to date … the most prolific setter of Housman’, and notes that 24 of his 35 songs are settings of poems by AEH. 2 See AEH to GR, 20 Dec. 1920, and n. 3. 1

25

13 May 1927

TO H A R R I S R AC K H A M Trinity College 11 May 1927 Dear Rackham, The latest Horace I have is Kiessling-Heinze 1917, too early for the papyrus;1 and I don’t think I have anywhere seen the two passages brought into comparison. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Waseda MS, Gow P3/1.

TO M E S S R S H E N RY H O LT & CO Trinity College | Cambridge | England 13 May 1927 Dear Sirs, I beg to acknowledge receipt of draft for £69. 8. 8 royalties. I observe the item 20 dollars for ‘‘use of poems’’ Nov. 23.1 I suppose this is for poems included in an anthology or set to music. I do not make any charge for such use in England, and I do not wish to do so in America. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Henry Holt & Co. Princeton MS (Henry Holt Archives).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 13 May 1927 My dear Richards, Thanks for your letter and enclosures. I have not got the Annuaire Gastronomique you mention, and should be glad to have it. I am thinking of a tour in Burgundy at the end of August. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 221 (nearly complete). 1 Possibly P. Oxy. 2079, containing the start of Callimachus’ Attia, in which fr. 1. 21–2 (imperfectly known before) is echoed (via Virgil) at Odes 4. 15. 1 Recent Poetry, ed. D. C. Heath.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 18 May 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, Any attempt to dramatise A Shropshire Lad will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. You think too much about this book, for there are many other things in the world; and when you call it ‘the greatest literary effort of the century’ you forget that its century was the 19th , which can boast of many greater literary efforts. Thanks for the picture of your students. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | 2 Raby Terrace | Willington | Co. Durham’.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 22 May 1927 Dear Roberts, I shrink from looking through a work on English Prosody; but Sir George Young1 has talked to me on the subject, and is a competent observer who has really thought about it, and would not give you such shallow and ignorant stuff as Saintsbury’s three volumes.2 The Poet Laureate,3 who takes a fierce interest in the matter, might possibly consent to read the work, but might not write you a very judicial report. Lascelles Abercrombie4 is perhaps qualified. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text from Maas, 251–2, which was based on a private MS that is now missing.

1 Sir George Young (1837–1930), author, government administrator, and charity commissioner. Fellow of TCC, 1862. See AEH to Bridges, 28 Dec. 1928, and notes. 2 George Saintsbury, A History of English Prosody from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day (1906–10). 3 Robert Bridges, whose final edn. of Milton’s Prosody appeared in 1921. 4 See List of Recipients. His Principles of English Prosody appeared in 1924.

27

2 June 1927

TO W I L BU R C RO S S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 25 May 1927 Dear Sir, My Fragment of a Greek Tragedy was written in 1884 and printed in a school magazine.1 It has since appeared in two college magazines2 and also, with more publicity, in the Cornhill of 1901.3 If you think it worth while to print it a fifth time, I can make no objection. I have no copy, but the Cornhill is probably accessible to you at Yale. In the circumstances I cannot accept the honorarium4 you are kind enough to offer, but I should like to see and correct the proofs, as on the last occasion when it was printed I made a few changes which I think are improvements.5 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Mr Wilbur Cross Yale MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Wilbur Cross | Editor of the Yale Review | Yale Station | New Haven | Connecticut | U. S. A.’ Maas, 252.

TO W. H . S E M PLE c/ Mrs Yorke | Selsley Road | N. Woodchester | Stroud 2 June 1927 Dear Semple, I enclose something which I hope will do, and wish you success. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. [Enclosure] Trinity College | Cambridge 2 June 1927 Mr W. H. Semple, as a research student in this University, has been preparing for the last two years under my direction a thesis on the Epistles of Apollinaris Sidonius. In the course of our relationship I have formed a In fact, it appeared in The Bromsgrovian,  2. 5 (8 June 1883), 107–9. The University College Gazette, 1. 13 (25 Nov. 1897), 100–1; The Trinity Magazine, 2 (1921), 35–7. 3 4 The Cornhill Magazine,  10 (Apr. 1901), 443–5. 100 dollars. 5 The principal changes were ‘Nod with your hand’ instead of ‘Then wave your hand’ in l. 8 and ‘Plying by turns’ for ‘Plying with speed’ in l. 11. For a record of all changes, see Poems (1997), 244–7, 308–9. AEH refers to the Trinity Magazine printing: he has forgotten about the private American printing at the Snail’s Pace Press, Amherst, in 1925 (on which, see AEH to Fobes, 27 June 1925). It is not known whether he corrected proofs of the text as printed in The Yale Review, 17 (1928), 414–16, though the evidence would suggest that he did not: see Poems (1997), 532. 1 2

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Letters 1927–1936

high opinion of his knowledge and ability, and have been struck by the maturity of his judgment and by the method and thoroughness which he brought to the pursuit of his studies. I feel sure that he is well qualified for the duties of Lecturer in Classics in the University of Reading, and that he may be expected to produce original work redounding to its credit. A. E. Housman. Manchester MS. Envelope addressed ‘W. H. Semple Esq. | St John’s College | Cambridge’.

TO E D M U N D W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 21 June 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, Nothing of mine, except Last Poems, is copyright in the United States, and so I have no control over the republication of the pieces you mention. The Fragment of a Greek Tragedy is about to be reprinted in an American periodical,1 and this will naturally render it less suitable for your purpose. As to the others, I have no right or wish to interfere, but on the other hand I do not positively approve, though I am flattered by your request. I am glad to see that you have not discovered all my stray poems. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 June 1927 My dear Richards, I have been away for three weeks and neglecting my correspondence generally. Thanks for Auberges et Hostelleries, and also for the Dial,1 though I did not gather what part of the Paris Letter I was to observe particularly. Thanks also for apprising me of your business affairs. No publishers have yet come suing to me.

1 1

See AEH to Cross, 25 May 1927. The leading American periodical of literature and the arts of the twenties.

29

9 July 1927

Motoring back from Gloucestershire I lunched at the Spread Eagle at Thame and conversed with the landlord.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 221–2.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 22 June 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, I return the books with my signature. I see that the Last Poems are the 1st edition, and therefore I have done what I always do when I get hold of a copy, inserted the two missing stops on p. 52.1 I believe that this detracts from the monetary value of the book, so you can sue me for damages. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | 2 Raby Terrace | Willington | Co. Durham’.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 30 June 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, Of course it is very kind of your students to want to make me a birthday present, and I thank them; but I beg them not to carry out their intention, for it would embarrass me. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | 2 Raby Terrace | Willington | Co. Durham’.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D [Trinity College 9 July 1927] The ed. princ. of Manilius, which you have talked of getting for the Library, is advertised in Catalogue XI of E. P. Goldschmidt & Co, 45 Old Bond St. (Times Literary Supplement, July 7, last page). At least, I suppose 2 1

John Fothergill: see AEH to GR, 14 Dec. 1931. See AEH to GR, 12 Oct. 1922.

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Letters 1927–1936

the date ‘1473’ points to the edition by Regiomontanus at Nuremberg, because, though it carries no date, no other is so early. A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 6 : p.c. addressed ‘A. F. Scholfield Esq. | King’s College’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH. Date as postmark.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 13 July 1927 Dear Sirs, Before I authorise the printing of 10,000 copies of the small edition of A Shropshire Lad, as you propose in your letter of yesterday, I should be glad if you could tell me what the average annual sale of that edition, in both of its forms, has been for the last four years. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 1–2.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT [Trinity College | Cambridge] [The Bredon of the song is in]1 Worcestershire. There is no Bredon Hill in Shropshire, only Breidden Hills. The poem was written some years earlier than the Shropshire ones. A. E. Housman. 14 July 1927 Private MS. H. P. R. Finberg, ‘Some Unpublished Housman Letters’, TLS, 17 Dec. 1971, 1574.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 18 July 1927 Dear Sirs, I thank you for your letter of the 14th inst. answering my enquiry. I think it will be sufficient for the present if you print 5000 copies of the small edition of A Shropshire Lad. If there is resetting of type, it will be necessary for me to see proofs. 1

AEH’s correspondent asked him to finish this sentence about ASL XXI with one word.

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7 August 1927

The royalty which you propose, three halfpence a copy, 13 copies counting as 12, is probably reasonable, and I agree to it; though I am told by an acquaintance of mine who is both a publisher and a bookseller that the practice of letting booksellers have 13 copies for the price of 12 is no longer in use. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Richards Press Ltd. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 3–4.

TO E D M U N D W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge | England (not Mass.) 6 Aug. 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, The American periodical which is reprinting the Fragment of a Greek Tragedy is the Yale Review.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Aug. 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, I purposely left your letter of July 21 unanswered, in order to prevent your students from buying the Heart of Midlothian1 and wasting their substance with riotous giving.2 No use: they have gone and bought me a pipe, which of course is very kind of them, but as I do not smoke, it would be absurd for me to keep it. As to writing my autograph in albums, that I never do: if I once began, there would be no end to it. Now you must give me a rest; and in fact I am shortly going abroad for some time. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Yale MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | 2 Raby Terrace | Willington | Co. Durham’. 1 1 2

See AEH to Cross, 25 May 1927, n. 5. Novel (1818) by Sir Walter Scott. Cf. the prodigal son (Luke 15: 13), who ‘wasted his substance with riotous living’.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Aug. 1927 My dear Richards, I leave here on the 19th for Paris, where I shall be at the Royal Monceau Hotel, Avenue Hoche, probably till the 26th , after which I shall have no fixed address for a fortnight or more, and letters should be addressed to me here. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 222 (incomplete).

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Aug. 1927 Dear Mr Wilson, I am willing to autograph copies of A Shropshire Lad if they do not become too numerous. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Aug. 1927 Dear Sirs, As the enclosed letter, which I do not want returned, seems to be chiefly meant for you, I forward it. I understand about the delay, but the booksellers may require attention. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

33

22 August 1927

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Aug. 1927 My dear Kate, It occurs to me that I have not written to you for a long while and that I had better let you know I am going to London today and to Paris to-morrow, where my address till the 24th. will be Royal Monceau Hotel, Avenue Hoche, and thence probably into Burgundy. I expect to be away about a month. You most likely are not at Bath, but I don’t think you gave me a sketch of how you meant to spend the summer. You probably heard that I was prevented from going on from Woodchester to Tardebigge in June because one of their maids fell off a bicycle. I hope you and all of yours are well. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 24 , Maas, 252–3.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS    | 35, 37  39   |  22 August 1927 My dear Richards, It would be a pity if we were in Paris together without meeting. Could you come here to lunch or dine to-morrow, naming your own hour. The restaurant here, though I have not yet sampled it this time, was quite good two years ago. Of course I should be pleased to entertain Mrs Richards and Helène1 too, but would rather see you alone. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 41.

1

The Richards’ stepdaughter ‘Hélène’.

34

Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D 14 Sept. 1927    | 35, 37  39,   |  Dear Sirs, The poem mentioned in the letter of the Oxford Press is not mine. It may be by my brother Laurence. I acknowledge with thanks receipt of cheque for £3. 2. 0. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman The Richards Press Ltd. BMC MS.

TO JA M E S G E O RG E L E I P P E RT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 19 Sept. 1927 Dear Mr Leippert, I am just returned from travelling on the Continent. I am quite willing to write my name in your book, which I have often done even for people who have not been christened after me.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 253, which was based on the autograph MS once in the possession of J. H. Britton and now missing.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Sept. 1927 My dear Kate, What I wrote to you from Paris was nothing but an egotistical note to inform you of my doings and intentions. I received your letter all right, but could not lay my hand on it at the time. I am very glad that your anxieties about Denis and Jerry are happily at an end. At Woodchester I saw Mr Aynsley and his daughters, but not his wife. They are quite new-comers there, having the house just above the Wises, which belonged to the youngest sister of Miss Dorothea Beale, who died last year. 1

See ‘Leippert’ in List of Recipients.

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22 September 1927

I flew home by the new ‘Silver Wing’ aeroplane,1 which is more roomy and steadier, and contains an attendant to supply you with cheese and biscuits and various liquors, and to point out objects of interest on the route: also an emergency door in the roof, which ought to be very tranquillising. But I did not enjoy it, as I had got ptomaine poisoning in Paris from stale fish, for the third time in my experience, and I am still rather out of sorts. The weather had been very dull, but we struck sunshine in the Channel. Love to all. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. 1. Maas, 253.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Sept. 1927 Dear Sirs, Mr Stanley Wilson may publish his setting of When I was one-and-twenty.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BMC MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Sept. 1927 Dear Sirs, I am not disposed to allow the inclusion of poems of mine in Mr Braley’s anthology.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1 Photographs may be seen in Jeremy Bourne’s article, ‘Housman in the Air’, HSJ 23 (1997), 42–5. 1 Stanley L. Wilson (1899–1953) published his setting in 1928. In 1929 he published settings of four poems from ASL (II, XXIII, XXIX, LII). 1 The World’s One Thousand Best Poems (New York and London, 1929), ed. Berton Braley (1882–1966).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO J O H N D R I N K WATE R Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Oct. 1927 Dear Mr Drinkwater, A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in the United States, and consequently my consent is not required; but if the book1 were to be published in England, I should object, in fairness to the many anthologists to whom I have said no in the past. Extracts from Last Poems I have sometimes allowed; but I am not anxious to draw down upon myself the fate which Horace dreaded, and suffer recitation in schools.2 I shall hope to see you when you are in Cambridge. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Marquette University MS (Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, series 5, box 4). Maas, 254.

TO J O H N D R I N K WATE R I am afraid it must be No for both. A. E. Housman. Trin. Coll. Camb. 5 Oct. 1927 Marquette University MS (Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, series 5, box 4): p.c. addressed ‘John Drinkwater Esq. | 44 Evelyn Gardens | S. W. 7’.

TO P RO F E S S O R G E R A L D D E W I T T S A N D E R S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 8 Oct. 1927 Dear Sir, A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in the United States, and you therefore do not need my consent to your using it.1 As to Last Poems, I do not think that more than five pieces from so small a collection ought to be 1 Twentieth-Century Poetry, ed. John Drinkwater, Henry Seidel Canby, and William Rose Benét (New York, 1929). No British edn. appeared. 2 Horace, Epistles, 1. 20. 17–18, addressed to his book: hoc quoque te manet, ut pueros elementa docentem | occupet extremis in vicis balba senectus (‘This fate, too, awaits you, that stammering age will come upon you as you teach boys their ABC in the city’s outskirts’). 1 In Chief Modern Poets of England and America, ed. Gerald De Witt Sanders and John Herbert Nelson (1929).

37

16 October 1927

included in an anthology, but you are at liberty to use any five that you like.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. I do not require, and should not accept, any remuneration. Boston University Library MS (Paul Richards Treasure Collection)

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 14 Oct. 1927 Dear Cockerell, I am generally in my rooms between 6 and 7 of an evening, if the son of Nippon likes to take his chance.1 At any rate he is not an American. I have made a motor tour in Burgundy and other parts, and have seen more of France than ever at one time before. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO R . W. C H A M B E R S Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Oct. 1927 Dear Chambers, I am much in your debt for your informing and entertaining discourse.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS (Grille-Chambers 68). Envelope addressed ‘Professor R. W. Chambers | University College | London W. C. 1’.

2

In fact he used 16 poems from ASL and 9 from LP. Hojin Yano visited AEH on 29 Oct. 1926 (and again on 19 Nov.): Takeshi Obata, HSJ 8 (1982), 31–3; Naiditch (1995), 41–2. 1 Probably Philologists at University College (1927). 1

38

Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Oct. 1927 My dear Richards, Many thanks for your list of our wines in Burgundy, and also for the reminiscences appended. Your memory is better than mine in most respects; but I think that at Feurs what we had was two bottles of white wine (the first probably Pouilly-Fuissé) and then half a bottle of Moulin-à-vent. The Ballotine de pigeonneau at Chablis, as I remember it, was slices of cold pâté. Do not forget the onion-cheese soup at the Châteaubriant. Montrachet Ainé1 cannot owe its origin to Saintsbury,2 for I find it in a much older book by Vizetelly.3 Aequam memento rebus in arduis Servare mentem (Horace Odes II. 3. 1–2) means ‘be sure to preserve a tranquil mind amidst difficulties’. I have read and noted what you say about starting business again, and the proposals as regards my poems seem to be satisfactory; only I should object to the two books being issued in the same form at the same price, as the one is less than 23 of the other in length. I had not heard that Manilius I was out of print, but I expect it is true; and the Juvenal must be very nearly so. Thanks for the two letters, which I return. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 237; Maas, 254 (both nearly complete).

TO J O H N D R I N K WATE R K 8 Whewell’s Court | Trinity College 20 Oct. 1927 Dear Mr Drinkwater, I shall be very glad if you will come to tea at 4 o’clock to-morrow. I put it as early as 4, because I want to go to Valéry’s lecture at 5.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Marquette University MS (Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, series 5, box 4). Maas, 255. 1 2 3 1

For ‘Aîné’. George Saintsbury’s Notes on a Cellar-Book (1920). See AEH to GR, 5 June 1929, and note. Wines of the World by Henry Vizetelly (1875). The French poet Paul Valéry (1871–1945) lectured on ‘L’Inspiration Poétique’.

39

22 October 1927

TO T H E R E V D M AT T H E W F I T Z S I M M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 22 Oct. 1927 Dear Sir, A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in the United States, and consequently you do not need my consent. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Boston College MS (Authors Collection: Housman).

TO S I R JA M E S G. F R A Z E R Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Oct. 1927 My dear Frazer, Cicero has several examples of the brachylogy1 found in de diuin. I 35 nec adducar (ut credam) totam Etruriam delirare; and I do not think it incredible that a poet should extend the usage to tangor, ‘I am influenced (to believe that).’2 Somewhat analogous is Tac. ann. IV 57 permoueor (ut quaeram) num ad ipsum referri uerius sit. Such at any rate seems to be the sort of sense required, and I do not think that rumor would suit. aetati et ending the first half of the pentameter would have two metrical vices, for et is not one of the monosyllables which Ovid puts in that place, and he does not allow elision (as distinct from aphaeresis) at that point either. Wilamowitz may be all that you say in your sphere;3 but where I come across him, in verbal scholarship and textual criticism, he is a very great man, the greatest now living, and comparable with the greatest of the dead. He has not written much on Latin, but what I have seen of it is good. /(No, not all.)/ I am really bound to stand up for him, because last year one of my old pupils4 went to see him, and Wilamowitz spake these words and said:5 ‘Although we Germans know that Housman is a 1

Condensed expression. Frazer had written the day before about tangor in the MSS of Ovid, Fasti, 5. 74, and had suggested emendations, none of which he found satisfactory: TCC Add. MS c. 11117 . AEH was prompted to consider the elliptic use of adducor in ‘The First Editor of Lucretius’, CR 42 (1928), 122–3 (Classical Papers, 1153–5), as Naiditch (1995), 166, notes. 3 In the same letter, Frazer had called into question the German scholar’s reliability ‘in correcting Greek texts or indeed in anything else’, and had adjudged him to be ‘a sophist with an infallible instinct for getting hold of a stick by the wrong end’. 4 Annette M. B. Meakin. See notes on AEH’s testimonial for her, 16 Mar. 1900. 5 Biblical idiom. 2

40

Letters 1927–1936

rabid Germanophobe, we are unanimous in regarding him as the greatest authority both on Greek and Latin among the English-speaking peoples.’ Unfortunately he is almost as wrong about my Greek at any rate as he is about my Germanophobia; but it is an amiable error. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS Frazer 1 41 . Envelope addressed ‘Sir James Frazer, O. M. | Queen Anne’s Mansions | St James’s Park | S. W. 1’. Ackerman (1974), 362.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 24 Oct. 1927 Dear Scholfield, Many thanks: I shall be glad to ride in your car, and hope to be at the Trinity Street gate of this Court at the right moment. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 7 .

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 26 Oct. 1927 A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in America, and I suppose that anyone is at liberty to dramatize it; but it seems to me a strange idea. A. E. Housman. William White, ‘More Housman Letters’, Mark Twain Quarterly, 5. 4 (Spring 1943), 13. Text based on that printed in the American Art Association-Anderson Galleries cat. 4361 (7 Jan. 1938), no. 133.

TO D R F R A N K E . RO B B I N S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 28 Oct. 1927 Dear Mr Robbins, Many thanks for your letter and for the offprints of your paper.1 Like you, I have not come across the business of the epicycles elsewhere, nor any similar method of determining the ὅρια. The chief interest and 1

On the Michigan Astrological Papyrus, from Classical Philology, 22. 3 ( July 1927), 5–26.

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4 November 1927

importance of the papyrus is that it is the oldest astrological script, except a few genitures, which has come into our hand, and we therefore cannot suspect its doctrines of being Byzantine or medieval in origin. I enclose a copy of my paper with corrections of two or three misprints.2 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Michigan MS. Accompanying the letter is a reprint of AEH’s review article, ‘The Michigan Astrological Papyrus’, from Classical Philology, 22. 3 ( July 1927), 257–63 ( Classical Papers, 1109–13), inscribed by AEH ‘F. E. Robbins with the compliments and thanks of the writer’, and bearing editorial markings and corrections in his hand.

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Nov. 1927 Dear Ashburner, I hear with emotions which I will not attempt to describe, because you can easily imagine them, that you are coming to Cambridge on the 19th . Will you then come and dine with me in Hall on Sunday the 20th at 8 o’ clock? We don’t dress. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 285–6. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 21.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 4 Nov. 1927 Dear Scholfield, I have looked at Spindler’s Englische Metrik 1 and think that it may properly be bought. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 1128 .

2

Naiditch (1995), 146, supplies the corrections. Robert Spindler, Englische Metrik in ihren Grundzügen an Hand ausgewählter Textproben dargestellt (München, 1927). 1

42

Letters 1927–1936

TO G E O RG E B R A N D O N S AU L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 8 Nov. 1927 [Dear Sir,] A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in the United States, and you therefore need no permission from me to include poems from it in your anthology.1 But I do not consent to the inclusion of anything from Last Poems, because I think that there are already far too many anthologies in the world, and I receive requests like yours about once a month. I hope you will not be much vexed by this refusal. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that printed in In Our Time Rare Books (Cambridge, Massachusetts), cat. 274, 11.

TO S T E P H E N G A S E L E E Thanks; I have plodded through De Vreese.1 He has mugged up a lot of astrology; but what a goose, trying to make Trimalchio2 an expert and Petronius a fool. A. E. H. 9 Nov. 1927 Trin. Coll. Camb. CUL MS CCC. 12.35 ( Tracts on Petronius IX, library of S. Gaselee). Maas, 255.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Nov. 1927 Dear Sirs, I shall insist on any right I may possess to have the quotation removed from p. ii of this book; and the book will be improved by its removal. It is dragged in, and has nothing to do with the authors’ argument; in 8 lines they have made 7 alterations (and one in Macaulay over the page); and it was not the German Emperor but the German people which called ours a mercenary army, as in fact it was and is.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 5–6. Maas, 255 1 1 2 1

Saul (1901–86) does not appear to have published any anthology around this time. J. G. W. M. de Vreese, Petron und die Astrologie (1927). A vulgar and absurd character in Petronius’s Satyricon. Hence AEH’s title Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries (LP XXXVII).

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21 November 1927

TO W I L BU R C RO S S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 17 Nov. 1927 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your letter, but I do not require extra copies.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS. Envelope addressed ‘Professor Wilbur Cross | The Yale Review | Yale Station | New Haven | Connecticut | U. S. A.’

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 17 Nov. 1927 Dear Madam, A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in the United States, and therefore you do not need my consent to any use of the poems. I do not allow English anthologists to include them. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Reading MS (Longman Archives 76/34)

TO E DWA RD S Y M O NS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Nov. 1927 My dear Symons, I enclose what I suppose to be a translation of the verses. I am glad to hear of your success in banting:1 I could give up most of the things your doctor denies you without much difficulty, even pastry as made in this College kitchen. Love to Kate, who may like to know that the other day I had a second visit from a Mr Palmer,2 an official in Nigeria, who is a

1 Of the issue of the Yale Review containing a reprint of AEH’s Fragment of a Greek Tragedy: see AEH to Cross, 25 May 1927. 1 Dieting, esp. by avoiding fat, starch, and sugar. 2 [Herbert] Richmond Palmer (1877–1958). Lieutenant-Governor, Northern Provinces, Nigeria, 1925–30; Governor of the Gambia, 1930–3; Governor of Cyprus, 1933–9; knighted, 1933.

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Letters 1927–1936

descendant of our great-great-grandfather through his daughter Mary and the Higgins. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. 1. Maas, 255–6.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Nov. 1927 My dear Withers, I suppose you have long ago trodden the Italian winepress to the skins and stalks and are now at home again, feeling as well, I hope, as you seemed to be feeling when you wrote to me from Siena. I spent a month in France in August–September, half of it on a motor-tour through Burgundy, Franche-Comté, the Jura, Lyons, and Clermont-Ferrand, in company with Grant Richards, eating much trout and écrévisse and drinking wine which was not as old as one ought to find in its land of origin. All this fortnight was fine weather where I was, though in Paris and generally north of the Alps it was as wretched as most of the summer. I have never seen so much of France at one time before. With kind regards to Mrs Withers I am Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. John Drinkwater called on me about a month ago: he was delivering addresses to the male and female young. SCO MS. Maas, 256.

TO PAU L I N E H E M M E R D E Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Dec. 1927 Dear Miss Hemmerde, The registered parcel has arrived with contents as described. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

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15 December 1927

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Dec. 1927 My dear Richards, Miss Hemmerde has sent me Corvo’s book,1 which I have read and will shortly return. When he depicts Italians or describes Venice it is delightful; the talk about himself I skip; the quarrels with other people show them in a better light than him. I am obliged to Mr A. J. A. Symons2 for presenting me with his biography.3 I don’t know whether the Dialogus4 also sent is a present from him or from you or whether I should return it. It is in decent Latin, and the matter is mildly interesting, though it leaves me calm. I don’t know if it is Corvo’s: my passions would probably be more inflamed by his letters,5 which are what I thought you were going to send me. I am thinking that it is time for a cheaper edition of Last Poems. I have not said so to the publishers yet. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 239; Maas, 256–7.

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 15 Dec. 1927 Dear Mr Adelman, In A. W. Pollard’s Odes from the Greek Dramatists1 I translated Aeschylus Septem contra Thebas 848–860, Sophocles Oedipus Coloneus 1211–1248, and Euripides Alcestis 962–1005. In a periodical called The Quarto issued by the

1 T.s. of the fictionalized autobiography The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole: A Romance of Modern Venice by Frederick William Rolfe (‘Baron Corvo’, 1860–1913), published in 1934. 2 A[lphonse] J[ames] A[lbert] Symons (1900–41). Bibliophile, bibliographer, and authority on Corvo. Published The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (1934). Richards, 239, notes that he was at the time secretary of the First Edition Club and of the Wine and Food Society. 3 ‘Frederick Baron Corvo’: Richards, 239, who indicates that it was ‘one of Ye Sette of Odd Volumes’, a series of limited edns. printed privately at the Curwen Press, London. It was published in 1927. 4 ‘Jocundus Robertus, privately printed, 1926. The anonymous author was Philip G. Bainbrigge’: Maas, 257 n. 5 A whole collection of autograph letters from Corvo to a friend in England dealing in explicit terms with the Venetian homosexual underworld. 1 Published in 1890.

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Letters 1927–1936

Slade School in University College, London, vol. III p. 95,2 I translated Horace Od. IV 7. I have published no translation from Heine. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 80 West Eighth Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO W I L BU R C RO S S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 28 Dec. 1927 Dear Sir, Many thanks for the two copies of the Yale Review. The last stop on p. 415 should be a full stop and not a comma,1 but I daresay that is due to my oversight in revision. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS. Envelope addressed ‘The Editor | The Yale Review | Yale Station | New Haven | Connecticut | U. S. A.’

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1927 My dear Kate, Do not worry about the £200,1 especially as my income for this year has been accidentally increased by more than that through the payment of arrears of royalties; of which the tax-collector has taken ferocious advantage. I am well, though Christmas makes me eat and drink too much and the snow does not allow me to walk it off; but I am busy on several interesting jobs at once, which probably help to keep my liver in order. I was prepared for this winter, as I had just put a new and very efficient gas-stove, Sunbeam by name, in my bedroom, in place of an old and weak and wasteful one. I am very sorry your news of Jerry is not better. It is a great pity that work for which he seems to be exactly cut out should be interfered with by the climate in which it is to be found. 2 1 1

Published in 1897. At the end of l. 58 of Fragment of a Greek Tragedy (‘Nor did they disagree with her’). See AEH to KES, 5 July 1925.

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29 December 1927

W. B. Housman2 has got the original Palmer all right, the one who married a Higgin. I heard from Basil the other day, Jeannie being in bed with two colds one on the top of the other. Several people have told me that they were about to read Uncle Tom Pudd,3 but not that they had read it, and I have not seen it nor any review. A happy new year to you and Edward. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO PAU L I N E H E M M E R D E Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Dec. 1927 Dear Miss Hemmerde, I have just despatched to you by parcel post registered Baron Corvo’s type-written novel.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Berg MS.

TO BA S I L H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Dec. 1927 My dear Basil, I have had a terrible shock from a telegram to-day from a London fishmonger. All the native oysters have been torn from their beds by tempest, and I shall have to eat the New Year in on Dutch. For me it therefore opens gloomily, but I hope that you and Jeannie will not find it saddened by any such calamity. I spent four weeks of August and September in France; and the fortnight during which I was motoring about Burgundy and the east with Grant Richards was very successful, for we were followed about by fine weather and able to see a great deal. The present cold finds me prepared, as I have just got two new gas stoves, ‘Sunbeam’, recommended by an expert, which 2 1

Their uncle William Housman. See AEH to GR, 13 Dec. 1927.

3

A biographical romance by LH (1927).

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Letters 1927–1936

give much more heat and burn much less gas than those which I inherited from my predecessor in these rooms. I had a visit not long ago from Clarence Darrow, the great American barrister for defending murderers.1 He had only a few days in England, but he could not return home without seeing me, because he had so often used my poems to rescue his clients from the electric chair. Loeb and Leopold owe their life sentence partly to me;2 and he gave me a copy of his speech, in which, sure enough, two of my pieces are misquoted. Don’t trouble to acknowledge what my banker sends to yours at the New Year,—unless he doesn’t, as the Irishman would say. Love to Jeannie. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. 1. Memoir, 153 (incomplete); Maas, 257.

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 31 Dec. 1927 My dear Bridges, It is very good of you to write to me for the New Year, and I hope my answer may wade through the snow to the top of Boar’s1 Hill and carry you my good wishes in return. I am afraid I am not likely to follow it to Oxford myself at this season. I am glad that the philosophical poem2 progresses: at present I am occupied with your rival Lucretius, on whom I am to lecture next term; which I do in the spirit of the true pedant, ignoring philosophy as much as possible and poetry altogether. The man to whose essays I wrote a preface was Arthur Platt, my Greek colleague at University College, a dear and wonderful creature. My kind regards to Mrs Bridges. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 120–1. Maas, 258.

1 Clarence [Seward] Darrow (1857–1938), probably the most celebrated American lawyer of the twentieth century. Naiditch (2005), 28–9, records a copy of Arthur Platt’s Nine Essays inscribed ‘Clarence Darrow from A. E. Housman’. 2 In 1924, when Nathan F. Leopold, Jr (1904–71) and Richard A. Loeb (1905–36) pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and murder of fourteen-year-old Bobbie Franks in Chicago for an ‘intellectual’ thrill, Darrow’s defence saved them from the death sentence. Darrow was well known for incorporating literary allusions in his pleas. 1 2 For ‘Boars’. The Testament of Beauty, published in 1929.

1928 TO H . E . BU T L E R Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Jan. 1928 Dear Butler, I do not know the words, and I should think that they are not ancient. You must have a great heart to tramp over all that rough country in such weather. Is there a spare copy of Platt’s sonnets &c.?1 which of course I am quite ready to pay for. I think I fell between two stools: Chambers2 meant to send me a copy, but did not, because you had lent me yours. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305.

TO W I L L I A M E L L E RY L E O NA R D Trinity College | Cambridge | England 5 Jan. 1928 Dear Dr Leonard, I have written my name in the copy of Last Poems and again on the second leaf of this letter, so that you can put it in your Shropshire Lad if you wish. I have in the past copied out poems of mine, but requests have now become too frequent. I have only very old photographs, and do not know where to lay my hands on them. I am very much impressed by the splendour of the binding in which you have enshrined me. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1

See AEH to Mildred Platt, 19 Apr. 1927, n. 3.

2

R. W. Chambers.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO UN K N OW N CORRES PO NDE NTS Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Jan. 1928 Dear Sirs, I am obliged by your letter, but I do not give any lectures except those which are part of my duty here. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Berg MS. Maas, 258.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Jan. 1928 Dear Sirs, I refuse my consent to the inclusion of the three poems from A Shropshire Lad in an anthology destined for the British market. If it were only for the American I should have no right to object. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 9.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Jan. 1928 Dear Sirs, Mr Prescott may use the two verses as he desires. I have tried giving general instructions,1 but found that they were overlooked or misunderstood or failed to meet particular cases. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 11.

1

For permissions.

51

17 January 1928

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Jan. 1928 My dear Richards, I hope I have not kept you waiting for the return of the proofs now enclosed, but in these last few days I have been rather occupied. I shall be very glad to be one of the dedicatees.1 But it was not only the fresh trout but the fresh truffles of the Gorges du Loup2 which dwell in my memory. I am not sure that I have seen any of the books about wine which you mention. The menu of Sorret3 is very appetising. ‘Hans Tiransil’ may be a Dane in America who wrote to me about translating Last Poems and produced some versions which Gosse said were good. Kind regards to Mrs Richards (also Helène)4 , and thanks for her New Year letter. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 240; Maas, 258–9.

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 17 Jan. 1928 My dear Cockerell, I hope I may infer from your presence in the Abbey yesterday1 that Mrs Cockerell is better. I have made up a letter for Blunden,2 but before sending it to you I

1 Of Richards’s The Coast of Pleasure: Chapters practical, geographical and anecdotal on the social, open-air restaurant life of the French Riviera, with a few notes on the ways to approach to the resort of worldlings (1928). The book was also dedicated to Richards’s wife, Edward Clodd, Frederic Jessel, Theodore Dreiser, E. S. P. Haynes, and Philip Sainsbury, and to the memory of Belfort Bax and Sir Hugh Lane: Richards, 240. 2 At the Grand Hôtel du Loup: Richards, 132. 3 4 Lyons restaurant on the Quai de Retz. For ‘Hélène’. 1 Westminster Abbey, where Thomas Hardy’s funeral was held on 16 Jan. See AEH to Rothenstein, 24 Jan. 1928, and notes. 2 Poet Edmund Blunden (1896–1974). See AEH to the Committee of the Royal Literary Fund, 18 Jan. 1928. Cockerell was Blunden’s other sponsor.

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Letters 1927–1936

want to know whether the Committee of the Royal Literary Fund are My Lords, Ladies & Gentlemen or simply Gentlemen. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘S. C. Cockerell Esq. | 3 Shaftesbury Road’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH.

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 17 Jan. 1928 Dear Mr Adelman, It was a kind thought of yours to send me the map of Shropshire as it was in 1811, and I thank you for the gift and for your letter. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 80 West Eighth Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO T H E C O M M I T T E E O F T H E ROYA L L I T E R A RY FUND Trinity College | Cambridge 18 January 1928 My Lords & Gentleman, Understanding that a letter from me may be of use to Mr Edmund Blunden in an application to the Royal Literary Fund,1 I gladly take the opportunity of saying how much I admire some of his poetry. His quick and true eye for external nature, and his skill or luck in finding words which convey his own impressions to the reader, are talents in which he is pre-eminent among his contemporaries and noticeable even among English poets in general. I ought not to say that he is the best poet who has begun writing within the last 15 or 20 years, because there may be many with whose works I

1 The Royal Literary Fund was established in 1790 to administer assistance to authors in distress. Blunden was awarded £500 in Feb. 1928 as the recipient of the Benson Silver Medal: Barry Webb, Edmund Blunden: A Biography (1990), 162.

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19 January 1928

have not enough acquaintance; but there is none of them for whose poetry, so far as it is known to me, I feel so much personal liking. I am, my Lords and Gentleman, Yours faithfully A. E. Housman T.s. copy in Sparrow collection, SJCO. Published in Webb, 162.

TO H . PA RRY J O NE S Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Jan. 1928 Dear Sir, You are at liberty to publish the two versions,—the more so, as Welsh translations of my poems are said to be better than the original. I am obliged to you for sending them to me, but I have forgotten all my Welsh except cwrw da.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. 2. Envelope addressed ‘H. Parry Jones Esq. | County School | Llanrwst | Denbighshire’. Maas, 259.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Jan. 1928 My dear Richards, You did enclose two notes from Symons,1 which I have not kept, though the handwriting was very magnificent. You may cite me as a witness to the onion-cheese soup.2 As to Last Poems and your new business, I am not so confident as you seem to be about the latter. When I last heard, the arrangements were due to take place in November, and here is January. I don’t know who your capitalists are, but I do know that if I were a capitalist I should not set you up as a publisher but engage you as a courier, salary unlimited. Not hearing from you before the end of the year I had drafted a letter to the Richards Press about Last Poems, and it would have gone if your letter

1 1

‘Good beer’. A. J. A. Symons.

2

‘Eaten at the Châteaubriand at Dijon’: Richards, 240 n.

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Letters 1927–1936

had not just now arrived. They have behaved quite properly to me as far as I have observed, and I will not do anything uncivil to them. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 240 (incomplete); Maas, 259.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 20 Jan. 1928 Dear Gow, I enclose what I have written for Taylor.1 I have put it with labour into capital script in the vain hope of excluding J’s and U’s,2 which the executant will nevertheless introduce wherever he thinks proper, and only half of which will be removed. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 33 . Facsimile in Gow, facing p. 32. Maas, 260.

TO H . PA RRY J O NE S Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Jan. 1928 Dear Sir, French is the only tongue of which I know enough to keep my translators in order; in other languages I generally give permission and hope for the best, and I have no reason to hope for less than the best from you. I am Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. 2. Envelope addressed ‘The Headmaster | Llanrwst County School | Denbighshire’. Maas, 260.

1 Henry Martyn Taylor (1842–1927), Senior Fellow of TCC. AEH had written the inscription for his memorial in the college chapel. 2 See AEH to GR, 12 Oct. 1902, n. 4.

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24 January 1928

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Jan. 1928] The fresh truffles at the Gorges du Loup were not eaten alone; they were made into an omelette.1 A. E. H. PM MS: p.c. postmarked ‘Cambridge 23 Jan. 1928’ and addressed to ‘M. Grant Richards | Pavillon Citronniers | Monte Carlo | Monaco’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 132 n. 1 (incomplete), 241.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Jan. 1928 My dear Rothenstein, If you get the consent of all the nine others, I will not stick out.1 But you are much too great an artist to catch a likeness. Of course I do not know what I look like myself, but my acquaintances do not recognise me, so much are my traits ennobled by your pencil. Also I am much exhausted by having sat for two drawings for my two colleges in the last year,2 mutually much disapproved by the two artists. Also the languor of extreme senility makes me more and more averse to locomotion. Also a journalist present in the Abbey3 says that my person proved as polished as my verse, after which I desire to be for ever invisible. I had heard, and was sorry to hear, that you had not been at all well. Please give my kind regards to Mrs Rothenstein. I shall hope to see you here in March. I met your younger son4 at our High Table a year or two ago. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 44. Maas, 260–1.

1

See AEH to GR, 17 Jan. 1928. Rothenstein had proposed to make a painting of the ten pall-bearers at Thomas Hardy’s funeral. The others were the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald, Sir J[ames] M. Barrie, John Galsworthy, Sir Edmund Gosse, Rudyard Kipling, A. B. Ramsay (Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge), George Bernard Shaw, and E. M. Walker (Pro-Provost of Queen’s College, Oxford). 2 See AEH to Alice Rothenstein, 16 Jan. 1927. 3 Westminster Abbey, where Hardy’s funeral took place on 16 Jan. 1928. 4 Michael Rothenstein (1908–93), painter, print-maker, and writer on art. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 27 Jan. 1928 My dear Witter Bynner, Thank you for your volume of chosen lyrics,1 and for your continued good-will. The translations from the Greek dramatists reprinted in the New Republic2 are the only ones I have done. In the Euripides a misprint is repeated: Far-seeking should be Far seeking.3 Yours always sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/21. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | Box 1061 | Santa Fe | New Mexico | U. S. A.’. Bynner/Haber (1957), 26.

TO A . S. F. G OW [Trinity College] Sheppard will come at 9 p.m. on Monday the 30 , so I will expect you then. A. E. H. 28 Jan. 1928 1

th

TCC Add. MS c. 112 34 .

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Jan. 1928 Dear Sirs, I should be obliged if you would tell me, at your convenience, how many copies, in all, of Last Poems have been printed, and how many you have now in stock.1

1

Probably Grenstone Poems (1917), reissued in 1926. 4 January 1928, pp. 220–1. The three translations originally appeared in Odes from the Greek Dramatists, ed. Alfred W. Pollard (1890). 3 See AEH to Agard, 22 Mar. 1933. 1 J. T. Sheppard: see List of Recipients. 1 21,000 copies were printed, and 1,647 remained in stock: GR to AEH, 31 Jan. 1928 (BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 14). 2

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2 February 1928

Also, whether it is true, as someone told me the other day, that Manilius, Book I is sold out?2 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Richards Press Ld. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 12–13.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Jan. 1928 My dear Richards, 2000 copies of the 3/6 edition of A Shropshire Lad were prepared for the public on June 15 of last year, and 5000 of the small edition some time later, as the stock was running low. I have written to the Richards Press asking about the stock of Last Poems, as that is a subject about which I am curious myself. But I have not unsettled their minds by foreshadowing transfer, and I am not inclined to do so till your prospects are clearer. They send me royalties and accounts fairly regularly. Last term we reformed the College kitchen and engaged a new chef, who was at one time employed at the Café Royal. He is an improvement on the old one, who had grown up from scullery-boy under this venerable roof; but his variety and inventiveness are ahead of his execution. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 241 (incomplete); Maas, 261.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 2 Feb. 1928 Dear Sirs, I am much obliged by your reply to my questions. I have been thinking of a cheaper edition of Last Poems, but I will postpone the matter for a little while.

2

The last copy was sold on 23 Sept. 1928 (ibid.).

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Letters 1927–1936

The binding of the book which I return does not seem to me very suitable for slim books like mine. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 15–16.

TO A . S. F. G OW [Trinity College | Cambridge] Mart. XII 82 4. It appears from Isid. orig. XVIII 69 2 that if a ball was sent out of bounds a spectator who caught it might take his place in the game. I suppose Menogenes makes over this right. XII 87 6 excalciatus is no more than ‘unshod’, as in the Graeco-Latin glossaries excalcior is ὑπολυόμαι and calciatus sum ὑποδέδεμαι. In Gell. XIII 22 1 the same persons are described as gallicis calceati and soleati. XIV 46. nobilibus ‘earning renown’, like those of Polybus1 VII 72 11. sinistrae, whatever substantive is supplied with it, means strokes, not hands, so that mobilibus does not properly suit it. A. E. H. 8 Feb. 1928 TCC Add. MS c. 112 35 . Maas, 424.

TO W I L L I A M E L L E RY L E O NA R D Trinity College | Cambridge | England 9 Feb. 1928. Dear Dr Leonard, The packet containing (I suppose) the book1 has arrived, but I have handed it back unopened to the Post Office for return to you. I told you that I would not copy the poem: the request is one which I myself should not make, and I am not inclined to accede to it when it is made to me. I suppose that you thought the magnificence of the binding would melt my heart; but you see I have eluded that snare. I am obliged by the terms of your letter. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (Digital Library). 1

For ‘Polybius’. ‘Referring to the 1st of Shropshire Lad’: note written on the MS. See AEH to Leonard, 5 Jan. 1928. 1

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18 February 1928

TO M A RG OT, L A DY H OWA R D D E WA L D E N Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Feb. 1928 Dear Lady Howard de Walden, I am flattered by your request, but I do not read poetry in public nor even in private. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Feb. 1928 My dear Rothenstein, I have some slight reason to think that you will not capture all your 10, and I feel a suspicion that you want to use me as a decoy: ‘the churlish recluse A. E. Housman has consented, how then can you or anyone refuse?’1 It is just possible that I might be in London one day before the end of term, and if so I would let you know. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 45. Maas, 261.

TO E D M U N D B LU N D E N Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Feb. 1928 Dear Mr Blunden, I am very glad if I have been of service to you, for ‘Evening has brought the glow-worm to the green, And early stars to heaven, and joy to men’ are two of the most enviable lines I have come across for a long time.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS. 1 All the pall-bearers at Hardy’s funeral except Sir James Barrie had in fact agreed to sit for the painting. 1 The opening lines of Shepherd in Blunden’s The Shepherd, and Other Poems of Peace and War (1922), revised and reissued in the New Readers’ Library series (1928).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO S I R JA M E S BA R R I E Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Feb. 1928 Dear Barrie, I hear that you are coy to Rothenstein. I also do not want to sit (the more so because I have suffered enough from his pencil for one lifetime), and if you will stand firm, so will I. The Master of Magdalene likewise is reluctant, but is consulting his Oxford colleague.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Though Rothenstein cannot draw a likeness, he has a pretty wit, and told Shaw2 that the secret of his health at his age must be that he has been able to extract ultra-violet rays from lime-light. PM MS: MA 3568 R.V. Autographs Misc. English. Richards, 89; Maas, 262 (both incomplete).

TO F. S. M A RVI N 1 Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Feb. 1928 Dear Mr Marvin, I am not the editor of Nine Essays,2 but I did compile the bibliography, and I was ignorant of the essay to which you are kind enough to call my attention.3 Mrs Platt told me that I had missed something, but did not say what. In any second edition it shall be mentioned,4 but to include it would go beyond the scope of the publication, which consists of unpublished matter (except that Aristophanes had been published in a very hole-and-corner way), and also would necessitate a change of title. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS Eng. lett. d. 264, fos. 95–6.

1

2 See AEH to Rothenstein, 24 Jan. 1928, n. 1. George Bernard Shaw, who was 72. 1863–1943. Historian. 2 Nine Essays by Arthur Platt with a preface by A. E. Housman (1927). 3 The bibliography made no mention of Platt’s brief paper on ‘Walter Bagehot’ in the University College Gazette, 3. 37 (18 Dec. 1901), 226–7. 4 There was no 2nd edn. 1

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25 February 1928

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Feb. 1928 Dear Sirs, Messrs Curwen may publish a setting of Fancy’s Knell on condition that none of the words are omitted. This proviso is necessary because composers, who are insensible to literature, often cut down a longish poem to the length which suits them. No fee. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 19.

TO E V E LY N W R E N C H Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Feb. 1928 Dear Sir, I am obliged by your letter, but to make me write you must use intimidation as well as bribery.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 59543, fo. 115.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Feb. 1928 My dear Rothenstein, It is very nice and honest of you to tell me that Barrie has refused to sit,1 because I now shall also refuse, as I warned you. I am also grateful for your mot about Shaw.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 46. Maas, 262.

1 Wrench had almost certainly asked for a contribution to The Spectator, of which he was editor, 1925–32. 1 Barrie had written independently to AEH on 24 Feb. telling him he had refused (BMC MS). 2 See AEH to Barrie, 20 Feb. 1928.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | . 28 Feb 1928 Dear Sirs, I do not intend to reprint either the Juvenal or the Manilius. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 22. The address on headed writing paper is modified by AEH.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 5 March 1928 Dear Gow, Madvig Cic. de fin. I 6 (p. 17). The safest substitute for -bilis is the past part. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 36 .

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 6 March 1928 Dear Sirs, The Oxford University Press may be allowed to publish Mr Ireland’s setting of these three poems as they desire.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 25.

1 We’ll to the Woods No More, a cycle for voice and piano (1928), by the composer John Ireland (1879–1962), comprising We’ll to the woods no more (prefatory poem to LP), In Boyhood (LP XXXII), and Spring will not wait the loiterer’s time (the first two lines of stanza two of ASL XXXIX being printed before the score of this instrumental piece).

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12 March 1928

TO T. S. E L I OT Trinity College | Cambridge 12 March 1928 Dear Mr Eliot, It is very kind of you to send me your edition of The Moonstone, and I have enjoyed reading your preface.1 I still incline to think The Woman in White2 the best, chiefly on account of the two characters you mention;3 and I put No Name4 very high, for the art with which trivial incidents are made to cause intense and painful excitement. I am glad you have a good word for Poor Miss Finch.5 Armadale6 I never took to; he cannot manage the supernatural; and I was not young enough when I read it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Am 1432/64. Maas, 262.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D I received the books.1 I am at present not well enough to write at length. I acknowledge receipt of cheque for £2. 13. 3. A. E. Housman Trin. Coll. Camb. 15 March 1928 BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 27: p.c. addressed ‘The Richards Press Ld. | 90 Newman Street | London W. 1’.

1 Strictly, introduction (Collins has a preface) to the edn. published by Oxford University Press, 1928. AEH’s copy is at BMC. 2 Published in 1860. Eliot, p. v, praised The Moonstone as ‘the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels’. 3 Eliot, p. x: ‘The only two of his characters whom we never forget are Count Fosco and Marion [Halcombe]’. 4 Published in 1862. 5 Published in 1872. Eliot regarded it as being among ‘some of the best’ of the novels in which ‘our attention is steadily maintained’ by a ‘sense of apprehension’. 6 Published in 1866. Eliot praised it on the same grounds as Poor Miss Finch. 1 Samples of special bindings for ASL and LP: BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 23. See AEH to The Richards Press Ltd, 2 Feb. 1928.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO JA M E S G E O RG E L E I P P E RT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 27 March 1928 Dear Mr Leippert, I cannot forbid you to write to me but you must not expect replies. I hate writing and my relatives and friends very seldom get letters from me. Lucan would do you no good. He has rhetoric and epigram but no true poetry. My edition [Blackwell, 1926] is for advanced scholars and is scientific—not literary. The authorised publishers of the Shropshire Lad in the United States are Messrs Holt. I am Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in White (1950), 405–6; Maas, 263. The brackets after ‘edition’ are AEH’s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 1

Registered parcel received A. E. Housman Trin. Coll. Camb.

31 March 1928

LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 1 Hare Court | Temple | E. C. 4.’

TO M R F I N K E L S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 15 April 1928 Dear Mr Finkelstein, I think myself that A Shropshire Lad is better on the whole than Last Poems, but Mrs Wharton1 and Mr Masefield2 are of the contrary opinion. Your two poems are pleasing, especially the first. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1 1

Containing a t.s. of Corvo’s letters: GR to AEH, 29 Mar. 1928 (LC-GR t.s.). 2 American novelist Edith Wharton (1862–1937). John Masefield.

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15 April 1928

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 15 April 1928 My dear Kate, I suppose you are now at your Hampshire seat, and I hope you are enjoying it, in spite of this sudden cold. It is very good of you to ask me there, but I am making use, as usual, of the Easter vacation for work, always feeling industrious in April. If you should happen to be there when I leave Tardebigge, about August 22, it would be very pleasant to come and see you. In June I shall go abroad for a fortnight or so. This is a great country for jam, and miles of it are now white with plums and damsons, brought on by the early spring; though this has been the only real winter we have had since 1894–5. The notion of a ghost at Fockbury is quite new to me.1 I think it was our grandfather2 who changed the name from the Clock House,3 and I do not believe it is geographically correct, as Fockbury Mill (Ince’s) and Fockbury Farm (Veal’s) are some way off and down by the brook. I don’t know if I told you that in London I got to know quite well Sir John Rotton, the owner of Fockbury Farm and (I think) Pepper Wood. He was a member of the Council of University College, and lived at Godalming, where I often stayed with him in a large library and garden. He died a year or two ago at a great age. He knew our father quite well, and I used to hear his name when I was a boy. It looks as if the County of Salop had providentially been saved from the perpetration of a medical job: however, I am sorry for the mischance to Denis. As to Jerry, I think the judicial branch ought to suit him very well, for he seemed to possess the talents of Solomon and Portia, from what we used to hear of his ways in that sphere. Love to all (though I don’t know exactly who they are). Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS.

1 On these grounds, P. G. Naiditch, HSJ 31 (2005), 105, notes that there was a tradition of there being a ghost, and defends Hawkins (1958), 14, against charges that she was credulous in believing LH’s information about it. 2 The Revd Thomas Housman (1795–1870), first vicar of Catshill, Worcestershire, 1838–64. 3 To ‘Fockbury House’: Pugh, 10. AEH was born nearby, at the Valley House, Fockbury: Recollections, 10; Naiditch (2005), 1.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 April 1928 My dear Withers, If you wanted a letter at Christmas you did not go about the right way to get it, for you told me that my letter in the autumn was the only one I had ever written you except in answer to one of your own; and this so filled me with the consciousness of virtue that I have been resting in contemplation of my merit ever since. It is very good of you nevertheless to ask me to pay you a visit, and I should be delighted to come for three nights in either of the week-ends surrounding the /13th / and the /20th / of May. In June I am going abroad. This is not a late spring. Till the cold set in after Easter it was quite an early one; but there have been so many early springs in the last 15 years that people have forgotten the proper times for leaves and flowers to come out. For 20 years or so from 1887 onward I noted these things in a diary,1 on the strength of which I inform you that the lilac usually comes into blossom on May 7; and it is opening now by Magdalene Bridge, though I admit that it is always early there. I am glad that your report of your health is as good as can reasonably be expected. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. I myself am well, and Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 29–30, 73 (excerpts); Maas, 263.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 24 April 1928 Dear Sirs, I am sorry to have left your letter of March 2, with its enclosures, so long without a reply, but I was first ill and then busy. I do not so very much admire the special bindings, and, apart from that, the notion does not appeal to me. My idea has always been to let the public have my poems as cheap as possible. 1 BL Add. MS 45861, BMC MS (1889 diary). Withers’s daughter Audrey records in her autobiography Lifespan (1994), 183, that her father shared AEH’s passion for weather records.

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26 April 1928

This leads me to a matter on which I have been meaning to write to you for some time. As Last Poems have now been out for more than 5 years, I think it is time to have a cheaper edition, uniform in external appearance with the 3/6 Shropshire Lad, but lower in price, because the contents are so much smaller. My own preference would be 2/6. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 29–30. Clemens (1941), 11 (incomplete); Maas, 264.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 24 April 1928 My dear Richards, I return with thanks M. des Ombiaux’ book,1 which is readable enough, but, like so many books on wine, too literary and not scientific enough. I will also send back Corvo’s letters in a day or two. That sort of thing is not really improved by literary elegances, and I have been more amused with things written in urinals. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 241; Maas, 264.

TO L A DY T H O M S O N Trinity College 26 April 1928 Dear Lady Thomson, I shall be delighted to dine at the Lodge at 8 o’ clock on May 3. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS Eng. lett. c. 495, fo. 143.

1

Le Vin by Maurice des Ombiaux (1928).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 1 May 1928 Dear Sirs, I have considered your objection to issuing an edition of Last Poems at 2/6 uniform with the 3/6 edition of A Shropshire Lad; but I on my part am averse from charging 3/6 for matter which is only 23 of the other, or less. I think therefore that the question had better stand over till the present edition of Last Poems is sold out; and meanwhile I should propose to adopt your suggestion of a small edition at 1/6 and 2/-, in which the injustice to the purchaser would be so little as to be negligible. I suppose that this could be got out in the autumn. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 32–3. Clemens (1941), 11 (nearly complete).

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 6 May 1928 Dear Mr Adelman, The words of mine which have reached your ears may be something like this. I can no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat; but he knows a rat when he comes across one, and I recognise poetry by definite physical sensations, either down the spine, or at the back of the throat, or in the pit of the stomach.1 The influence of Heine is evident in A Shropshire Lad.2 For Keats I have the greatest admiration, but I should not have thought that my writing had any affinity to his. An illustrated edition was produced to please the publisher:3 the illustrations were Shropshire landscapes by William Hyde. They were in colour, which always looks vulgar, and the edition is now withdrawn. The late 1 NNP (1933): ‘A year or two ago, in common with others, I received a request that I would define poetry. I replied that I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat, but that I thought we both recognised the object by the symptoms which it provokes in us.’ AEH goes on to describe physical symptoms such as ‘a shiver down the spine’, ‘a constriction of the throat and a precipitation of water to the eyes’, and a sensation in ‘the pit of the stomach’. 2 Twelve echoes or allusions throughout AEH’s poetry are noted in Poems (1997), 338, 339, 340, 355, 363, 369, 390, 402, 405, 440, 442, 445. Of these, the first five are in ASL. 3 In 1908.

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9 May 1928

Lovat Fraser made drawings which he called illustrations, and I suppose that they had artistic merit, but illustrations they were not. All the figures, when there were figures, were put into eighteenth-century costume, and No. XXX was represented by a fat old man asleep on a chair. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Neither illustrators nor composers care twopence about words, and generally do not understand them. BMC MS. Memoir, 199–200; Maas, 264–5.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 8 May 1928 Dear Sirs, I have received your letter of the 5th inst., and I note that you are willing to publish a new edition of Last Poems at 2/6, uniform in external appearance with the 3/6 edition of A Shropshire Lad, the royalty to be 10 %, twelve copies counting as twelve. This edition for the autumn, a small edition perhaps next year. Perhaps you would send me a copy of the current 3/6 edition of A Shropshire Lad, as I have seen none later than 1922 and am not quite sure if the /binding/ is the same. In the new edition of Last Poems each poem should begin on its own page, as in the present one,—not overlapping as in A Shropshire Lad. I note that you will send me proofs, which is always very necessary. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 35–6.

TO T H E R E G I S T R A R TO T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F OX F ORD [Trinity College | Cambridge 9 May 1928] Dear Mr Registrar, I thank you for your communication, received to-day, of the /kind and flattering/ intention of the H. C. to propose that the degree of D. of L. /should/ be conferred upon me.

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Letters 1927–1936

My /obligation/ to them, and my sense of the honour proposed, are not less because it is one which I am not /able/ to accept. , In pursuance of a resolution taken long ago, and for reasons which it would be tedious to relate, and some of which it /might not/ be /easy/ to /formulate/, I have declined similar distinctions offered me by the generosity of other Universities; and /the case is not altered/ even when the University which /desires to do me/ the honour /bestow its favour on me/ is my own. I only ask that /neither/ ingratitude /nor/ lack of appreciation may be inferred from my action, as they are far /indeed/ from my mind Lilly MSS 1. 1: draft in pencil of letter of 10 May 1928.

TO T H E R E G I S T R A R TO T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F OX F ORD 1 Trinity College | Cambridge 10 May 1928 Dear Mr Registrar, I beg to thank you for your communication, received to-day, of the kind and flattering intention of the Hebdomadal Council2 to propose that the Degree of Doctor of Letters in the University of Oxford should be conferred upon me. My obligation to them, and my sense of the honour proposed, are not less because it is one which I am not able to accept. In pursuance of a resolution taken long ago, and for reasons which it would be tedious to enumerate and perhaps not quite easy to formulate, I have declined similar distinctions offered me by the generosity of other Universities; and the case is not altered even when the University which designs to bestow its favour on me is my own. I only ask that neither ingratitude nor lack of appreciation may be inferred from my action, as they are indeed far from my mind. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. University Registry, Oxford, MS. Maas, 265. 1 Edwin Stuart Craig (1865–1939), Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and University Registrar, 1926–30. 2 Which formulated University policy.

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12 May 1928

TO D R G E O RG E F L E TC H E R Trinity College | Cambridge 10 May 1928 My dear Fletcher, The Vice-Master tells me that there is no record of the rooms Byron kept in, but there are two rival traditions: that they were the rooms on the first floor of staircase K in the south-east corner of the Great Court whose windows look across to the Chapel, and that they were No. 1 on the first floor of staircase I on the north side of Nevile’s Court. I know a man who has occupied both sets, and I have asked him which would be most convenient for keeping a bear in; and he says the former.1 I hope you are keeping well, and your family too. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. MS tipped-in in copy of The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman (1939). Inspected at Ulysses (Bookseller), London, 11 Dec. 2001. Accompanied by a scrap of envelope addressed in an unidentified hand to Mr George Fletcher, 60 Southwood Lane, Highgate, N. The envelope was posted from London on 11 May 1928, and the verso bears a map of the Great Court at TCC. A second scrap of envelope, sent from Bath on 19 May 1928, is also addressed in an unidentified hand to George Fletcher Esq., MP, at the same address, and the verso bears a map of the cloister in Nevile’s Court, TCC. In neither case is the map in AEH’s hand.

TO HAROLD ALLISON DE RU E Trinity College | Cambridge | England 12 May 1928 Dear Mr Rue, Lack of poetical inspiration is, and always has been, my normal condition in normal health. I have very seldom felt any impulse to write poetry, and it has never lasted long except in 1895, when I had a relaxed sore throat.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Harold Allison de Rue | 432 Cuyler Hall | Princeton University | N. J. | U. S. A.’ 1 Byron to Augusta Byron, 6 Nov. 1805: ‘I am now most pleasantly situated in Superexcellent Rooms, flanked on one side by my Tutor, on the other by an old Fellow’: Letters and Journals, ed. Leslie A. Marchand (1973), 1. 79. Byron never gave the specific location, which has remained disputed. To Elizabeth Bridget Pigot, 26 Oct. 1807: ‘I have got a new friend, the finest in the world, a tame Bear, when I brought him here, they asked me what I meant to do with him, and my reply was ‘‘he should sit for a Fellowship’’ ’: Marchand, 1. 135–6. 1 See the note on the letter to Webb, 17 June 1896.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 May 1928 My dear Richards, I am reading your brisk and instructive book,1 for which many thanks. I expect to be in Paris, or perhaps at St Germain, for the fortnight June 5–19. Any chance of seeing you there? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 241 (nearly complete).

TO L A DY G O S S E Trinity College | Cambridge 17 May 1928 Dear Lady Gosse, Though the bulletins of the last few days had prepared me for this morning’s news,1 the national and personal loss is none the less a pain. I am glad to remember that after the long separation due to my residence in Cambridge I met your husband last January at Hardy’s funeral,2 when he seemed as young as ever. In common with all the friends who will miss his delightful conversation and companionship, I know and feel what the sorrow of your bereavement must be; and I am sure you will understand how sincere is my sympathy. Always yours very truly A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7026/126. Maas, 266.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 17 May 1928 Dear Sirs, Judging from the correctness of the proofs of Last Poems which you send me, and the promptitude with which they appeared, I infer that the first edition has been kept in type, and that you purpose printing the cheaper 1 1 2

The Coast of Pleasure (1928). Of the death of Sir Edmund Gosse on 16 May 1928. On 16 Jan. 1928 at Westminster Abbey. Gosse and AEH were among the pall-bearers.

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19 May 1928

edition from the same. But if this edition were to be uniform with that of A Shropshire Lad, the title would appear at the top of each page; and I doubt if there is room for it. The lines of the poems would certainly on some pages want squeezing together: you are better able to judge than I am if they could be squeezed enough. The only change I should be making myself is to add a title to XXXVI on p. 70.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Clemens (1941), 11 (nearly complete); Maas, 266.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 19 May 1928 Dear Sirs, I have now noticed another difference between the form of Last Poems and A Shropshire Lad, namely that in Last Poems the page is wider and gives room for a greater length of line: e. g. on p. 51x [←x compared with p. 50 of A Shropshire Lad].1 I think that the new edition should be uniform with the 3/6 Shropshire Lad in this respect also. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 40–1.

TO M A RK VA N DO RE N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 19 May 1928 Dear Mr Van Doren, A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in the United States and you do not need my consent to reprint poems contained in it. I believe that this is also the case with A. W. Pollard’s book.1

1

See AEH to GR, 28 Jan. 1926, and note. The two pages bore, respectively, The Oracles and The New Mistress. 1 Odes from the Greek Dramatists, ed. Pollard (1890), which contained three translations by AEH. See AEH to the Council of UCL, 1892, and n. 2. 1

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On the other hand I do not give you permission to use We’ll to the woods no more from Last Poems. It is not from Théodore de Banville but from an old French nursery rhyme.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Columbia MS, Van Doren Box.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 23 May 1928 Dear Mackail, Scholia under the name of Iulius Pomponius Sabinus were published by G. Fabricius in his edition of Virgil 1561. They were then supposed to be ancient but are now referred to the early renascence. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.7. Maas, 424.

TO M A RY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 May 1928 Dear Mrs Withers, At the feast last night I was complimented on my appearance of good health, which I hope you will take as a deserved tribute to the benefit of a stay under your hospitable roof. My internal sensations quite correspond, and with kind regards to both of you I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 266–7.

2 He is right: de Banville used only the opening as the first line of a poem in Les Stalactites. See AEH to Van Doren, 21 June 1928.

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30 May 1928

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 26 May 1928 Dear Gow, I said one book, but it had better be two; unless indeed that will make it impossible for them to be ready for the end of June. Yours A. E. H. As the wedding is the 30th I should want them a day or two before. TCC Add. MS c. 112 37 .

TO G E O RG E M C L E A N H A R P E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 30 May 1928 Dear Mr Harper, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your book,1 which I have begun to read with pleasure and look forward to reading further. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (George McLean Harper Papers, VI. 5, folder 16).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 30 May 1928 Dear Sirs, This specimen is quite satisfactory. In one or two poems (IX, XXXVI)1 the narrowing of the page will probably necessitate running some lines over; but this should be avoided where possible. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 45.

1 1

Spirit of Delight (1928), a collection of Harper’s essays. In LP: The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers and West and away the wheels of darkness roll.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 31 May 1928 My dear Richards, I am glad that I may hope to see you in Paris. I expect to be there from the 5th to the 20th of June, staying at the Pavillon Henri IV at St Germain-en-Laye. I shall have Louis1 and his car in attendance, and can fetch you out there if you wished it. I should like as much notice as possible, to arrange about having evenings free. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO A M Y BU RK I TT Trinity College 31 May 1928 Dear Mrs Burkitt, It is very kind of you to invite me to meet M. Cumont,1 but I am leaving Cambridge on Monday for some little time and cannot have the pleasure of conversing with him and you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 June 1928 My dear Richards, If it were convenient to you to stay at St Germain as my guest I should be delighted; and Louis should be able to take you in and out of Paris, unless your business interviews there were too numerous or inconveniently fixed. I see you are crossing on Friday: is it still only two nights you mean to stay? 1 The chauffeur who had driven AEH and GR on their tour of Burgundy, starting out from Paris on 26 Aug. 1927. 1 See List of Recipients.

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21 June 1928

I would send the car to meet you at the Rue Caumartin on your arrival, as you and Louis1 might easily miss one another at the Gare du Nord. I am leaving Cambridge to-day, though I do not cross till to-morrow. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 242; Maas, 267.

TO D R G E O F F R E Y K E Y N E S 18 June 1928    |  -- Dear Sir, I am much obliged to you for calling my attention to the misprint,1 which had not been pointed out to me. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 8534/3. In The Gates of Memory (1981), 255, Keynes wrongly assigns his letter to AEH to July 1928.

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 21 June 1928 Dear Mr Adelman, A Shropshire Lad was published while Mr Wilde was in prison,1 and when he came out I sent him a copy myself. Robert Ross2 told me that when he visited his friend in jail3 he learnt some of the poems by heart and recited them to him; so that was his first acquaintance with them. I do not think

1 See AEH to GR, 31 May 1928. ‘During all the four days Louis and the car were at my disposal. Housman was always that kind of host’: Richards, 243. 1 ‘From the all woods that autumn’ in ASL XLII 51: Keynes, Bibliotheca Bibliographici (1964), 279, item 2764 (v). It was one of many misprints in the 1927 12mo edn. of ASL: AEH to Keynes, 13 July 1928. 1 Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment for homosexual offences began on 25 May 1895 and ended at Reading Gaol on 19 May 1897. ASL was probably published at the end of Feb. 1896: Naiditch (1988), 83 n. Wilde wrote to LH on 9 Aug. 1897: ‘I have lately been reading your brother’s lovely lyrical poems, so you see you have both of you given me that rare thing happiness’ (BMC MS). Robert Ross’s copy of the first edn. of ASL is now at BMC. 2 1867–1918, journalist and art critic, who met Wilde in 1886 and was his loyal friend and literary executor. 3 At Reading, in May 1896.

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I ever heard of Reginald Turner.4 Parts of The Ballad of Reading Gaol are above Wilde’s average, but I suspect they were written by Lord Alfred Douglas.5 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 80 West Eighth Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’ Memoir, 200; Maas, 267.

TO M A RK VA N DO RE N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 21 June 1928 Dear Mr Van Doren, The nursery rhyme is this: Nous n’irons plus aux bois, Les lauriers sont coupés, La belle que voilà Ira les ramasser, and then an unintelligible refrain which I have forgotten.1 You will see therefore that it would be absurd to give my poem2 as a translation. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Columbia MS, Van Doren Box. Waverly Auctions, sale 74 (1990), no. 548 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 21 June 1928

My dear Richards,] I have just returned from abroad [ … ] I have been perplexed by receiving a letter lately from a well-known literary man, in which he says that ‘the 1927 edition’ of A Shropshire Lad contains in the 13th stanza of 4 1869–1938. Novelist and journalist, and friend of Wilde and Max Beerbohm. Adelman had bought a copy of ASL formerly owned by him (now at BMC). 5 There is no evidence that Wilde’s lover and companion Lord Alfred Douglas (1870–1945), whose first vol. of verse appeared in 1896, composed any part of the poem. AEH owned a copy of the first (1898) edn. (now at BMC). 1 ‘Entrez dans la danse, voyez comme on danse, | Sautez, dansez, embrassez qui vous voudrez.’ 2 We’ll to the woods no more, the epigraph to LP, which translates only the first two lines of the traditional French song. See AEH to Van Doren, 19 May 1928.

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22 June 1928

No. XLII the misprint ‘From the all woods that autumn’ instead of ‘all the’.1 It is not in the larger edition of 1927: is there a smaller one of that date? And does it occur here? and, if so, how did it get in? [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Text based on that in Clemens (1941), 12.

TO M A RT I N S E C K E R Trinity College | Cambridge 22 June 1928 Dear Mr Secker, I have to thank you for sending me a book which I had heard much of and had intended to read, though I might not otherwise have carried out the intention. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 June 1928 My dear Richards, I wish you had broached the subject in conversation, as you know, or at least everyone ought to know, how I hate writing. At the present moment a cheaper edition of Last Poems is preparing for the autumn, as I thought it high time: 5000 copies, as it is said that no lower number would be remunerative. Therefore I do not think this is a juncture for quitting the Richards Press; and besides, I should like to see your new concern going before I surround it with the halo of my glory. I enclose Irish Wine.1 Many thanks for the map of the French provinces, which arrived soon after you left. You will be amused to hear that the careful Louis knocked down a small girl.

1

See AEH to Keynes, 18 June 1928, and n. 1. By Maurice Healy, K.C. (1928). ‘One of Ye Sette of Odd Volumes’ (Richards, 243 n.), See AEH to GR, 13 December 1927, n. 4. 1

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I forget the exact circumstances under which I have just received, at your request, a signed and numbered copy of Shane Leslie’s poems,2 though I remember you saying something about them. Am I to keep it? and should I acknowledge it to any one else? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 243–4; Maas, 268 (both incomplete).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 24 June 1928 Dear Sirs, I enclose corrected proof of Last Poems. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Texas MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 24 June 1928 Dear Sirs, I thank you for the two books.1 I have gone through them, and find that the text contains 15 errors of one sort and another, which I have enumerated inside the cover of the copy which I return. Most are cases of stops omitted or obliterated; but p. 57 climbing for chiming is atrocious, and p. 70 steafast for stedfast, p. 76 fathers’ for father’s, and p. 84 slept for stept are as bad as p. 66 the all for all the, and must equally be corrected.2 It is clear that the text was not submitted to me when stereotyped. A correction-slip as enclosed should be printed and sent out with every copy already bound.3 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 50–1. Maas, 268. 2

The Poems of Shane Leslie (1928). Copies of the 1926 and 1927 edns. of ASL. The 1926 copy is in Lilly; the 1927 at BMC. Both contain lists of misprints in AEH’s hand. 2 AEH asterisked these five errors in his list on the inside of the front cover of the 1926 edn., and they were subsequently printed on the errata slip. 3 A copy of the errata slip may be seen with the letter of 13 July 1928 to Geoffrey Keynes (CUL Add. MS 8534). 1

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1 July 1928

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 25 June 1928 My dear Richards, … ] At the present moment my feelings towards you are much embittered by the discovery that your last small edition of A Shropshire Lad contains 15 errors, some of them filthy. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 244; Maas, 268.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 28 June 1928 Dear Scholfield, I cannot find Berliner Klassikertexte in the catalogue under Academies or Periodical Publications or anywhere; and yet I suppose we have them. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 1129 .

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 1 July 1928 My dear Kate, I have been staying a fortnight at St Germain, which is to Paris something what Richmond is to London, in a luxurious hotel with a magnificent view and just on the edge of the forest, which, by the way, harbours ferocious insects, both of the mosquito and the horse-fly breed. Also I had a motorcar and saw a great deal of places within a moderate distance of Paris. The country is pretty in many parts, and the roads often run through forests. Edwin Grey1 died in May at the age of 72: I thought he was about 2 years younger. I learn with pain that he was a Congregationalist, and, what is worse, an earnest one, and a Deacon.

1

‘The son of a Bromsgrove carpenter and a friend of Housman’s in boyhood’: Maas, 269 n.

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Letters 1927–1936

Probably many things have happened to your numerous and active family since I heard last, but I hope nothing bad. I have not heard how Denis’s candidature turned out. I hope you and Edward are well, as this leaves me at present. Edie Wise seems to be in a poor way, with her digestion out of order. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 25−6 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 61 Prior Park Road | Bath’. Maas, 269.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 1 July 1928 Dear Sirs, I am obliged by your letter of June 28, but before I answer it in detail I had better say what follows. I have been approached by another firm of publishers,1 indeed by more than one, who want me to transfer my books to them. My relations with you have always been quite satisfactory, and I have no cause whatever for discontent; and although I am offered certain monetary inducements, and prospects of pushing the sale of the books are held out, these do not weigh with me, and I should not on that account do anything which I thought likely to injure you or your feelings. Still, the present bother about correcting and reprinting, which has been brought upon you by no fault of your own, must be rather unwelcome to you, and therefore at this juncture I present the proposal for your consideration. The idea is that the cost of the production of the stock in your possession should be paid to you, and the plates taken over at an agreed price. I should like to have a dozen copies of the correction-slip when it is printed. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 56–7. Clemens (1941), 12 (nearly complete); Maas, 269.

1

The Cayme Press Ltd.

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3 July 1928

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D [Trinity College] Many thanks for your information about Berliner Klassikertexte. If I had been properly careful I need not have troubled you.1 A. E. H. 2 July 1928 TCC Add. MS c. 112 10 ; p.c. addressed ‘The Librarian | University Library’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 3 July 1928 Dear Sirs, I thank you for your letter of yesterday. I have no wish to transfer my books elsewhere, nor do I desire an increase of royalty: a poet, says Horace, is seldom avaricious.1 We will therefore go on as heretofore. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 60–1. Clemens (1941), 12 (nearly complete); Maas, 270.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 3 July 1928 Dear Roberts, I do not think that at present there is room for a new edition of Catullus even from the most competent hand. New MSS must be forthcoming, or Latin scholarship must make great advances, before it will be worth while. Kroll’s handy Teubner edition of 1923, though far enough from perfection, is better than any Englishman is likely to do. Moreover I gather that Mr Carter1 proposes to rearrange the poems in what he thinks is their chronological order; that this is to be the chief novelty; yet not so novel neither, for he holds that the order has already for the most part been 1

See AEH to Scholfield, 28 June 1928. Epistles, 2. 1. 119–20: vatis avarus | non temere est animus (‘A poet’s mind is seldom set on gain’). 1 John Carter. 1

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established by others. I should regard such a rearrangement a definite evil, even if the chronology were far more certain than it is. And I get the impression that he wants to cater for dilettanti, which, as a pedant, I cannot approve. But many people do not approve of pedants, and we must live and let live. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL MS. Donald C. Dickinson, John Carter. The Taste & Technique of a Bookman (2004), 169–70.

TO RI CH A RD L. PU RDY Trinity College | Cambridge | England 4 July 1928 My dear Sir. I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your interesting catalogue of the Hardy exhibition.1 I do not remember talking with him on poetry, except that we both were fond of William Barnes’s Dorset poems.2 I agree with what you say about his diction, and I fear it must injure him with posterity. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS (Purdy–Hardy Collection, Gen. MSS III, box 17, folder 55). Envelope addressed ‘Mr Richard L. Purdy | 1912 Yale Station | New Haven | Connecticut | U. S. A.’

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 July 1928 My dear Richards, The Richards Press fear that my departure would definitely affect the prestige of the house; and as I have no complaint whatever against them I do not see that I can well detach myself. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman 1 At Yale University Richard L. Purdy had prepared a memorial exhibition with accompanying forty-one-page catalogue of Hardy first editions, autograph letters, and manuscripts. 2 William Barnes (1801–86), whose dialect poems, published in 1844, 1859, and 1862, were collected in 1879 as Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect. Eight echoes of Barnes are recorded in Poems (1997), 324, 341, 346, 356, 361, 369, 415, 416.

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5 July 1928

T. O. Thanks for Bramah’s book,1 which I am reading after dinner with amusement. I would send Shane Leslie2 back to you if you thought you could find a more appreciative recipient. No! it has disappeared.3 You told me to give it to my bedmaker: I did not, but I left your letter lying about, and I suppose this is the consequence. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 245 (excerpt); Maas, 270.

TO E DWA RD H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge | England 5 July 1928 Dear Mr Hall, A Shropshire Lad was first published in 1896 with Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. The edition of 1898 is the second. Last Poems was published in 1922. The only books which I published between the two are editions of Latin classics, purely pedantic and written for the most part in Latin, though two of them (Manilius I, 1903, and Juvenal, 1905) have polemical prefaces which amuse some readers who are not scholars. Both these are now out of print. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Edward Hall | 378 Spring Street | Newport | R. I. | U. S. A.’

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 5 July 1928 Dear Sirs, I return the 2nd proof of the first pages of Last Poems, with a correction on p. vi. Of the two leaves I prefer the one attached; and I should like it to be substituted for the larger one of the same shape in the next reprint of A Shropshire Lad. I suppose that the corrections of punctuation needed in the /small edition of the/ latter can be made by manipulating the plates without much 1 Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat by Ernest Bramah (1928), sent by GR as a replacement for Shane Leslie’s poems. AEH’s copy is in the Bodleian Library: Naiditch, HSJ 31 (2005), 165. 2 See AEH to GR, 22 June 1928. 3 Richards, 245: ‘In fact, his memory had played him false: he had handed it to me himself. I have it still.’

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trouble. You have my permission to print 5000 more copies; but I must see proofs first. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 63–4.

TO D R G E O F F R E Y K E Y N E S Trinity College | Cambridge 13 July 1928 Dear Dr Keynes, Alarmed by the misprint which you were kind enough to point out in A Shropshire Lad I went through the text and found 14 more;1 mostly stops changed or omitted, but others more serious, a list of which I enclose. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 8534/5. Envelope addressed ‘G. L. Keynes Esq., M.D. | 10 Boundary Road | St John’s Wood | N. W. 8’. Contents of letter summarized in Keynes’s The Gates of Memory (1981), 255.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 July 1928 My dear Richards, If I did not know how easily composition comes to you, I should be sorry to have caused you to write so much. It has interested me to read it, but the utmost that I can say is that if the Richards Press change their title to Grant Richards Limited I shall regard that as a shabby act and take the books away. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Maas, 270.

1

See AEH to Keynes, 18 June 1928; AEH to GR, 24 June 1928, and n. 2

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24 July 1928

TO PAU L I N E H E M M E R D E Trinity College | Cambridge 16 July 1928 Dear Miss Hemmerde, I have your letter, and am obliged to you for writing it, but I do not think I can usefully reply. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. University of San Francisco MS. Envelope addressed ‘Miss Hemmerde | 1 Hare Court | Temple | E. C. 4’.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 23 July 1928 Dear Sirs, If Fiery Grains1 is, for instance, a novel, Messrs Longmans are at liberty to include the extracts; but not if it is anything of the nature of an anthology. This applies to America too. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 69.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 24 July 1928 Dear Mr Wilson, Many thanks for your photograph of the Galilee.1 I did visit Durham about 15 years ago. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1 Fiery Grains: Thoughts and Sayings for Some Occasions, compiled by H. R. L. Sheppard and H. P. Marshall (Longmans, Green and Co, 1928). The anthology, with its title from Masefield’s Invocation, collected ‘some of the things in old and modern literature that seem to us what we need in those moments when we are baffled, disappointed, or red-hot on the scent of what are known as eternal values’ (xii). AEH’s poetry does not appear in it. 1 Porch built on the W. front of Durham Cathedral, 1170–5. The remains of the Venerable Bede are entombed there.

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TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 25 July 1928 Dear Scholfield, My impression is that the work over the page is in the Library and that I consulted it there a couple of years ago, but I cannot now find it, though I have looked under every heading I could think of. So if you can lay hands on it without trouble I shall be grateful. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Berichten des X Internationalen Kunsthistor. Kongresses in Rom. 1912. (The name A. Warburg which I have also noted down is, I believe, not the general redactor’s but only a contributor’s.) TCC Add. MS c. 112 11 . Envelope addressed ‘The Librarian | University Library’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 27 July 1928 Dear Gow, I will dine with you with pleasure at 8 on Aug. 2. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 38 .

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 27 July 1928 Dear Sirs, It is not true that I gave permission for the inclusion of the specified poems in the American edition of Messrs Cassell’s book. In America they are not copyright, and no question of permission arises; but in England I withhold permission. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 71–2.

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6 September 1928

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 28 July 1928 Dear Sirs, I refuse my consent to the inclusion of poems from A Shropshire Lad in an anthology to be used in Australia. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 74.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove 13 Aug. 1928 Dear Sirs, I have no objection to Professor Evans quoting, as he proposes, a few lines from three of my poems in his lecture for the gramophone. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 76.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Sept. 1928 My dear Richards, I have been on my holidays, and The Hasty Marriage1 was sent on to me and has helped to amuse them, though I was sorry that your odious hero and heroine did not come to grief. I recognise the large, heavily-built, blond solicitor. On p. 274 Burke should be Walpole. I hope Geoffrey2 will be properly edified and precipitated into matrimony. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

1

GR’s latest novel (1928).

2

GR’s second son by his first marriage.

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TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Sept. 1928 Dear Sirs, I return the proofs of A Shropshire Lad. There are corrections to be made on pp. v, vi, vii (two), viii, 10, 18, 24, 25, 42, 46, 48 (two), 58, 68, 71, 72, 95.1 Four of these cases are errors which I had already pointed out. The issue of 1912 is everywhere correct. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 78.

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Sept. 1928 My dear Ashburner, According to the latest collations the reading of P at Juvenal X 365 is habes, altered into abest by the second hand, which I regularly ignore as having no authority. This abest may be an untimely reminiscence1 of VI 294 nullum crimen abest. Observe that the passage recurs in XIV 315 sq., where again you may trust my notes. I have had a month of sunshine in various parts of the west. Guy le Strange is back from Droitwich in rude health. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 287–8. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 22.

TO P RO F E S S O R U L R I C H K N O C H E [Trinity College | Cambridge | England c.4 Oct. 1928] I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your paper on Vat. Lat. 3286,1 and perhaps I shall be making you some return if I /tell you/ that many of its readings are also found in Casomxsatensis 1729 1 The Richards Press Ltd. to AEH, 25 Aug. 1928 (BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 77): ‘The printers assure us that they are confident everything will be found in order.’ 1 In 10. 365, which begins ‘nullum numen habes’. 1 Of Juvenal. Knoche sent AEH an inscribed offprint of his article, ‘Ein Iuvenalkodex des 11. Jahrhunderts in Beneventanischer Schrift und seine Einordnung in die Handschriftliche Überlieferung’, from Hermes, 63 ( July 1928), 342–63: Naiditch (2003), 121.

4 October 1928

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saec. XIII examined by the late C. E. Stuart.2 Their agreements are in these verses, which I arrange as they stand in your article VIII 7, IX 119, 134, VII 100, IX 14, VI 332, 373 (dampno), VII 219, VIII 270, V 116, VIII 124, 135, 163, 229, X 310, VIII 196, V 38, VIII 258, IX 63, VIII 133, II 116, 45, X 198, 217, 359, 365, 112, VIII 152, 174, 203, 256, IX 26 (tace*), 33, 89, VI 551, X 189, VI 561.

p. 348 sq. VIII 229

You report me as saying the opposite of what I said. I said that both Antigones and Melanippes belonged to personam ().5 Buecheler saw that Antigone could not be joined to Thyestes and separated from Melanippe, but he did not see that personam could be taken ἀπὸ κοινοῦ (Here I may add that on p. 354 ‘Housman gibt’ etc. and p. 355 ‘Wenn Housman’ etc., you do not report me accurately). Seu may very well be true; but in what you say about paläographische Wahrsheinlichkeit6 you forget that your reading is not antigonesen but antigonessen; and your reference to XI 28 is /altogether/ irrelevant. There siue and uel are coordinated in a single sentence: this sentence is not conditional, and uel and seu are not coordinated /(as in Macr. Sat. I 6 3 togae uel trabeae seu paludamenti)/ but, seu stands /by itself/ , as in /X 211 citharoedo siue Seleuco/ Verg. Aen. XII 858 Parthus siue Cydon[.] In conclusion, it was not Sniehotta7 but Zwiener8 who treated of Greek nouns ‘in dieser Epoche’, and the date was 1909. 2

Charles Erskine Stuart. Otto Jahn’s edn. of Juvenal (1851), which was re-edited by Bücheler and F. Leo. AEH owned a copy of Jahn’s text, ed., with English notes, by J. E. B. Mayor (1853): Naiditch (2003), 119. 4 Karl Friedrich Hermann, Schediasma de scholiorum ad Juvenalem genere deteriore (Göttingen 1849), of which AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2003), 120. 5 In 8. 229: AEH stated his view in the preface to his edn., p. li. 6 ‘Palaeographic probability’. 7 Ludovicus Sniehotta, author of De vocum Graecarum apud poetas Latinos dactylicos ab Enni usque ad Ovidi tempora usu (Vratislaviae 1903). Naiditch (2004), 152, notes that AEH’s copy, annotated by him, is bound with Zwiener. 8 Carolus Augustinus Zwiener, author of De vocum Graecarum apud poetas Latinos ab Ovidi temporibus usque ad primi p. Chr. n. saeculi finem usu (Vratislaviae, 1909). 3

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p. 351. The transposition of V 63 and 64 is accounted for by the [homoearchon]9 qu-ando and qu-ippe. p. 352 You point out no fault in the received punctuation and interpretation of V 60–3, and I can see no merit in your own. ille is necessarily the Gaetulus Ganymedes /cui nec forma nec aetas supercilio digna/, and adest calidae [?never means] ad calidam ministrantem. I think that you sometimes dissent from your predecessors because you have thought less than they have; for instance on p. 357 n. 3 you discuss X 359 without referring to 361. p. 355 qui in II 45 is probably right, but ‘die schwierigere Lesart’10 is hi: / any/ , it is not ‘die schwierigere Lesart’, for no reading could possibly be easier. p. 358 X 198 membra dropped out after -mentia, leaving the gap which is seen in flor. Sang. And this was filled up with labra in some MSS and uerba in others. p. 359. I cannot imagine what you mean by saying that rimabitur in VI 551 is ‘töricht und das metrum zerstörend’.11 p. 347 n. 1 tantum is not ‘hinter das dadurch hervorgehobene Wort’12 in I 131, 136, VII 31, IX 134, XV 128, 149, XVI 44. p. 360 n. 1 ‘Verwechslung von e und F’13 would be more ‘‘möglich’’14 in Uncials. Lucr I 830 homoeomeriam Q, homofomeriam O, ‘ex quo entellegi potest quonam scripturae genere exaratum fuerit exemplar archetypon’ said Lachmann, i.e. ‘litteris capitatibus’, as he says on p. 3; but he was wrong. Such confusions as effurere for etfurere are common in all scripts, and they are not confusions of < f with t > t and f . ‘Sibylla nie in der η- Form im Lateinischen rezipiert ist’:15 nor in Greek either; it is Σίβυλλα SJCO MS (Higham Collection): draft in pencil corrected in pencil.

9 11 13 15

10 Like beginning. ‘The more difficult reading’. 12 ‘Silly and destroys the metre’. ‘After the thereby stressed word’. 14 ‘A mixing up of e and F’. ‘Possible’. ‘Sibylla is never recognized in the η- form in Latin’.

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10 October 1928

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Oct. 1928 My dear Richards, If Mr Symons will consider, he will see that to do as he wishes would be a shabby act towards the generations of anthologists whom I have repelled by saying that I have an invariable rule.1 He may be consoled, and also amused, if you tell him that to include me in an anthology of the Nineties would be just as technically correct, and just as essentially inappropriate, as to include Lot in a book of Sodomites; in saying which I am not saying a word against sodomy, nor implying that intoxication and incest are in any way preferable. Thanks for the handbook on hanging,2 though the writer seems to be rather a buffoon. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. If Mr Symons ever feels sad, he ought to be able to cheer himself up by contemplating his handwriting. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4. Richards, 245–6 (incomplete); Maas, 271.

TO P RO F E S S O R G. M . T R E V E LYA N Trinity College 10 Oct. 1928 Dear Trevelyan, Many thanks for the seven volumes, safely received.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL MS.

1 A. J. A. Symons had sought permission to include six poems from ASL in A Book of Nineties Verse (1928). 2 A Handbook on Hanging by Charles Duff (1928). Richards, 245 n.: ‘Unlike the rest of the world who had read it, A.E.H. did not like it, it seemed.’ 1 ‘I lent him seven vols. of Macaulay’s (with his marginal notes) of which this was one’: Trevelyan’s note written on the MS.

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TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Oct. 1928 Dear Sirs, On pp. 6 and 771 there are stops missing, or at least invisible. I should be obliged if you could tell me how many copies of Manilius II and III and IV remain unsold. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 80.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Oct. 1928 Dear Sirs, Mr Stanley Wilson may publish his settings of the first four poems he mentions, and also of Terence, this is stupid stuff, if it is really a setting of the whole poem; but I do not allow a setting of a portion of a poem to be published.1 This applies also to the poems about Ludlow Fair and the Lent Lily, which contain four stanzas each, of which Vaughan Williams would certainly leave out one.2 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 82–3.

1

Of the latest proofs of ASL. In 1929 Stanley Wilson (1899–1953) set four poems from ASL for male voices: XXII, II, XXIII, and XXIX. ASL LXII (Terence, this is stupid stuff ) was set for baritone and male voices, also in 1929. Wilson published settings of The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread (1923) and When I was one-and-twenty (1928) 2 See AEH to GR, 20 Dec. 1920. 1

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18 November 1928

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 23 Oct. 1928 Dear Scholfield, I am much obliged to you for getting the book containing Warburg’s article1 and for sending me word. I consulted it this morning, and have done with it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11212 .

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Nov. 1928 Dear Sirs, I beg to acknowledge receipt of cheque for £11. 1. 9. Have you yet ascertained from the binders how many copies of Manilius II and III and IV remain unsold?1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 84.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Nov. 1928 My dear Laurence, Thanks for your book.1 I think the best poem is The Motion of Spring, then perhaps The Web of Night. Sun Shade is not particularly poetical, but very bright and ingenious; The Cup of Memory has a very good last line.2 I was glad to hear from Kate that you are likely to be a candidate for super-tax. My love to Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. 2. Memoir, 181 (nearly complete). 1 1 1 2

See AEH to Scholfield, 25 July 1928. Respectively, 101, 168, and 200. The Love Concealed (1928). ‘The fall of the fountain has ceased, and the cistern is filled.’

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Letters 1927–1936

TO M I S S M O S E L E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Nov. 1928 Dear Miss Moseley, So far am I from possessing the ‘great wealth of experience’ which you attribute to me that few people can be less qualified to give advice about either novels or publishers. I could not write a novel myself, and I am little concerned with publishers, as all my books except one1 have been printed at my own expense. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45.

TO M R C H A L M E R S Trinity College 7 Dec. 1928 Dear Chalmers, I shall be delighted to make my appearance to-morrow at 7. 40. Yours A. E. Housman The Fales Library, New York University, MS.

TO P RO F E S S O R O. L . R I C H M O N D Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1928 Dear Richmond, I received yesterday your stately tome from its author,1 to whom I return thanks. I have been reading in Hall Caine’s reminiscences2 that Rossetti ‘betrayed a certain soreness at the recollection that to avoid giving an

1 Possibly the 1926 edn. of Lucan published by Blackwell. A second, corrected edn. appeared in Mar. 1927. Cambridge University Press were to undertake to publish a second edn. of AEH’s Juvenal at their own expense: S. C. Roberts to AEH, 21 May 1929 ( TCC MS, with Adv. c. 20. 32). 1 Richmond’s edn. of Propertius (1928). 2 [Thomas Henry] Hall Caine (1853–1931) was secretary to Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82), lived with him from 1881 till the poet’s death, and published Recollections of Rossetti in 1882.

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opinion on the Poems the Laureate3 had merely acknowledged the arrival of the book’; but that is all I am doing at present, as I have just put the troubles of term behind me and am buckling to at Manilius V. I may say however that I am not impressed by the credentials of c1 c2 c3.4 On p. 48 Volcatius should be Volcacius. I see you are to have Pickard-Cambridge5 as a colleague. On the few occasions when I have met him I have found him amiable. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO TH E E DI TO R O F THE TIMES [Trinity College | Cambridge c.13 Dec. 1928] SHELLEY’S SKYLARK Sir,—Although this ode is not one of Shelley’s best poems and enjoys more fame than it deserves, it is good enough to be worth interpreting. Quintilian says that you will never understand the poets unless you learn astronomy;1 and as this subject is not now much studied in girls’ schools it was only to be expected that Mr. Moore’s ‘‘Egeria’’ should darken with misinformation the ignorance of Mr. Eliot.2 In the stanza 3

Tennyson. Members of the ‘C’ family of MSS of Propertius, written in Italy in the fifteenth century and representing a text quite different from those of the ‘F’ and ‘M’ families. 5 Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge (1873–1952). Fellow and Classical Tutor, Balliol College, Oxford, 1897–1928; 1928–30, Professor of Greek at Edinburgh University, where Richmond was Professor of Humanity; Vice-Chancellor, University of Sheffield, 1930–8. Translator of Demosthenes’ public speeches (1912), and author of Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy (1927). 1 Institutio Oratoria, 1. 4. 4: nec, si rationem siderum ignoret, poetas intelligat, qui (ut alia omittam) totiens ortu occasuque signorum in declarandis temporibus utantur (‘nor again if he be ignorant of astronomy, can he understand the poets; for they (to mention no further points) frequently give their indications of time by reference to the rising and setting of the stars’). 2 In For Lancelot Andrewes: Essays on Style and Order (1928), reviewed in the TLS 1401 (6 Dec. 1928), 953, T. S. Eliot wrote (p. 135) à propos Shelley’s ode: ‘I am still ignorant to what Sphere Shelley refers, or why it should have silver arrows, or what the devil he means by an intense lamp narrowing in the white dawn.’ A letter from T. Sturge Moore appeared in the TLS 1402 (13 Dec. 1928), 991: ‘ ‘‘What silver sphere?’’ Though a schoolgirl would reply correctly ‘‘the moon’s,’’ yet Mr. Eliot professes himself stumped … Of course, the poem’s simplicity satisfies the poetically gifted schoolgirl without forcing her to apply the ‘‘brain work’’ necessary to become conscious of its full implications any more than Mr. Eliot was compelled to expend it.’ 4

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Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear Until we hardly see—we feel that it is there, the silver sphere is the Morning Star, the planet Venus; and Shelley is giving a true description of her disappearance and using an apt comparison. The moon, when her intense lamp narrows in the white dawn clear, is not a sphere but a sickle: when she is a sphere at sunrise she is near the western horizon, visible in broad daylight and disappearing only when she sets; so that nothing could be less like the vanishing of the skylark. A. E. H. TLS 1403 (20 Dec. 1928), 1011. Maas, 271–2.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 14 Dec. 1928 Dear Gow, Have you one of the mark-books issued last year for the University Scholarships? and, if so, could you let me have it? Yours A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 39 .

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Dec. 1928 Dear Sirs, I refuse the request of the Teesdale Musical Tournament to be allowed to print the poem. If I had the power, which I suppose I have not, I would prohibit them from using it for elocution. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 89. Maas, 272.

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17 December 1928

TO M R H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge | England 16 Dec. 1928 Dear Mr Hall, A. W. Pollard’s Odes from the Greek Dramatists, translations of lyrics of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, was published in 1890: I think it was a small edition of numbered copies.1 So many people now ask me to write things in their books that I am obliged to refuse in every case, because it would not do to make exceptions. So I hope you will not be offended. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Yale MS (Vault: Housman).

TO H . W. G A RRO D Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Dec. 1928 Dear Mr Garrod, I do not think that one ought to interfere with critics’ quotations, unless they are immoderate, and I certainly shall not exercise any right I may possess to prevent you from printing entire the four poems you mention.1 No one else has any say in the matter. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘H. W. Garrod Esq., | Merton College | Oxford’.

1 See AEH to the Council of University College, London, 19 Apr. 1892, and n. 2. The standard issue of the vol. was supplemented by an issue on large paper, limited to 50 copies, signed by the editor. AEH’s copy of this limited issue is now at BMC. 1 ASL XIX, XII, XXXV, and LIV, quoted in full in the chapter on Housman in Garrod’s The Profession of Poetry and Other Lectures (1929), 211–24.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Dec. 1928 My dear Kate, I write at once to acknowledge receipt of your cheque for £200.1 I do not remember that you gave me an I. O. U., and if you did I am not likely to have kept it. I am glad that you have come to comparative opulence and that you like your last new mansion.2 I believe that my portrait is Henry Holden,3 but I have mislaid my copy of his record of Magdalen under James II, which would contain his name. The two other portraits are Scudamores, no relations, but taken over by our grandfather4 as part of the furniture of Woodchester Rectory, and perhaps connected with his predecessor Peter Hawkes. The gentleman fell down and injured himself the other day, and having been done up by Agnew is much smarter than he has been for sixty years and more. I had no idea that Uncle Joe5 had so many documents as you seem to have found. I should like to know whether the Joseph Brettell who married Ann Holden was our great-grandfather or something more remote.6 Also I want to know about the photographs in Laurence’s Duke of Flamborough.7 Of course I recognise Cousin Agnes and her mother, but not the rest, including the Duke himself. I am glad Edward is better. Love. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS.

1

See AEH to KES, 5 July 1925. On the death of the widow of the Revd Joseph Brettell Housman in 1928, KES had inherited his estate. It included a large house in Exeter, and was worth c.£14,000 (which today would make her a millionaire): see Clive Jenkins, ‘Uncle Joe: the Revd Joseph Brettell Housman Part II’, HSJ 31 (2005), 107–26, esp. 117. 3 1662–1710. Housman ancestor who was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. 4 The Revd John Williams (1779–1857), Rector of Woodchester, 1833–57. 5 The Revd Joseph Brettell Housman (1842–1926), Curate and Rector, Cheriton Bishop, Devon. 6 Joseph Brettell (1755–1842) of the Clock House, Fockbury, married Ann Holden (1757–1814) in 1782. He was their great-grandfather. 7 The Life of H. R. H. The Duke of Flamborough (1928). 2

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28 December 1928

? TO M R S C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1928 Dear Mrs Wilson, Thanks for your Christmas greetings; but, as for delivering an address, you know that I will not. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Written on fly-leaf of copy of ASL (1927) which also bears AEH’s signature on the half-title.

TO PAU L S T E V E N S Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1928 Dear Stevens, Many people now send me their verses, and I have had practice in making polite and empty acknowledgements; but yours really have some stuff in them, and the added charm of being only twelve.1 If the pretty pictures are yours too, you must be intending to be the Rossetti2 of your generation. The difficulty of finding rhymes for sonnets was clearly felt by Milton and Wordsworth, and is one of the many reasons why they had better not be written. But you go rather far when you first make matters easier for your-self3 by abandoning the strict form, and then rhyme paths and hearths. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1928 My dear Bridges, You were so civil and amiable in writing to me about this time last year that I cannot better employ the feast of the Holy Innocents than in writing to you. I wish you a happy new year, and there is really no reason why I 1 2

Stevens had published his pamphlet Twelve Poems. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82), poet and painter.

3

For ‘yourself ’.

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Letters 1927–1936

should not wish you many, as you would agree if you had seen Sir George Young the other day at 92.1 He comes here every Christmas, and singles me out for conversation on English metre; and fortunately he is one of the few persons whom I can hear talk upon that subject without visibly losing my temper. He probably sent you the book which he published on his 90th birthday;2 and he is now engaged on a short essay to dissuade mankind from writing Greek with accents.3 I am myself engaged on one of my serious works, the fifth and last volume of Manilius. It ought to be out in a year’s time, and then I shall have done what I came on earth to do, and can devote the rest of my days to religious meditation. I hope that your De rerum natura4 is progressing smoothly; but I was sorry to hear from H. F. Stewart5 that you were having some trouble with your eyes. With kind regards to Mrs Bridges I am Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 122–3. Maas, 272–3.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1928 My dear Withers, Christmas generally brings me a certain amount of abuse for being a bad letter-writer, but nobody else makes such a moan as you do; so I suppose your feelings towards me are especially tender. In June I did what I had often thought of doing before, spent a fortnight at St Germain-en-Laye just outside Paris, in the luxurious Pavillon Henri Quatre, on the edge of the forest and commanding the famous view. I had a motor, and so saw a good deal within a 50 mile radius which I had not seen before. In August and September I passed a month of the best of the summer with relations and friends in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Hampshire, and, in motoring, saw many fine churches or abbeys, most of which were new to 1

He was in fact 90. An English Prosody on Inductive Lines (1928). 3 Homer and the Greek Accents (1930). 4 The Testament of Beauty, published in 1929. 5 The Revd Hugh Fraser Stewart (1863–1948). Admitted to TCC, 1883; BA, 1886; BD, 1906; DD, 1916. Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, 1907–18, and of TCC, 1918–48, where he was also elected Praelector, 1918; University Lecturer in French at Cambridge, 1922–4; Hulsean Lecturer, 1914; Birkbeck Lecturer, 1927. 2

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30 December 1928

me. The use and abuse of the ball-moulding in the Decorated period in the district between Gloucester and Hereford is remarkable. I wish your news of your health made a more equable story. A sacral plexus is a new monster to me: I knew that I had a solar plexus, because it makes my poetry for me; but the other has not hitherto molested me. I hope your son is through with his trouble. A happy new year to you and Mrs Withers and all your family. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 273.

TO A . C . P E A R S O N Trinity College 30 Dec. 1928 My dear Pearson, I made several attempts during term to find you in your rooms, but, though I found a fire in the grate and papers on the table, that was all. I cannot let the year run out without wishing you a happy one to follow, and hoping that your sense of well-being will be as much increased by relief from duties as mine would be. I am glad that Cambridge has seen you, though for too few years, in the chair of Porson and Dobree.1 I hope that you approve of the successor we have given you: I suppose he is what would be called a safe choice.2 My kind regards to Mrs Pearson. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. KCC MS Misc. 34/31. Maas, 273–4. 1 Peter Paul Dobree (1782–1825). Entered TCC, 1800; BA, 1804; Fellow of TCC, 1806; MA, 1807; Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, 1823–5. 2 Donald Struan Robertson: see List of Recipients.

1929 TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Jan. 1929 Dear Sirs, Mr Everett, as you understand, may publish a setting of the whole poem, but not of part.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 91.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Jan. 1929 Dear Sirs, I am much obliged by your letter of yesterday, but I have a dislike to limited editions.1 I know that there is money in them, but I cannot stoop. But I was just about to write to you on another matter. I have been working at the 5th and last volume of my Manilius, and the text and notes (that is much the greater part of it) should be ready for printing 2 months hence. It would be natural to publish it in the same way as the other 4, but it occurs to me that this sort of book is very much out of your line, and that you may very well have no particular wish to undertake it. If so, I can without difficulty put it in other hands; and I beg that you will tell me just how you feel about it, which you can do with perfect freedom. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 93–4. Clemens (1941), 12 (incomplete); Maas, 274 (wrongly dated 1 Jan.) 1 The Revd B. C. S. Everett had asked permission to use a poem from ASL in a musical setting. 1 The Richards Press had proposed a small limited edition either of ASL or of ASL and LP in one volume.

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15 January 1929

TO D R G E O F F R E Y K E Y N E S Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Jan. 1929 Dear Mr Keynes, Yes, I had traced the faults back to the preceding edition.1 It always happens when the publishers neglect my injunctions to send the proofs to me for correction. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 8534/7. Envelope addressed ‘Geoffrey Keynes Esq. | 10 Boundary Road | St John’s Wood | N. W. 8’.

TO JA M E S G E O RG E L E I P P E RT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 15 Jan. 1929 Dear Mr Leippert, Over the leaf is a list of my books. I shall be away from here during parts of July and August, but if I am here I shall be pleased to see you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. A Shropshire Lad, 1896, Kegan Paul, Trench, Tr¨ubner, & Co. Manilius I, 1903, Grant Richards Juvenal, 1905, E. Grant Richards Manilius II, 1912, Grant Richards Manilius III, 1916, Grant Richards Manilius IV, 1920, Grant Richards

1

See AEH to Keynes, 18 June and 13 July 1928, and AEH to GR, 24 June 1928, and notes.

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Last Poems, 1922, Grant Richards Lucan, 1926, Basil Blackwell. Yale MS (Vault: Housman).

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Jan. 1929 My dear Withers, I am very sorry that you are again laid up with one of your unduly large assortment of the troubles which th’ inabstinence of Eve has brought on men.1 I have been rather lucky myself. I have the greatest admiration, which is worth nothing, for Mr Griggs’s2 etchings; and, though I despise limited editions and will not let my own publishers produce one, I did let the Riccardi press do one of A Shropshire Lad in 1914,—a fact which may perhaps quell Mr Griggs’s desire. If not, he is at liberty to produce another.3 But I must warn you that I resist any alteration in the interest of what is supposed to be typographical beauty. I remember that the Riccardi press transferred to the ends of lines dashes which I had put at the beginning, and I made them put them back. It is absolutely necessary that I should correct the proofs. No collected edition is likely to appear in my lifetime.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 79, 81 (excerpts); Maas, 275.

‘What misery th’ inabstinence of Eve | Shall bring on men’: Milton, Paradise Lost, 11. 476–7. Withers’s friend Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs (1876–1938) had asked Withers to persuade AEH to let H. P. R. Finberg print ASL and LP at his Alcuin Press in Chipping Campden. Finberg, ‘Some Unpublished Housman Letters’, TLS, 17 Dec. 1971, 1574 n. 3, corrects the error made in Maas, 275 n. 3, by pointing out that the Alcuin edn. contained no illustrations. 3 ‘Housman was evidently under the impression that Griggs meant to illustrate the proposed edition and print it too’: Finberg, loc. cit. 4 None did appear. 1 2

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15 January 1929

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Jan. 1929 My dear Richards, The poem on R.L.S. appeared at his death in the Academy in 1894.1 I know nothing of the reprint.2 I have a second cousin whose name is Arthur, but I do not know that he is also W.; and he is a clergyman, I think in Sussex.3 In the 17th century one of the Colonna family, hearing that there were sunken ships in the lake of Nemi, did some dredging and brought up a pipe or something inscribed with the name of Tiberius—though one account does not go quite so far as that. There is not a word about them in Suetonius, nor so far as I know in any classic, and it was not likely that there would be. There is a treatise by one V. Malfatti, Le nave romane nel lago di Nemi, 1905, which Mr Buhrer probably knows.4 Thanks for his book;5 but I would rather you did not send me books out of mere bounty, because I have hardly anywhere to put them. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 248; Maas, 274–5.

1

The Academy (22 Dec. 1894), 533. ‘A privately printed issue … which A. J. A. Symons told me he had recently seen—one of an edition of a hundred and fifty copies. … It was no doubt an unauthorized issue’: Richards, 248 n. Paul Naiditch tells me that it was in fact reprinted for the friends of Vincent Starrett and Edwin B. Hill in 1928, ‘in a limited edition of fifty’, with two on vellum. 3 GR had asked whether A. W. Housman of Seaton Cote, Workington, Cumberland, who had submitted a MS of verse to the Richards Press, was a relation. 4 GR’s friend Albert Buhrer had asked whether AEH might know a few references to the galleys of Tiberius in Lake Nemi. Buhrer thought he knew of references in Suetonius. AEH writes ‘nave’ for ‘navi’. 5 Rosetta, a sequence of sonnets and other poems (1929), published by GR. 2

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Letters 1927–1936

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 19 Jan. 1929 Dear Mr Clemens, I am obliged by your letter, but I am not a literary critic and cannot write the appreciation for which you wish.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Cyril Clemens | Mark Twain Society | Mayfield | California | U. S. A.’ Clemens (1947), 257 (wrongly dated 20 Jan.).

TO T H E W I N D S O R P R E S S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 19 Jan. 1929 Dear Sirs, I am obliged by your letter, but I will be no party to an edition of signed copies. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. The Windsor Press Brigham Young University MS. Envelope addressed ‘The Windsor Press | Four-Sixty-One Bush Street | San Francisco | California | U. S. A.’ William White, ‘More Housman Letters’, Mark Twain Quarterly, 5. 4 (Spring 1943), 14.

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Jan. 1929 My dear Colleague, I am thankful to say that they have not made me an elector to the Italian chair as they have to the French. Among outsiders there is a general opinion that the person who will be chosen is a true-born Briton and Cantab, none of your dagoes.1

1

Clemens had asked AEH to contribute to a Mark Twain Symposium. In fact, Raffaelo Piccoli was elected to the Italian chair and to a Fellowship of Magdalene College. 1

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1 February 1929

I met yesterday a man who had been entertained, as I never have, at Pembroke in your University, and who spoke well of its old wine and its anti-feminism. Guy le Strange is very well. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369, fos. 289–90. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 23.

TO P H I L I P G O S S E Trinity College | Cambridge [31 Jan. 1929] Dear Philip, I probably have a few of your father’s letters, if I knew where to lay my hands upon them, but they would be of no use for the book. We did not correspond regularly or often, and they are all questions or answers about small points. I am very glad that the Life and Letters1 are preparing, and I hope that full and not excessively discreet use will be made of his diary, which must be priceless, and ought finally to be in the British Museum.2 Please give my kind regards to your mother when you see her. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7029/3b. Date as postmark. Maas, 275–6.

TO H . P. R . F I N B E RG Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Feb. 1929 Dear Mr Finberg, I am very much obliged by your letter; but there are two points (apart from the detail that I am only an honorary Fellow of St John’s) on which I must say something. One is that, unless I change my mind, A Shropshire Lad

1

The Life and Letters of Sir Edmund Gosse by Evan Charteris (1931). His appointments diaries are in the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds. The Book of Gosse, recording guests entertained at his house, is in CUL. 2

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Letters 1927–1936

and Last Poems will not be published in one volume during my lifetime.1 The other, that, if I understand you, you are not publishers, puts me in a difficulty; because, if the edition is published by the Richards Press, I shall appear to be implicated in the limited issue and not merely to be winking at it, while, if you go to any other publisher, their feelings will be hurt. They have no rights over the books, and it would be feelings and nothing more, but still I do not like injuring even feelings. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. H. P. R. Finberg. ‘Some Unpublished Housman Letters’, TLS, 17 Dec. 1971, 1574.

TO H . P. R . F I N B E RG Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Feb. 1929 Dear Mr Finberg, The subterfuge which you propose appears to remove the worst of the difficulty,1 and I will not object to it: the imprint to be ‘Printed at the Alcuin Press and published for the Press by The Richards Press Ltd.’ Yours sincerely, A. E. Housman. BMC MS. H. P. R. Finberg, ‘Some Unpublished Housman Letters’, TLS, 17 Dec. 1971, 1574.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Feb. 1929 Dear Sir, I should not think myself entitled to object to quotation of verses of mine, but yours is a most unpromising design. To write upon the topography of Shropshire, well and good; but the only object in bringing in A Shropshire Lad would be to show that its topography, outside Ludlow and Shrewsbury,

1 See AEH to GR, 5 Oct. 1924, and note. Naiditch (2005), 98, records that at least four specially bound vols. in which the works are bound together survive, and notes that it was the Alcuin Press that arranged for this to happen, contrary to the agreement with AEH. 1 Finberg proposed that the Richards Press distribute the edn. on behalf of the Alcuin Press.

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16 February 1929

is either vague or purely imaginary. People who go to Hughley expecting my steeple and my system of burial are much taken aback.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Feb. 1929 Dear Mackail, Χειμερινὸς ὄνειρος1 etc. is in Lucian I 17. The reading which you advocate in Verg. Aen. XII 648 is the reading which I proposed.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.8. Maas, 424.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Feb. 1929 My dear Laurence, Only the archangel Raphael could recite my poetry properly, but I have no doubt you would do it quite nicely, and I shall not try to set up interfering wave-lengths. But understand that I incur no obligation to do the same for you on your 70th birthday.1 You had better select with care. The financial expert who reorganised Grant Richards’s business for his creditors thought that he would like to read A Shropshire Lad. He did, or as much as he could; then, in his own 1 In ASL LXI, Hughley church is given a steeple and suicides are said to be buried on the north side of the churchyard. On the steeple, see AEH to LH, 5 Oct. 1896. LH notes that the graves on the north side are in fact mostly those of ‘respectable churchwardens and wives of Vicars’ (Recollections, 48). 1 Χειμερινὸς ὄνειρος, ὅτε μήκισταί εἰσιν αἱ νύκτες (‘A winter dream, when the nights are longest’): Lucian, The Dream, or Lucian’s Career. Maas, 424 n., notes that the quotation appears without source on the title-page of Walter Pater’s Marius the Epicurean (1885). 2 In ‘Prosody and Method’, CQ 21. 1 (January 1927), 10–11 (Classical Papers, 1115). Mackail in his edn. acknowledges the conjecture. 1 On AEH’s birthday, 26 Mar. 1929, LH read a selection of the poetry on BBC radio. It was the first broadcast AEH allowed of his poems.

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words, ‘I put it behind the fire. Filthiest book I ever read: all about rogering girls under hedges.’ Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Memoir 181–2; Maas, 276 (both incomplete, and with the verses beginning Now all day the hornèd herds from a letter of 30 Apr. 1907 misleadingly appended). The text after ‘all about’ is supplied in a letter from LH to GR, 7 Jan. 1938 (LC-GR MS).

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 19 Feb. 1929 Dear Mr Clemens, I do not remember what I wrote about Huckleberry Finn, and I cannot suppose that it is worth reprinting;1 but no doubt it was sincere, and I do not forbid you to use it. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 277, which was based on the MS, now missing, in Clemens’s possession.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Feb. 1929 Dear Mr Wilson, Thanks for Sandys’ head,1 but you cannot entice me to Durham, however kind your invitation. There is no book of mine earlier than A Shropshire Lad. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Reduced facsimile in unknown cat. (1989), no. 106.

1

Clemens was compiling Tributes to Mark Twain (1930). Possibly a likeness of famous traveller George Sandys, translator of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1626). 1

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25 February 1929

TO LO R D S TA M F O R D H A M Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Feb. 1929 Dear Lord Stamfordham, With all gratitude for His Majesty’s most kind and flattering wish to confer upon me the Order of Merit1 I humbly beg permission to decline this high honour. I hope to escape the reproach of thanklessness or churlish behaviour by borrowing the words in which an equally loyal subject, Admiral Cornwallis,2 declined a similar mark of the Royal favour: ‘I am, unhappily, of a turn of mind that would make my receiving that honour the most unpleasant thing imaginable.’3 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. The Royal Archives, Windsor, MS PS/GV/J2203/115. The body of the letter, identical in every respect, exists in fair copy in Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4. Memoir, 113; Maas, 277.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Feb. 1929 My dear Laurence, I have no quarrel with your selection. I shall not attend your Sunday afternoon service.1 The Richards Press are punctual and so far as I know honest in their payments, and I am not so many hundred pounds to the bad, in my capacity of author, as I once was. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 182; Maas, 277.

1 ‘In recognition of your valuable work as a Classical Scholar and in the ranks of literature’ (Lord Stamfordham’s letter, 22 Feb. 1929) 2 Sir William Cornwallis (1744–1819); admiral, 1799; knighted, 1815. 3 In July 1795 Lord Spencer wrote to Cornwallis on behalf of the king, offering nomination for the Ribband of the Order of the Bath. AEH quotes the draft of the Admiral’s second reply, omitting ‘my Lord’ before ‘unhappily’: The Life and Letters of Admiral Cornwallis by G. Cornwallis-West (1927), 279. 1 See AEH to LH, 16 Feb. 1929.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Feb. 1929 My dear Richards, No, I will not have anything to do with Mr Adams1 nor with illustrations by Vera Willoughby2 or anyone else. I once sacrificed myself to your craving for such things, but never again. Owing to my admiration of Griggs’s etchings I have reluctantly acceded to his wish to bring out a limited edition of both books at the Alcuin Press,3 which supposes itself to be very first class. In the interesting menu of a Parisian restaurant which you sent me there are praires.4 These may be among the shell-fish which I have eaten at Marseilles, but I do not remember them: can you describe them? On the afternoon of March 24 Laurence is to broadcast some of my poems. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS: autograph file: Housman ∗43M-149. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 21 Soho Square | W. 1.’ H. P. R. Finberg, ‘Some Unpublished Housman Letters’, TLS, 17 Dec. 1971, 1574 (excerpt); Maas, 278.

TO A . M . DAV I D S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Feb. 1929 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your poems.1 I do not set up to be a critic, so I will only say that I thought Ingratitude the best of them, and indeed very good except for the word ‘previous’; and that the

1

F. L. Adams, an American publisher of de luxe limited edns. 1870–1939, Hungarian-born artist, educated at the Slade School of Art. She achieved renown as an illustrator of books published by Peter Davies. Among works she illustrated were the poems of Catullus, Henry the Fifth, and Pride and Prejudice. Her first name is in fact ‘Véra’. 3 In 1929 the Alcuin Press produced a limited edn. of 325 copies of ASL and LP. 4 Edible clam-like shellfish, common on the Mediterranean coast of France. 1 Cortège and other poems (1927). 2

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3 March 1929

verb ‘sense’ is not fit for poetry nor even for literature, and should be left to Americans and journalists.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘A. M. Davidson Esq. | 201 Union Street | Aberdeen’.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 1 March 1929 My dear Kate, Shirts had better be included, and do not stint yourself for a few shillings or indeed for more than a few.1 I keep my benevolence for cases that I know about: as for distressed miners, who have twice tried to starve me, let them starve.2 My fear is that the suits may prove too tight. He must be restrained from writing me a nice letter. The only name that I can find on the back of the Holden portrait3 is my own. But I have now laid my hands on the Magdalen papers, and that was Henry. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 278.

TO A . S. F. G OW [Trinity College] The constellation is called Τρίγωνον for instance in Ptol. synt. VII c. 5 (Heiberg vol. I ii p. 82), schol. Arat. 236, Vett. Val. p. 13 13. I do not find Trigonum in Latin: in schol. Germ. ed. Breys p. 109 8 sq. it is Triangulus. A. E. H. 3. 3. 29 TCC Add. MS c. 112 40 . Maas, 425. 2 AEH objects to ‘The elm that sheltered him a previous year’ in Ingratitude, and to ‘I sensed his eyes to say’ in The Sweet Singer. 1 KES had asked AEH for an old suit and underclothes to give to an unemployed gardener in Bath named Longman. AEH sent two good suits and money for underclothes: see AEH to KES, 6 Mar. 1929. 2 In the General Strike of 3–13 May 1926 and during the winter of 1926–7. 3 Portrait of Housman ancestor Henry Holden (1662–1710), Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 5 March 1929 Dear Gow, Influenza has laid low one of the guests who were coming to dine in my rooms at 8 o’ clock to-day: will you be good and step into his place? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. The others are Laurence1 and Charrington.2 TCC Add. MS c. 112 41 .

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 6 March 1929 My dear Kate, I enclose cheque for £2 and thanks for the trouble you have taken.1 I hope the vests don’t tickle him as most vests do me. Our grandfather must have become incumbent of Catshill (he was not Vicar, as it was not separated from Bromsgrove, I believe)2 about 1840 or earlier, but at first he lived at Lydiat Ash.3 I suppose he moved to Fockbury4 in 1847 when the old Brettell5 died. Alumni Cantabrigienses6 is no good for subsequent careers. I had no trouble from the cold except the gas going wrong for a day and a half. Mine was the only tap in this Court of the College which did not freeze.

1 Reginald Vere Laurence (1876–1934). Fellow of TCC since 1901. Tutor to the undergraduate princes (later George VI and the Duke of Gloucester) when they were at the College, 1919–20 (Page, 105). AEH and he held each other in mutual esteem and affection (Withers, 35–6). 2 John Charrington (1856–1939). TCC, BA (1878), MA (1885); Keeper of the Prints, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1910–39. 1 See AEH to KES, 1 Mar. 1929. 2 The Revd Thomas Housman (1795–1870) was First Vicar of Catshill, Worcestershire, 1838–64. 3 At the time, a hamlet c.3 mls. NE of Bromsgrove. Now ‘Lydiate Ash’. 4 The Clock House in the hamlet of Fockbury, near Bromsgrove. 5 Joseph Brettell, (1755–1847) father of Ann (1799–1882), AEH’s paternal grandmother. Pugh, 102, corrects AEH: ‘Thomas and Ann lived at the Clock House with their seven children and old Joseph Brettell until he died on 22nd March 1847.’ 6 By John Venn and J. A. Venn (1922–54).

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12 March 1929

Thanks for the photographs, which look pleasant. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 279.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 9 March 1929 Dear Sirs, I shall be obliged if you will inform the writer of the enclosed letter that he may have my permission to quote as he desires three stanzas from the poem Fancy’s Knell. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 97.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 12 March 1929 Dear Scholfield, I molested you some time ago with enquiries about having photographs taken from facsimiles in the Library, but I am sorry to say that as often happens my memory is not clear about your reply. I want 20 photographs, life size, on stiff paper, of fol. 48v of 899. bb. 14,1 taken in deadly secrecy for use in an Examination. The cost will ultimately be paid by the University. If you think it among your proper functions to give orders to have this done, I shall be grateful; but probably it is not, and it may do me good to have to do something for myself. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11213 . Maas, 279.

1

From the MS of Lucretius: see AEH to Scholfield, 16 Apr. 1929.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 16 March 1929 Dear Mr Adelman, The Fragment of a Greek Tragedy was first published in 18841 in The Bromsgrovian, a school magazine, and has been reprinted in three or four places,2 the last of which, I think, was ‘at the Snail’s Pace Press’, Amherst, in 1925.3 They have at Bromsgrove School about half-a-dozen copies of the original issue, but I have advised them not to sell them till after my death. Your amiable desire to print a limited edition in facsimile is one which I should do everything in my power to thwart. And I am very much puzzled about the autograph. I did not know that any existed, and I told the vendor so.4 You may be able to judge by comparing the handwriting with this letter. If the paper is stamped with ‘K. E. S. Bromsgrove’,5 it cannot be mine. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 303 East 19th Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’ Memoir, 201.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 21 March 1929 Dear Sirs, Early next month I shall be sending you the text and notes,—that is about 34 of the whole,—of my fifth volume of Manilius; so you had better be preparing the minds of Messrs Robert Maclehose1 & Co. On former occasions I have sent them a deposit of £100, and this will be forthcoming if required. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 98–9. Maas, 279–80. In fact, in The Bromsgrovian,  2. 5 (8 June 1883), 107–9. In The University College Gazette, 1. 13 (25 Nov. 1897), 100–1; The Cornhill Magazine,  10 (Apr. 1901), 443–5; The Trinity Magazine, 2 (1921), 35–7. 3 This was not the last: it was reprinted in 1928 in The Yale Review, 17, pp. 414–16, and in J. C. Squire’s anthology, Apes and Parrots. 4 See the letter to Adelman, 7 Apr. 1929, which resolves the matter. 5 The writing paper is that of the Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove. 1 For ‘MacLehose’. 1 2

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29 March 1929

TO S I R J O S E P H J. T H O M S O N Trinity College 27 March 1929 My dear Master, Many thanks for your kind and complimentary letter. I am very susceptible to comments on my personal appearance.1 One day when I was just turned 40, I was walking along and brooding on the fact, when a passing carter of some 25 summers said ‘What’s the time, young fellow?’2 A spring of joy gushed from my heart and I blessed him unaware.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lord Rayleigh, The Life of Sir J. J. Thomson O.M. (1942), 264.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 29 March 1929 My dear Withers, Many thanks to you and Mrs Withers for your congratulations, or disguised condolences, on the fact that King David thinks I ought to be dead.1 I am I suppose very much younger and heartier than most men at 70, but any gratitude to the Most High on that account is tempered by the reflection that it may mean living to 90. I wish you had a better account to give of yourself. If you saw the crocuses in Cambridge just now it might do you good. You are kind enough to speak of a visit. I have let myself in for examination next term, and so I do not yet know how far I shall be master of my time in May and the first half of June. If present engagements hold, I am going into Worcestershire on July 8th. , and perhaps it might suit you if I took you on the way and came to you two or three days before. I think I have not seen your garden at that season.

1 Thomson had congratulated him on his seventieth birthday and had remarked that he looked much younger than his years. 2 The story is misrepresented in Thomson’s Recollections and Reflections (1936), 315. 3 Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834 text), 284–5: ‘A spring of love gushed from my heart, | And I blessed them unaware’. 1 ‘The days of our years are threescore years and ten’: Ps. 90: 10, echoed in ASL II 5: ‘my threescore years and ten’.

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I understand that Laurence did not read me very well,2 dropping his voice too much at impressive points. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 280.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N [Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Apr. 1929] I received from you or C.1 a cheering exhortation to shoulder the steg;2 and the Postmaster general reinforced it by repeating this word on the back of the telegram. I find that it means a male bird, especially a gander.∗ I have not heard of your Sunday reading except from Jeannie; but 5 G. B.3 does not suit their set. A. E. H. ∗ I am in quest of one. April 1. BMC MS: p.c. addressed ‘Laurence Housman Esq. | Longmeadow | Street | Somerset’. Memoir, 183; Maas, 280 (both incomplete).

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 3 April 1929 My dear Kate, Many thanks for your efforts to console me for being seventy. I am glad to have your three birthday presents, especially the portrait of our father, which is quite new to me. You are evidently enjoying yourself very much in the ancient history of the family, and it ought to make amends for separation from the Roman sites of Bath. I am not clear about your own site, for the name of your new house is surely not 1 Claremont Grove.1 I am sorry for Denis’s mischance. I suppose no news of Edward is good

2

In the radio broadcast on 26 Mar. 1929. See AEH to LH, 16 Feb. 1929. 2 Clemence Housman. Cf. ‘Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale’ (LP IX 28). 3 The radio channel on which the broadcast went out. 1 The address is that of the house in Exeter that KES had inherited: see AEH to KES, 19 Dec. 1928, and n. 2, and the textual notes on the letters to KES of 30 May 1929 and 29 Dec. 1930. 1

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3 April 1929

news. I am not leaving Cambridge this vacation. The crocuses have been magnificent, and now another of our specialities is beginning, the almonds. Your affectionate though aged brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 3 April 1929 My dear Jeannie, Many thanks for your kind attempt to cheer the gloom of a seventieth birthday. I wish you could have given me better news of Basil, but I am glad that you yourself seem fairly well. I promised Laurence not to listen in,1 and it cost me no great sacrifice. I have not heard from anyone but you how it went. Cambridge, and especially this College, is a great place for crocuses, and in the fine weather of last week they were gorgeous. We put in 20,000 additional bulbs a few years ago, so you see we do the thing properly. I expect to stay here all the vacation, as in April I always feel industrious. Love to both of you. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. MS inspected at Sotheby’s, 14 Dec. 1989. Pugh, Appendix F, lxxvii.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 3 April 1929 Dear Sirs, There seems to be no harm in what Mr J. M. Capel proposes to do;1 though I do not remember a poem of mine beginning ‘‘When I was twenty-one’’ nor one entitled Lenten Lily.2 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 103. 1 1 2

To the radio broadcast on 26 Mar. 1929. Publish in book form some poems by AEH together with musical settings. Errors for When I was one-and-twenty (ASL XIII) and The Lent Lily (ASL XXIX).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Trinity College | Cambridge 3 April 1929 Dear Sirs,] I have just despatched to you by parcel post the text and notes of Manilius V. The text is nearly 200 lines less than that of book IV, and my notes are not on a large scale; but the preface will be longer, and there will be addenda to the four preceding volumes, and two short appendices. Altogether I should think the book will be about the same size as IV. If Messrs MacLehose do not remember the type and arrangement, a copy of book III might be sent as a pattern. I enclose notes on points which should be observed. [Yours faithfully A. E. Housman.] Clemens (1941), 12.

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 7 April 1929 Dear Mr Adelman, The supposed autograph is not mine. It is a copy, not quite accurate, from The Bromsgrovian; and the date is wrong. To prevent you from bringing an action against the innocent though credulous lady who has got your money, I have written out the Fragment in the form to which it has been brought by successive republications.1 I shall be obliged if, in return, you will send me your worthless purchase. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 303 East 19th Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’ Memoir, 202.

1

The unique autograph MS of Fragment of a Greek Tragedy is now at BMC.

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26 April 1929

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 15 April 1929 Dear Sirs, Messrs MacLehose’s estimate1 seems to be reasonable. The additional portion2 may perhaps cost rather more than you expect, as a certain part of it is of the same nature as the notes. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 106.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 16 April 1929 Dear Scholfield, Many thanks for the 20 photographs from the MS of Lucretius received this morning.1 I must also thank both you and Gow for a telegram on my birthday from a place called Morea,2 which I had ignorantly supposed to be in Greece. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11214 . Maas, 281.

TO M . R . JA M E S Trinity College | Cambridge 26 April 1929 My dear James, If you should happen to find yourself in your College Library1 with nothing particular to do, and would note for me the lections of the old MS of Ovid’s Heroides2 in these verses, I should be much obliged to you; but it is neither urgent nor even a matter of necessity to me, and I can 1 2 1 2 1

For the printing and binding of Manilius V. See AEH to the Richards Press, 29 May 1929 and 14 Jan. 1930. See letter to Scholfield, 12 Mar. 1929. ‘The P. & O. liner, then sailing to Gibraltar’: Maas, 281 n. 2 At Eton. Eton 150, from the end of the 11th cent., and written in Beneventan script.

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sustain life quite well without them. I want to know only about the words underlined, but I want to know about every single thing within the limits of the underlining. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7481/H130.

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 28 April 1929. Dear Mr Adelman, Thanks for sending me the Fragment, which I have put in the fire, though I don’t think it was meant for a forgery.1 I must have written the fragment three or four times for the various magazines in which it was printed,2 but I do not know that any of the MSS survives. The people at Bromsgrove might possibly sell you a copy of The Bromsgrovian if you offered a sufficiently absurd price; but I cannot encourage or countenance such proceedings. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 303 East 19th Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’ Memoir, 202.

TO M . R . JA M E S Many thanks for your information,1 which goes beyond my needs. I agree that it is in a loathly hand, which perhaps is why it changed its name.2 A. E. H. 5 May 1929 Trin. Coll. Camb. CUL Add. MS 7481/H131: p.c.

1 2 1 2

See AEH to Adelman, 16 Mar. and 7 Apr. 1929. See the notes on the letter to Adelman, 16 Mar. 1929. See AEH to James, 26 Apr. 1929. Until 1914 Beneventan script was known as Lombardic.

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c.11 May 1929

TO S I R A RT H U R QU I LLE R-CO U CH Trinity College 9 May 1929 My dear Q, I am annoyed to find that Tuesday the 14th is a date when I am engaged to dine at Christ’s.1 I wish that colleges would show more concern for gluttons and drunkards in arranging their Feasts. Yours A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Arthur Quiller-Couch: A Biographical Study of Q by F. Brittain (1947), 135.

TO J O H N S A M P S O N [Trinity College | Cambridge c.11 May 1929] Dear Sir, I have not laid down for Last Poems the rigid rule to which I was forced in the case of A Shropshire Lad by the number and frequent silliness of anthologists; and if permission to print No. XII1 will repay any part of my debt to you as editor of Blake, I readily give it.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Reading MS 2444: copy in a letter from Sampson to Mr Prentice, 12 May 1929.

1

Quiller-Couch had invited him to the Rustat feast at Jesus College. The laws of God, the laws of man. 2 Sampson had edited The Lyrical Poems of William Blake (1905, etc.), The Poetical Works of William Blake (1905), and the Oxford edn. of the latter (1928). In 1930 he published The Wind on the Heath: A Gypsy Anthology. 1

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TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 13 May 1929 Dear Sirs, Mr Michael Head1 may publish his settings of the three poems;2 but, as one of them is rather long, he should be warned that no portion must be omitted. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 108.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 May 1929 My dear Richards, Thanks for the £25, which I hope indicates prosperity. I ought to have thanked you before for several books you have sent me lately, but I have been so wrapped up in my work that I have hardly looked at them. Did you go to Corsica? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. 2. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 21 Soho Square | London W. 1’.

TO J O H N D R I N K WATE R Trinity College | Cambridge 18 May 1929 My dear Mr Drinkwater, I do not remember exactly what reply I made to you on the former occasion,1 but I suppose it was this: that I had no right, and therefore no desire, to prevent the inclusion of poems from A Shropshire Lad in an anthology published in America; that, as regards Last Poems, I had no inexorable rule of refusing anthologists, though selections from so small 1 Michael Dewar Head (1900–76), English composer, singer, and pianist. Tutor at the Royal Academy of Music, 1919–25; Professor of Piano, 1927. He set to music poems by Tennyson, Keats, and Drinkwater (among others). 2 He published Ludlow Town (1930) based on LP XXXIV (The First of May). 1 3 Oct. 1927.

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21 May 1929

a book ought to be few. If the book were to be published in England, I should not allow poems from A Shropshire Lad to be included; but this, it appears, is not the case. I do not care about the remuneration. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Marquette University MS (Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, series 5, box 4). Maas, 281.

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 18 May 1929 Dear Mr Adelman, The address would be The Editor of The Bromsgrovian The School Bromsgrove England. But I do not think that I ought to take up any attitude towards your attempt to buy a copy.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 303 East 19th Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 21 May 1929 Dear Scholfield, I have no direct knowledge of the Zeitschrift f. christl. Kunst; but respectable scholars have contributed to it, and it occurs to me to wonder whether the Library ought to have it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11215 .

1

See AEH to Adelman, 16 Mar. 1929.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 May 1929 My dear Richards, I return the very appetising menu.1 Two years ago I lunched very well in the Place St Michel at what may have been the same establishment,2 though I don’t think it was then régionale. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 248.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 22 May 1929 Dear Roberts, I thank the Syndics of the Press for their offer to reprint my edition of Juvenal1 and gladly accept it on the terms proposed. They will not be able to offer the book to the public at 4/6 net as I did, but the price had better be moderate, as even the pleasure of buying copies for less than they cost to print did not entice mankind to take more than eighteen per annum. Although the amount of correction and addition which I should make is small, I should not wish to tackle it till after the vacation, in which I shall be occupied with my last volume of Manilius. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 282, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing. Excerpt in S. C. Roberts, Adventures with Authors (1966), 125.

1 2 1

Of the Rôtisserie Périgourdine, Temple des Gourmets, 2 Place St Michel, Paris. ‘He was right’: Richards, 248. It was published in Oct. 1931 at 10s. 6d.

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26 May 1929

TO M A RG A R E T A D E L A I D E JAC K S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 25 May 1929 Dear Miss Jackson, It is kind of you to write and tell me of Victor’s1 death, which I am sorry to learn, though I had not seen him since he was an undergraduate and your family were living at Croydon. He was 14 when I first met him at Ramsgate; he was deputed to show me the way to the station,2 and imparted to me a great deal of knowledge, as I believe was then his habit. I am glad to think that my dear Mo enjoyed his life at Applegarth3 so much. I hear at intervals from Gerald, and sometimes from his mother. My kind regards to any of your sisters who are at Ramsgate. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. T.s. copy at BMC (another is in Lilly MSS 3. 1. 10). Printed incomplete in J. Carter, ‘Corrigenda & Addenda’, preprinted for Encounter (1968), 5.

TO H . P. R . F I N B E RG Trinity College | Cambridge 26 May 1929 Dear Mr Finberg, I return the marked proofs1 with the further corrections required. I am curious to know from what edition the text was set up, because I did not know that there was any which presented both ‘Thick’ in XXXVIII and ‘no more remembered’ in LII.2 There are no new poems to add.

1 Victor Herbert Jackson (1875–1928), younger brother of Moses Jackson. BA (1898), MA (1903), Oxon.; Brackenbury Scholar, Balliol College; Professor in Presidency College, Calcutta, 1917; Vice-Chancellor, Bihar and Orissa University, 1920–4; Principal of the Science College, Patna. Information from Naiditch (1995), 134 n. 2 AEH had called on Adalbert Jackson at the family home in Ramsgate on 31 Aug. 1889, but Adalbert was in Essex and most of the family were away. AEH left after an overnight stay. 3 The farm near Vancouver, British Columbia, which was Moses Jackson’s retirement home from 1911 onwards. For further details, and photographs of the farm, see Robert B. Todd, ‘M. J. Jackson in British Columbia: Some Supplementary Information’, HSJ 26 (2000), 59–61. 1 Of the Alcuin Press edn. of ASL. 2 On the changes in the text of ASL, see the note on the letter to GR, 22 Apr. 1922. Finberg, loc. cit.: ‘I explained that the text had been set up from the first edition, but corrected from a later edition which I had borrowed from a friend, without knowing of any discrepancies between the two, in order not to interrupt the Monotype operator at his work.’

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I say nothing in praise of the type &c. because I have no taste nor knowledge. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. H. P. R. Finberg, ‘Some Unpublished Housman Letters’, TLS, 17 Dec. 1971, 1574.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 29 May 1929 Dear Sirs, I return the proof 1 sent with corrections. I think ‘shortly’ is too sanguine. The printing is slow, and I am not sure how long I shall take over the preface, which at present is only partly written. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 110–11.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 1 June 1929 My dear Withers, Come by all means to the new Combination Rooms, between the Hall and the Master’s Lodge in the Great Court, at 7. 55 on Monday, and do not dress. If, as I gather from your language, champagne is the only tipple you can safely drink, you shall have some in my rooms after Hall. I cannot sincerely say that I wish ladies could sit at our High Table; but I am sorry that the fact that they cannot prevents me from welcoming Mrs Withers, to whom my kindest regards. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman SCO MS.

1

Of the announcement of Manilius V.

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6 June 1929

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 June 1929 My dear Richards, I should like to get hold of Dulac’s Tour de France Gastronomique,1 but there is no reason why I should deprive you of your copy. It is strange that when we were in the Côte d’Or people there denied the existence of Montrachet Ainé.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 249.

TO [ ? A . H . ] O ’ C O N N O R Trinity College 6 June 1929 Dear Mr O’Connor,1 Much the best book for your purpose will be Vollmer’s editio maior of Horace in the Teubner series;2 but I should warn you that in the current issue (the second) there are some careless misprints. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s.

1

Édouard Dulac, La Tour de France Gastronomique. For ‘Aîné’. Dulac listed among white burgundies ‘Vins blancs—hors ligne: Montrachet Aîné à Puligny: GR to AEH, 1 June 1929 (SJCO MS). This confirmed AEH’s view, despite Morton Shand’s denial, that the wine existed, and also his view that he had not been misled by George Saintsbury into thinking it existed. See AEH to GR, 17 Oct. 1927, and note. 1 See AEH to GR, 6 Aug. 1930. 2 Of which an important 2nd edn. was published at Leipzig in 1912. 2

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 8 June 1929 Dear Sirs, These applicants must be told that I have a rigid rule of many years’ standing not to allow the inclusion of poem1 from A Shropshire Lad in selections. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 112.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 13 June 1929 Dear Sir, When I get hold of a first issue of Last Poems I insert the missing stops on p. 52. I believe that this destroys the value of the book for bibliophiles, so you can bring an action against me if you like.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. Maas, 282.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 17 June 1929 Dear Mr Wilson, By all means send the copies of A Shropshire Lad.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman Princeton Library MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.).

1 1 1

AEH mistakenly cancels the final ‘s’. See AEH to GR, 12 and 14 Oct. 1922. Almost certainly, for AEH to sign.

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23 June 1929

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 20 June 1929 My dear Withers, I was intending to arrange with the man I usually find outside the station at Bletchley to come to Souldern on the Monday and take me on into Worcestershire. But if, as I gather from your letter, there are motors available nearer you, that of course would be more convenient and less expensive. I should start at 2 o’ clock or thereabouts, and the route would be through Banbury, Stratford-on-Avon and Alcester, to a point not far from Redditch. On July 5 I should come by the train reaching Bletchley at 3. 46, and ought to get to you about 4. 30. Will Mrs Withers allow me to come without evening things? I shall not be wanting them during the rest of my holiday, and they will take up room. I will bring a sober suit in which I shall look fairly respectable. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 23 June 1929 My dear Bridges, If the Order of Merit gives you pleasure, I shall share it; and no one can dispute your title to it. I hope you do not mind having Galsworthy for a yoke-fellow as much as I should.1 If ever there was a man without a spark of genius, that man is he. I cannot conclude without bewailing the untoward and very sudden attack of old age which forbids us to expect you here to-morrow. My kind regards to Mrs Bridges. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 110. 127–8. Maas, 282. 1 On 3 June 1929 Bridges and Galsworthy were appointed to the Order of Merit. AEH declined the honour: AEH to Lord Stamfordham, 23 Feb. 1929. On 4 June 1929 Bridges acknowledged AEH’s warm congratulations: The Selected Letters of Robert Bridges, ed. Donald E. Stanford, 2 (1984), 902. See William White, ‘Housman on Galsworthy: More Marginalia’, Review of English Studies, 24. 95 (July 1948), 240–1.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO JA M E S S. H A M I LTO N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 29 June 1929 Dear Mr Hamilton, I shall not make any objection to your brother singing your setting of my poem. I admire the truth and honesty of what you say about composers. Illustrators are the same. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Boston Public Library MS A.4290.5. Envelope addressed ‘Mr James S. Hamilton | Northboro | Massachusetts | U. S. A.’ and redirected to 83 Washington Place, New York City.

TO M A RY W I TH E RS Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove [July 1929] Dear Mrs Withers, The Croughton motor found its way very well and took me over the proper precipice of Edgehill, and the views were sufficiently clear. I look back on my visit with great pleasure tinged with the regret that Somerville1 thought fit to have an interfering jubilee. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 1 July 1929 My dear Kate, You may like either to keep the enclosed or send it along to William Housman. Although the date tallies, this John Housman can hardly be our great-great-great-great grandfather, as the other Christian names seem quite remote; but perhaps he was the other John Housman from whom our ancestor bought a house.

1

Somerville College, Oxford, founded in 1879.

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9 July 1929

I shall leave Cambridge on the 5th and get to Tardebigge on the 8th ; there I shall stay till the 22nd , and wander home by the 26th . The Wises seem to be in a poor way. Edie has been months in bed after influenza, and the other day Minnie had five minutes of semi-paralysis caused by blood-pressure. I had said that I might look in on them for a day some time this month, but Edie says it would be no good, as they could not talk to me. My turn next, then yours. Meanwhile I hope that you and Edward do not succumb to the notoriously relaxing climate of Exeter. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 3 July 1929 Dear Roberts, The Registrary1 tells me that he thinks I shall be right in sending this bill to the Press. It is the cost of the photographs of a Latin MS provided for the candidates in the second part of the Classical Tripos, Group A. The only reason why it is made out to the Librarian is that he was kind enough to arrange for the taking of the photographs. But, as I ordered 20 copies, and there were only 11 candidates, I am personally responsible for the excess, whatever it may be. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 12 . Maas, 283.

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 9 July 1929 Dear Mr Adelman, It is exceedingly kind of you to have copied out Francis Thompson’s article for me,1 but I am ashamed that you should have taken so much 1

Ernest Harrison: see List of Recipients. A review, in signed MS, of Poems of Ernest Dowson; with Memoir by Arthur Symons, Four Illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, and Portrait by William Rothenstein (1922): see Literary Criticisms by Francis Thompson, newly discovered and collected by Rev. Terence L. Connolly (1948), 559–62. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

trouble. What he says of Dowson is just, and so is much that he says incidentally.2 I cannot sincerely condole with you about the Fragment of a Greek Tragedy. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 303 East 19th Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 25 July 1929 Dear Mr Adelman, I am overwhelmed and even rather distressed at your excess of kindness in copying out for me Francis Thompson’s article. It seems to me very well considered and just, and it is none the worse for being unornamented. Within a year or two of my death the authorities at Bromsgrove, if they follow my advice, will put up to auction the remaining copies of the Fragment of a Greek Tragedy, sending notice to America; and then will be your chance. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 303 East 19th Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 26 July 1929 My dear Hall, Are you likely to be in Oxford for any time before the beginning of next term? and, if so, would you be kind enough to note a few readings for me from a MS in the Bodleian?1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS.

2 1

The piece contains a general criticism of the Decadence as a literary movement. Probably MS auct. F. 4. 34; see fo. 1488, and cf. Manilius V, xvii.

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7 August 1929

TO H . P. R . F I N B E RG Trinity College | Cambridge 29 July 1929 Dear Mr Finburg,1 I return the proofs of Last Poems with corrections. As to the index, I do not claim to exercise control, and if the first full line of No. 36 cannot be got into one line, and if your dislike of over-running is greater than my dislike of truncation, I will not insist. I have no objection to what has been done to No. 9, because it does not make silly syntax.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. H. P. R. Finberg, ‘Some Unpublished Housman Letters’, TLS, 17 Dec. 1971, 1574.

TO F. W. H A LL I am very grateful. A. E. Housman Trin. Coll. Camb.

5 Aug. 1929

Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4: p.c. addressed ‘F. W. Hall, Esq. | St John’s College | Oxford’.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 7 Aug. 1929 Dear Scholfield, About a month ago, having learnt on good authority that the University Press is paymaster for the Tripos examinations, I sent the bill for the Lucretius photographs to Roberts;1 and as he did not throw it back in my face, I suppose he means to pay it. I made it quite clear that the Library was not responsible for it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I am writing to Roberts again. TCC Add. Ms c. 112 16 .

1

For ‘Finberg’. In the Alcuin Press edn. of LP, the first line of poem XXXVI is not over-run, and the whole of IX is printed without over-running of lines. 1 S. C. Roberts, Secretary to Cambridge University Press. See List of Recipients. 2

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Letters 1927–1936

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 7 Aug. 1929 Dear Roberts, I pass on the enclosed as Scholfield asks.1 I wrote to you enclosing the bill about a month ago.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman CUL Add. MS 7735 14 .

TO JA M E S G E O RG E L E I P P E RT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 14 Aug. 1929 Dear Mr Leippert, I shall be pleased to sign the book, if you will be kind enough to enclose an envelope suitable for its return. I hope to see you next year. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO A R N O L D RU B I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 15 Aug. 1929. Dear Mr Rubin, The enclosed is a photograph of a drawing done a few years ago for my Oxford college by Francis Dodd,1 and perhaps may serve your purpose. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45.

1 Scholfield to AEH, 6 Aug. 1929 (CUL Add. MS 773513 ), pointing out that the photographer had not been paid for the photographs of the leaf of the Lucretius MS used for Part II of the Classical Tripos, and asking AEH to pass on a reminder to the paymaster. 2 See AEH to Roberts, 3 July 1929. 1 See AEH to Hall, 21 Sept. 1926.

139

16 August 1929

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Aug. 1929 My dear Kate, I am leaving here next Thursday for France, and expect to return on Sept. 13. For part of the time I shall have no fixed address, but letters will be forwarded at intervals. I am not flying, as I am taking great care of my life till the book I am now engaged on is finished. After leaving Tardebigge I spent 4 days on a motor tour, in which I got as near to you as Honiton. I had always wanted to go there, as the neighbourhood looks so beautiful from the railway,—and Defoe in his tour of England admired it equally,1 —but for walking out from the town it is not so satisfactory. Two other beauty-spots which I visited were Chipping Campden and Bourton-on-the-water; also Sherborne, where I found the interior of the Minster much finer than I had any idea of. I thought Basil looking older,—his hair whiter. He seemed to get a good deal better during the fortnight I was there. I hope you and Edward are flourishing: I daresay you are now in Hampshire. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 50 27 . Maas, 283.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge] My intention is to leave here on Thursday, sleep at the Buckingham Palace Hotel,1 and cross on Friday. I shall stay at the Continental. Do not send me a wall-map of Paris, however lovely, for I have no wall to put it on.2 A. E. H. 16.8.29 LC-GR t.s. of p.c. Richards, 249.

1 Daniel Defoe, A Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, 1724–1727: ‘Honiton stands in the best and pleasantest Part of the whole County [of Devon]; … the View of the Country is the most beautiful Landscape in the World; and I do not remember the like in any one Place in England.’ 1 See the correction in the next letter. 2 In a letter of 15 Aug. 1929 (LC-GR t.s.), GR had offered to send such a map (‘a thing of brilliant colour and gold’). Richards, 249: ‘So full were his rooms and so taken up were the walls with windows, bookcases, an occasional picture and a sideboard, that he wrote no more than the truth.’

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Aug. 1929 My dear Richards, I ought to have said Grosvenor Hotel, Buckingham Palace Road. I don’t expect to be there till about half past six. I am deserting the air on this occasion because my life, until my 1 Manilius is quite finished, is too precious to be exposed to a 186,000 risk of destruction;1 even though they have already killed their proper quota for this year. I am thinking of Poitiers, Angoulème,2 Perigueux,3 Cahors, Gorges du Tarn, Le Puy, and perhaps round through Burgundy again. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 249–50.

TO H A RO LD M O NRO Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Aug. 1929 Dear Sir, I have not yet applied to Last Poems the rule which I was forced to lay down for A Shropshire Lad, and you have my permission to include the Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries in your anthology.1 I express the hope, which experience forbids me to cherish, that it may be printed as it stands in my book. I am yours truly A. E. Housman. Harold Monro Esq. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Harold Monro Esq. | The Poetry Bookshop | 38 Great Russell Street | W. C. 1’.

1 ‘Usually he flew to Paris, but in 1929, when the fifth volume of his Manilius was nearing completion, he went by train. He was asked why, and replied that the percentage of accidents was much higher in air-travel, and that, until his Manilius was complete, his life was too valuable to risk unnecessarily’: Gow, 56. 2 3 For ‘Angoulême’. For ‘Périgueux’. 1 Twentieth Century Poetry: An Anthology (Chatto & Windus, 1929).

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14 September 1929

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Cahors, 31 Aug. 1929 I expect to reach Autun, Hôtel St Louis et de la Poste, before night on Sept. 4. I suppose you can hardly be there by that time, but I hope I shall find a letter saying that you will arrive on the next day, or else appointing a rendevouz.1 I have to be in Paris on the 8th . A. E. H. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Cayme Press | Soho Square | London W. | Angleterre’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 250.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Sept. 1929 My dear Richards, Your lumbago caused me mush selfish annoyance,1 and I hope (altruistically) that you are now rid of it. Morgan and Pope have Frank Harris’s book for you.2 They provided me with a car less liable to sudden illness than the one we had two years ago, and a chauffeur whose strong point, like Louis’, was smiling, not finding his way nor knowing north from south. Much fine scenery after Périgueux and a fine cathedral at Rodez. Food not varied or inventive, especially soup: I do not mind Santé twice in 10 days, but Parmentier I do. I was however agreeably surprised by a Palestine soup which had not the faintest trace of artichoke. The best meal was at the Gastronome at Clermont-Ferrand. In Paris I was not best pleased with the Belle Aurore, where they made me ill, perhaps with the very poor caviar: when I ordered fraises des bois, of which they had run short, they offered me a mixture of raspberries with what they had left, thinking apparently that I should not know the difference. But the place is thoroughly and pleasantly French, and the hors d’oeuvres look as if one could lunch entirely on them. The Grand Veneur is good, though its plats régionaux are not an exciting selection. At the place in the Place St. Michel I was disgusted with a pretended Sole Normande smothered in mushrooms, of all things in the world, and tasting exactly like the usual sole 1

For ‘rendezvous’. It had prevented GR from joining AEH in France. 2 GR had borrowed vol. 2 of Harris’s My Life and Loves for AEH, and AEH had left it for him with Morgan and Pope, an Anglo-American car-hire firm in Paris. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

de la maison of a Parisian restaurant. The best cooking that I found was at the Escargot. Avoid Clos de Vougeot 1915: for some reason it has turned out badly, as did Lafite 1900. My kind regards to Mrs Richards. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘M. Grant Richards | Hostellerie | Ile de Port-Cros | Var | France’. The letter was returned to AEH in Cambridge and posted by him on 12 Oct. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 250–1; Maas, 284.

TO H A R R I S R AC K H A M Trinity College 16 Sept. 1929 Dear Rackham, (I am just back from abroad, and I am rejoiced to see from to-day’s Times that you have been recovering.)1 We ought no doubt to say Mílan, as Shakespeare did; but when you ask for Milán from an English poet, Shelley in Hellas has ‘Its unwearied wings could fan the quenchless ashes of Milan’,2 and Sydney Dobell in The Roman ‘the proud banners that wave for Milan’.3 Both these are for the rhyme, a thing for which poets will do anything consistent with honour, as Miss Fotheringay would for lobster and champagne.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on TCC Add. MS c. 112 55 , a copy in Rackham’s hand.

1 The Times printed a letter from Rackham regarding the pronunciation of ‘Milan’. The correspondence was part of a response to the newspaper’s report on the guidelines set out by the BBC’s advisory committee on spoken English. 2 Lines 59–60, ‘fan’ rhyming with ‘Milan’. 3 3. 5–6: ‘Death’s a siesta, lads, take it who can! | Wave the proud banners that wave for Milan!’ (1850). 4 ‘Now, for lobster-salad and Champagne in an honourable manner, Miss Costigan would have gone anywhere’: Thackeray, The History of Pendennis (1848–50), vol. 1, ch. 13.

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21 September 1929

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Sept. 1929 Dear Sirs, I generally receive the usual third from mechanical reproductions and broadcastings, so I had better receive it from these songs also. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 115.

TO C H A R L E S W I L L I A M S Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Sept. 1929 Dear Mr Williams, I well remember you (not personally I am sorry to say) and your poetry,1 and I am obliged by your interest in the Introductory Lecture.2 I should never republish it by itself, but I have sometimes thought of including it (as it has been printed) in a volume with my inaugural lecture at Cambridge (which has not)3 and an address which I delivered several years ago before the Classical Association and which appeared in their journal.4 The great obstacle to this scheme is one which prevented me from letting the Cambridge press publish the inaugural lecture in 1911: that it contains a statement which I cannot verify. Not far from the beginning of this century I saw, in some literary journal I suppose, an account of an autograph, or some early impression, of Shelley’s O world, O life, O time, in which the eighth line ran ‘Fresh spring and autumn, summer and winter hoar’; and this I now cannot trace. It is not in Forman’s 2nd edition.5 If 1 Williams had published The Silver Stair (1912), Poems of Conformity (1917), and, privately, An Urbanity (1926). 2 Introductory Lecture delivered before the Faculties of Arts and Laws and of Science in University College, London, October 3, 1892. It was printed for distribution within UCL, and was not published or for sale. See letters of 9 Nov. and 5 Dec. 1933. Williams was acting on the initiative of Kenneth Sisam and F. P. Wilson at Oxford: John Carter, ‘Housman, Shelley and Swinburne’, TLS, 6 Sept. 1963, 680. 3 Delivered on 9 May 1911, and published as The Confines of Criticism (1969). 4 The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, delivered at Cambridge on 4 Aug. 1921, and published in Proceedings of the Classical Association, 18 (1922), 67–84. 5 The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. with a Memoir by H. Buxton Forman, 5 vols., 1892. The line was familiar in the form ‘Fresh Spring, and Summer, and Winter hoar’. Objecting to the emendation proposed in his 1870 edn. by W. M. Rossetti (‘Fresh Spring and Summer, Autumn and Winter hoar’), Swinburne, republishing in Essays and Reviews (1875), 184–237, his

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the erudition of you people at the Oxford Press6 could discover it, that would put a new face on things; though I am not sure that even then a Cambridge inaugural would properly appear under your auspices. Many thanks for the Keats.7 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. OUP MS. Maas, 285.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Sept. 1929 My dear Kate, You will have heard from Jeannie about Basil’s state of health and approaching retirement. I remember your telling me last year that you had offered to share with him what you inherited from Uncle Joe,1 and I suppose there is room for hope that the County Council will award him something of a pension. But as you know more of that household’s affairs than I do, I wish you would tell me how much you think I ought to add in future to the £50 per annum I now send them. Looking at your letter of Aug. 20 it is amusing to see that you despaired of any more hot weather. I had rather more of it than I wanted in the south of France and even in Paris; but after two holidays of absolutely uninterrupted fine days one must not complain of trifles. I spent 11 days on ‘Notes on the Text of Shelley’ of 1869, praised the familiar form as being ‘of more divine and sovereign sweetness than any other’ in Shelley or in English, and thought it ‘a thing to thrill the veins and draw tears to the eyes of all men whose ears were not closed against all harmony’ (229–30). In the 1911 inaugural lecture, AEH also deplores Rossetti’s emendation (which he disfiguringly misquotes as ‘Fresh Spring and Summer, Autumn, Winter hoar’), and claims that the reading in Shelley’s autograph MS is ‘Fresh Spring and Autumn, Summer and Winter hoar’. Thus, ‘the one verse, in Shelley and in English, of more divine and sovereign sweetness than any other is the verse, not of Shelley, but of a compositor. Mr Swinburne’s veins were thrilled, and tears were drawn to Mr Swinburne’s eyes, by a misprint.’ This MS version has never been found, however. Carter’s 1963 article in the TLS was succeeded by another with John Sparrow, ‘Shelley, Swinburne and Housman’, in the TLS, 21 Nov. 1968, 1318–19, and by a digest of the two as an appendix to The Confines of Criticism (47–54): they establish from MS evidence that a blank space was preserved in the (incomplete) line, and that Shelley ‘intended a longer line, metrically matching its opposite number in the other stanza’. This tends to support AEH’s contention, though not necessarily his specific version of the line. 6 For which Williams was a reader. 7 Robert Bridges’ John Keats: A Critical Essay (1895), ‘which Williams had sent him as an idea of the proposed format’: Carter in the TLS, 6 Sept. 1963. 1 Joseph H. Brettell (1842–1926), Curate and Rector, Cheriton Bishop, Devon.

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30 September 1929

my motor tour: after Périgueaux2 the country became very picturesque, first limestone, then red earth in the Rouergue, then limestone again in the Cevennes,3 and so round again to Burgundy where I was two years ago. The cathedrals are not so fine in the south as in the north, but there is a very good one which I did not know of at Rodez; Le Puy en Vélay, as I did know, is the most extraordinary place in the world, and Augoulème4 has a magnificent situation. You kindly asked me to come and see you before the end of the vacation, but I have had my full dose of holiday and am now settled down to work again. Perhaps I had better tell you that the doctor, whom I made overhaul me when I turned 70, says that my heart is not as stout as it was and ought to be; and I found this out when climbing the Puy de Parioux, about the height of Snowdon, on a hot afternoon. Your grandchildren must have had plenty of fun at Exmouth and Exeter, and I hope Michael5 For ‘Prigueux’.For ‘Cvennes’For ‘Angoulme’.Her grandson. is well again. Love to Edward and anyone else. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add MS c. 5028 – 9 . Maas, 286.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Sept. 1929 Dear Mr Wilson, Your kind invitation will not induce me to deliver an address or do anything of the sort. Thanks for your good wishes: I had two holidays of uninterrupted fine weather. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

2

For ‘Périgueux’.

3

For ‘Cévennes’

4

For ‘Angoulême’.

5

Her grandson.

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TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Mrs Yorke’s | Selsley Road | Woodchester [?Autumn 1929] My dear Jeannie, I write to thank you and Basil for making me so comfortable during my stay, and to allay any anxiety you may feel about Mr Wyatt1 and me. Wednesday proved a very bad day, and the view from the top of the Brown Clee2 consisted entirely of cloud and extended about 200 yards. The two other days were fine and very warm. On Thursday, starting from Shrewsbury I went to Welshpool and up the Breidden hills3 (where I lost among the bracken a band of pure gold off a most expensive umbrella which I bought one day when I had had too much to eat and drink at lunch: let this be a warning to you), lunched at Montgomery, which is a mere village, and went through Leominster to Hereford. On Friday I saw the two old churches of Kilpeck and Abbey Dore in the west of the county, and then came through Ledbury and Tewkesbury and Gloucester here. This morning I have been to see my god-father Mr John Woollright,4 who is 89 and losing his memory as all his family do in their old age. He mixes up with his own life the events in books which he is reading. Otherwise he is wonderfully well preserved, and his hair has more brown than grey. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. Here it is a loud speaker. BMC MS. The ‘s’ in ‘Selsley’ is in pencil, and the tentative date is pencilled on the MS by KES. Pugh, Appendix F, lxxviii.

1

‘A car-owning friend of A.E.H.’: Pugh, loc. cit. Brown Clee Hill, c.1790 ft. high, 9 mls. NE of Ludlow. 3 See AEH to an unknown correspondent, 14 July 1927. 4 ‘A Woodchester friend of the Housman and Wise families’: Pugh, loc. cit. Naiditch (1993), 3 n., notes that various Woollrights appear in the Visitors’ Books of the Wise family at Woodchester. See Poems (1997), 511. 2

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14 October 1929

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Oct. 1929 Dear Sirs, I enclose some more MS of Manilius V. The result of your complaint to Messrs MacLehose is that, whereas I formerly received instalments of proofs at intervals of about 3 weeks, I have now received none for 5 weeks. I suppose they are intending to send 7 all the remainder, which is more than 12 of the whole, in a mass. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 117–18.

TO C H A R L E S W I L L I A M S Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Oct. 1929 Dear Mr Williams, Thanks for your note; but no doubt you see that Rossetti’s reading (which he did not alter in deference to Swinburne)1 is not the reading I am in search of. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. OUP MS. Maas, 287.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College, Cambridge 14 Oct. 1929 I received to-day a batch of proofs and manuscript, but the envelope was not stout enough and the contents had almost escaped. A. E. Housman. BL Add. Ms 44923, fo. 120: p.c. addressed ‘The Richards Press Ltd | 90 Newman Street | London W. 1’. 1 On the textual controversy, see AEH to Williams, 21 Sept. 1929, and n. 5. Rossetti did in fact alter his reading in his second edn. of Shelley (1878); but Maas, 287 n., points out that the reading was retained in his one-volume unannotated edn. in Moxon’s Popular Poets series, of which AEH had a copy. That copy is now in the Sparrow collection at SJCO, and p. 527 bears AEH’s emendation of the line to ‘Fresh Spring, and Autumn, Summer, and Winter hoar’.

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TO A R N O L D RU B I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 16 Oct. 1929 Dear Mr Rubin, People often ask me to copy out verses, but I never will, so you must not be aggrieved if I refuse you too. As to a picture, I sent you last month at your former address a reproduction of a recent drawing of me, but I have heard nothing about it. It was, as you asked, for your Literary Group. I could send you another copy of the old photograph which you know. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Arnold Rubin | Lewis 204 | U. of No. Carolina | Chapel Hill | No. Carolina | U. S. A.’

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Oct. 1929 Dear Sirs, Messrs Curwen may publish the setting of Is my team ploughing on condition that no part of the poem is omitted, (as was done by one composer).1 There is of course no fee. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 123.

TO G. M . T R E V E LYA N Trinity College 18 Oct. 1929 Dear Trevelyan, Your ignorance must be shared by most of the world, except privileged audiences at University College and Eton.1 I have always refused to let

1

Ralph Vaughan Williams. See AEH to GR, 20 Dec. 1920, 7 May 1927. AEH’s parody of The Botanic Garden by Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) beginning ‘See on the cliff fair Adjectiva stand’ was included in a paper he read to the Literary Society at UCL in 1899. He read the paper again at UCL in 1907, and at Eton in 1922: Naiditch (1988), 147. 1

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18 October 1929

my parody be printed,2 because it is no rival to the Anti-Jacobin’s, which is not merely amusing but subtle and profound. Still, here it is, and may divert you for a minute or two. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. The scribe obeys Darwin’s declared principle that similes ought not to be like[.] Private MS. Extract published in Michael Silverman, cat. 15 (1996), 14.

TO A LU N H U D S O N - W I L L I A M S Trinity College 18 Oct. 1929 Dear Mr Hudson-Williams, At the request of the Classical Board I have undertaken to fill in as well as I can the office of Mr Nock1 in directing your research during his absence. I propose therefore that during this term you should come and see me once a fortnight. The hour most convenient to me would be 6 p. m., the day Thursday; but if this would not suit you it would be possible to arrange otherwise. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 287, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing.

2 It had in fact been published in The University College Gazette, 2. 20 (2 Feb. 1899), 34, with the title Extract from a Didactic Poem on Latin Grammar. AEH subsequently refused permission to reprint it: see AEH to the Headmaster of Eton, 24 June 1924, and Geoffrey Tillotson’s Essays in Criticism and Research (1942), 159. The Loves of the Triangles, a parody of Darwin by George Canning and others, was published in The Anti-Jacobin on 16 and 23 Apr. and 7 May 1798. See Poems (1997), 265–7, 548–50. 1 A. D. Nock. See List of Recipients.

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TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Oct. 1929 Dear Sirs The editor of Hermathena may print the poem if he thinks that he can manage to print eight lines of mine without altering them, which few editors can.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 128.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 30 Oct. 1929 To the Librarian. I have not seen the book, but the Library would be justified in buying anything by either of these two scholars.1 A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 17 .

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Nov. 1929 My dear D’Arcy Thompson, I agree with the Dioscuri,1 chiefly because of the sense, in that the roots of a tree do not commonly abound with water nor its leaves with dew; but further the change is rather rough, and an apparently apt word like δρυός2 should not be altered without urgent cause. 1 With rue my heart is laden (ASL LIV) was printed correctly in Hermathena: A Series of Papers on Literature, Science and Philosophy by members of Trinity College, Dublin, 20. 45 (1930), 432. 1 Reitzenstein and W. Baehrens (names written on the MS by Scholfield, the former misspelt). 1 In Greek mythology, the twins Castor and Polydeuces (Lat. ‘Pollux’). Here, the long-term fellow editors of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Bernard P. Grenfell (1869–1926) and Arthur S. Hunt (1871–1934), known as ‘the Dioscuri of Oxford’. 2 The only example of δρύος (‘woodland’) in Liddell and Scott’s A Greek–English Lexicon (1996 edn.) is from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 1044. 8. AEH writes ‘δρυός’ by mistake, probably (my colleague Wolfgang Haase suggests) from subconscious assimilation to the genitive (δρυός) of δρύς (commonly, ‘oak tree’).

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6 November 1929

I ought to have thanked you before for your presidential address.3 But Fotheringham’s4 explanation of tardis mensibus5 will not do. The signs which rise most slowly set most quickly, and are no slower than the other signs. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. St Andrews MS 23595.

TO R. W. CH A PM A N 1 Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Nov. 1929. My dear Chapman, Many thanks for your letter. I am not likely to produce anything new, beyond the completion of Manilius on which I am now engaged. But there might be a collection of three addresses, one never yet printed, about which I was approached by Mr C. Williams of your London branch. It is however stuck by the apparent impossibility of verifying a reference.2 I was sorry in many ways to desert the Arcades, and I wish them pleasure and permanence. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. OUP MS (t.s. copy).

3 ‘Science and the Classics’, Presidential Address to the Classical Association, Cardiff, 9 April 1929, Nature, 123 (1929), 800–3. 4 John Knight Fotheringham (1874–1936), historian and astronomer. Reader in Ancient History and Chronology at Oxford, 1925–36. An expert on solar and lunar acceleration, he published a series of papers in Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1909–29, and gave the Halley lecture (on historical eclipses) in 1921. 5 Virgil, Georgics, 1. 32: anne novum tardis sidus te mensibus addas (‘whether you add yourself as a new star to the lingering months’). 1 1881–1960. Assistant Secretary to the Delegates, Oxford University Press, 1906–15; Secretary, 1920–42. Editor of Jane Austen, Boswell, and Johnson. 2 See AEH to Williams, 21 Sept. and 1 Oct. 1929.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Nov. 1929 My dear Richards, Thanks for the extracts from the Semaine à Paris.1 I think you had much better stick to your capitalist.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO A R N O L D RU B I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 10 Nov. 1929 Dear Mr Rubin, I enclose another of my old photographs. If you want me to write my name in your copy of A Shropshire Lad I would do so, provided that you enclosed an envelope for its return; but I rather fancied that I had done so already. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 14 Nov. 1929 Dear Scholfield, I have come round to think that it would be better for me after all if you would be kind enough to borrow from the Bodleian—say for a fortnight—the MS of Manilius: Auct. F. iv. 34 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 18 .

1 Probably the precursor of the modern Pariscope: Une Semaine de Paris, a weekly magazine that gives details of entertainment within the city. 2 In a letter of 4 Nov. 1929 to AEH, GR had indicated that he was breaking off business dealings with Humphrey Toulmin and the Cayme Press. GR protested in a letter of 13 Nov. 1929 to AEH that he had done so with ‘very sufficient cause’, and that ‘there are other capitalists’.

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17 November 1929

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Nov. 1929 Dear Sirs, With reference to your letter of the 11th inst. I should like to know: What proportion of the 5000 of the small edition of A Shropshire Lad would be cloth, and what leather; Would it be feasible to make a difference in price between the small edition which you propose of Last Poems and the small edition of A Shropshire Lad.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 131–2. The MS has a full stop for a question mark at the end of the last sentence.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Nov. 1929 Dear Sirs, Thanks for your letter of Nov. 14. You have my permission to print 5000 small ed. Shropshire Lad, 2000 larger ’’ ’’ ’’ 5000 small ed. Last Poems uniform with that of Shropshire Lad. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 134. Clemens (1941), 12 (nearly complete).

TO A R N O L D RU B I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 17 Nov. 1929 Dear Mr Rubin, Assuming that you have to earn your living, I advise you to follow chemistry or any other honest trade rather than literature, which, as Scott said, may be a good walking-stick, but is a bad crutch.1 It cannot be 1 The Richards Press had sought permission to reprint 5,000 copies of the small edn. and 2,000 of the larger edn. of ASL, as well as 5,000 copies of a small edn. of LP. There were to be 3,250 copies in cloth and 1,750 in leather of ASL, and it was not thought practicable to make the new small edn. of LP cheaper than that of ASL: BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 133. 1 ‘For literature though an excellent staff has always proved a wretched crutch to those who relied upon it entirely for support’: to the Revd Charles Robert Maturin, 28 Dec. 1812; The Letters of Sir Walter Scott, ed. Sir Herbert Grierson, 12 (1937), 339.

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depended on. Maurice Hewlett,2 when his novels were selling well, threw up a post in the Civil Service, intending to live by his pen: the public ceased to read his novels, and he died in poverty. And of all forms of literature, poetry is the straightest way to starvation. There is one living poet who boasts that he lives on the proceeds of his poetry, but he is a bad one. Moreover poetry is not a job to fill all one’s time, and poets like Wordsworth and Byron, who were always writing, would have done better to write less. Others have asked me the same question, and I always give the same reply. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45. Naiditch (1996), item 52.

TO D R F R A N K E . RO B B I N S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 17 Nov. 1929 Dear Mr Robbins, I shall be very glad to look through your proofs,1 though I cannot promise a profound or prolonged examination, as I am now concentrated on finishing the last volume of my Manilius. The octatropos, wherever it occurs, is simply an incomplete dodecatropos: it never divides the circle into eight equal parts. Cumont in Revue de philologie 1918 p. 74 has a probable theory of its origin, confirmed by your papyrus. At 3 B 13 the name of an astrologer is required, and ‘Ερμῆς2 seemed to fit the space. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Michigan MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Frank E. Robbins | Ann Arbor | Michigan | U. S. A.’ Maas, 425.

2 1861–1923. He achieved immediate success with his romantic novel of the Middle Ages, The Forest Lovers (1898), which was followed by other romances, Richard Yea and Nay (1900) The Queen’s Quair (1904), and by the trilogy of modern life, Halfway House (1908), The Open Country (1909), and Rest Harrow (1910). He was Keeper of Land Revenue Records, 1896–1900. 1 Of further corrections to the Michigan Astrological Papyrus. 2 Proposed by AEH in his review article in Classical Philology, 22 (1927), 257–63 (the specific suggestion is in Classical Papers, 1113).

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27 November 1929

TO H . P. R . F I N B E RG Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Nov. 1929 Dear Mr Finberg, I have received the three copies of each of my books in your edition,1 and I thank you for this generous gift. I do not say anything about the beauty of the form, because I know that it is more beautiful than I know, and do not want to expose my ignorance. I am afraid it must have given you much trouble. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. H. P. R. Finberg, ‘Some Unpublished Housman Letters’, TLS, 17 Dec. 1971, 1574.

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Nov. 1929 My dear Bridges, I thank you for your friendly gift. As you will have surmised, it comes too late to save my pocket; but I shall now be able to keep it uncut, and /so enhance /enlarge/ the fortune of/ my heirs . I had meant to put off writing to you till the end of the year, by which time I might have matured some valuable criticism, or again I might not; now I will only say that I /took/ most pleasure, /and that was great,/ /in/ passages such as III 354–84 or lines like I 295–6, admiring /you may think,/ more, the riches of heaven’s pavement than aught divine or holy else enjoyed in vision beatific. The boom, though boom it be, gives one a sort of satisfaction, /probably/ shared by Mrs Bridges, to whom my kind regards. Lilly MSS 3. 1. 10: draft in ink, with ‘enlarge’ in pencil. See the next letter for the version sent to Bridges.

1

The Alcuin Press’s de luxe edn. of ASL and LP (1929).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO RO B E RT B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Nov. 1929 My dear Bridges, I thank you for your friendly gift.1 As you will have surmised, it comes too late to save my pocket; but I shall now be able to keep it uncut and so enlarge the fortune of my heirs. I had meant to put off writing to you till the end of the year, by which time I might have matured some valuable criticism, or again I might not: now I will only say that I took most pleasure, and that was great, in passages such as III 354–84 or lines like I 295–6, admiring more, you may think, the riches of heaven’s pavement than aught divine or holy else enjoyed in vision beatific.2 The boom, though boom it be, gives one a sort of satisfaction,3 probably shared by Mrs Bridges, to whom my kind regards. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 13/2. 120–1. Maas, 287–8.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Trinity College | Cambridge End of Nov. 1929 Dear Sirs,] I acknowledge receipt of proof completing the notes of Manilius V. I enclose a modification in my instructions regarding the additional matter which I sent two months ago.1 Please forward this to the printers immediately, as they may be taken with a sudden fit of industry and start on the work at once. [Yours faithfully A. E. Housman.] Clemens (1941), 12, where it is undated but printed between letters dated 16 Nov. and 28 Nov. 1929. 1

Of Bridges’ The Testament of Beauty (1929). Paradise Lost, 1. 681–4 (on Mammon): ‘admiring more | The riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold, | Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed | In vision beatific’. 3 Bridges to AEH, 24 Nov. 1929: ‘ … I still shrink from intruding on you & making a call on yr attention with a story which I fear you may dislike. And my compunction has increased with the blatant & incontinent boom that must give an unpleasant grimace to the suppliant’s countenance—I know that you will quit me of complicity in that … ’: Lilly MSS 1; The Selected Letters of Robert Bridges, ed. Donald E. Stanford, 2 (1984), 913. See AEH to Withers, 4 Dec. 1929. 1 See AEH to the Richards Press Ltd., 1 Oct. 1929. 2

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2 December 1929

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Nov. 1929 Dear Sirs, I am sending you simultaneously by letter post under another cover a new instalment of manuscript for Manilius V. Though the numbering of the pages begins at 23, there is nothing missing; and the printers perhaps had better be told so. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 137–8. Clemens (1941), 12.

TO W. R. AG A RD Trinity College | Cambridge | England 1 Dec. 1929 Dear Mr Agard, You have my permission to quote from my translations in your article in the Scholastic. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Photocopy of ALS in LC-AEH Collection.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 2 Dec. 1929 Dear Sirs, You say that you have received from the printers the proofs of the Capitula of Manilius V; but I have not yet received them from you. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 142.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Dec. 1929 My dear Withers, I am glad you like the new edition,1 from which I have stood as much aloof as possible. I do not envy people who appreciate that sort of thing, because they suffer so terribly from books which do not come up to their standard; and I am amazed at the bitterness with which they speak about the ordinary editions of A Shropshire Lad, which, being legible, are all that I could desire. I too am pleased with the noise about the Testament of Beauty, excessive though it is and in its nature contemptible. He himself rates it at its true value and calls it ‘this blatant and incontinent boom’.2 I tell him that at any rate it probably makes Mrs Bridges happy, as wives are like that. Before I leave the subject, my kind regards to yours. I spent three weeks of September in France, mostly touring in a motorcar: Poitiers, Angoulème,3 Périgueux (pâté de Périgord not nearly so good as, for instance, at Toulouse), Cahors, Rodez, Mende, Le Puy en Vélay, and thence back to Paris through places where I had been before in Auvergne and Burgundy. The cathedral at Rodez, quite unknown to me, very fine, and the surrounding country, the Rouèrgue,4 remarkable, very red soil, between the limestone of the Dordogne and the Cevennes.5 I hope the rheumatism keeps off. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 98 (excerpt); Maas, 288.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Dec. 1929 Dear Sirs, I return corrected proofs of Capitula for Manilius V. I am satisfied with their appearance, and do not wish the type changed.

1 3

2 The de luxe Alcuin edn. See AEH to Bridges, 27 Nov. 1929, and n. 3. 4 5 For ‘Angoulême’. For ‘Rouerge’. For ‘Cévennes’.

159

10 Dec. 1929

I have read the enclosed queries of the printers’ reader; but no change is to be made except my corrections. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 144. Clemens (1941), 12 (nearly complete).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Dec 1929 Enclosed are corrected proofs of A Shropshire Lad. A. E. Housman. Texas MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Dec. 1929 Dear Sirs, I enclose corrected proofs of Last Poems. Comparing the small edition of A Shropshire Lad I am sure that most of the over-runnings which I have marked are unnecessary. Printers seem to love it for its own sake. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 145.

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 10 Dec. 1929 Dear Mr Clemens, I willingly send a copy of A Shropshire Lad for the Mark Twain Society, but it is not worth 2 dollars. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Columbia MS (Housman Collection, box 1). Photocopy in LC-C. Clemens. Clemens (1947), 257.

160

Letters 1927–1936

TO F. M. CORN F OR D Trinity College 13 Dec. 1929 Dear Cornford, ‘Latin version of remark attributed to Aristotle when disputing with Plato’ says Cassell’s Book of Quotations.1 About any such dispute you are likely to know more than I do; but I suspect it is just spun out of Eth. Nicom. I 4 φίλους ἄνδρας and ἀμφοῖς γὰρ ὄντοιν φιλοίν etc.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 58427, fo. 104.

TO M R M E LV U T S K Y Trinity College | Cambridge | England 18 Dec. 1929 Dear Mr Melvutsky, I think Mr Rubin asked me the same question, and I replied that authors do not know which are their best works and therefore had better not have opinions on the subject. If you prefer Last Poems you agree with Masefield1 and Mrs Wharton.2 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45. Naiditch (1996), item 27.

1

‘Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas’ (‘Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth’). Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1. 6 (in fact). The passage referred to, as translated by J. A. K. Thomson in 1953, is: ‘ … to defend the truth even at the cost of our most intimate feelings, since, though both are dear, it would be wrong to put friendship before the truth’. AEH carelessly writes ἀμφοῖς for ἀμφοῖν. 1 2 John Masefield. Edith Wharton. 2

161

30 December 1929

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Dec. 1929 Dear Sirs, The Oxford Press may include in their musical publications, so far as I am concerned, Mr Thomas’s setting of my We’ll to the woods no more.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 149.

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 26 Dec. 1929 Dear Mackail,1 It was very unlucky that I was out when you called. If you, or you and the Lord Lieutenant,2 happen to be in Cambridge one of these days about 1 o’ clock, we could lunch off our cold Christmas sideboard: boar’s head, game pie, beef, ham, tongue, plum pudding, mince pies. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.9. Hawkins (1958), 188–9; Maas, 289.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Dec. 1929 My dear Richards, A happy New Year, and thanks for the instructive volume1 returned herewith.

1

Harold Flower Thomas’s setting of the prefatory poem to LP was published in 1930. Apparently written in error for ‘Cockerell’: Mackail was not a Cambridge resident who would drop in on AEH, and he had no reason to know the Lord Lieutenant. ‘?Cockerell’ written on the MS in an unknown hand. 2 Charles [Robert Whorwood] Adeane, D.L., J. P., Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, who with Cockerell was an excutor of the estate of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt: Cockerell by Wilfrid Blunt (American edn., 1965), 182 1 Rhenish by Henry E. Vaux Huggett. ‘One of Ye Sette of Odd Volumes’: Richards, 251 n. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

Hélène,2 you probably know, looked in last term, with her husband and a brother-in-law who writes poetry.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. The happy New Year is for Mrs Richards too. PM MS. Richards, 251.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Dec. 1929 My dear Jeannie, This is to wish you and Basil a happy New Year, and to thank you for your two last letters. I rejoice with you over the behaviour of the County Council, and hope that you may expect well of them in the future. I hope too that Basil is better or not worse, and that you are not indulging too much in colds. To-morrow night I shall be taking steps to keep up my health and strength in 1930 by eating any amount of oysters up to 4 doz. and drinking all the stout required to wash them down. After which, as it says in the advertisement of Mrs Winslow’s soothing syrup, ‘‘the dear little darling wakes up as bright as a button’’.1 Laurence was here some weeks ago, engaged in some villainy connected with the League of Nations.2 Of course I did not go to hear him, but he looked in on me, and seemed very well. I daresay you saw the photographs of him and his home3 in Country Life or whatever paper it was.4 I have composed no poem this year, but as Basil is fond of my warblings I have put together some scraps written at various times.5 2

GR’s stepdaughter. ‘Charles Taylor, now M. P. for the Eastbourne division of Sussex’: Richards, 251 n. 1 See AEH to Withers, 31 Dec. 1924. 2 LH, a pacifist, had advocated the setting up of the League of Nations (The Unexpected Years, 310, 319–20), which was formally established on 10 January 1920 but weakened by the refusal of the United States to join. In 1928 the Kellogg–Briand pact, which involved the United States, announced the aim on the part of most powers to settle disputes peacefully. The cynical view was that members of the League were already committed to do this. 3 ‘Longmeadow’, in Street, Somerset, which was designed by the Quaker friend from whom LH had bought the land. LH and Clemence Housman designed the garden: The Unexpected Years, 356. 4 5 No such photograph had ever appeared in Country Life. Light verse. 3

163

31 December 1929

Love to both of you, and the compliments of the season to your family. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 153–4 (incomplete); Pugh, Appendix F, p. lxxix.

TO MILDRED PLAT T Trinity College | Cambridge 31 Dec. 1929 Dear Mrs Platt, It is very good of you to brew me some of your sloe-gin, but I do not think I have any friend trustworthy enough to convey it to me without taking a swig. I suppose I shall be coming to London some time to see the Italian pictures,1 though I shall not appreciate them, and I had better come and fetch it away myself. A happy New Year to you and yours. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 289.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 31 Dec. 1929 My dear Withers, This is to wish a happy New Year to you and Mrs Withers and your family, now I suppose under your roof. I hope you will enjoy the weeks you mean to spend abroad, though I suppose that Burlington House at this moment contains more of value than the galleries either of Dresden or of Munich. Not that I should be able to tell. Stout and oysters are more on my level, and till midnight comes and brings them I can think of little else. If ever I am inclined to repine, I think of the lot of a friend of mine to whom I have just been writing, who was born with a distaste for beer. You say nothing of your health, and I suppose no news is good news. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 76 (excerpt); Maas, 289–90. 1 The Royal Academy Winter Exhibition at Burlington House, ‘The Exhibition of Italian Art, 1200–1900 AD’ (1 Jan.–20 Mar. 1930), featured almost three hundred Italian artists, including Botticelli, Donatello, Verrocchio, and Michelangelo, and proved so popular that admission at the door had occasionally to be controlled. It was personally authorized by Mussolini.

1930 TO H . E . BU T L E R Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Jan. 1930 Dear Butler, As what happens when es follows a vowel is aphaeresis rather than elision, it would be logical for the vowel to retain its quantity; and a long vowel does so in anth. Lat. Ries. 462 28 impius hoc telo es, hoc potes esse pius. The poem is a very correct piece of verse, of the 1st cent. after Christ at the latest I should say, and possibly Seneca’s. About the lacus Vmber 1 I have long had the suspicion you mention. Bredon is the Worcestershire hill; the Shropshire Breidden is very different, covered with bracken. The poem is one of the earliest, written before I knew the book would be Shropshire.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305. Maas, 425–6.

TO H A RO LD M O NRO Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Jan. 1930 Dear Mr Munro,1 I am grateful to you and the publishers for the gift of your anthology,2 which brought to my knowledge several good poems which I had not found out for myself. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 745/2. Envelope addressed ‘Harold Monro Esq. | The Poetry Bookshop | 38 Great Russell St. | W. C. 1’. 1 In Propertius 4. 1. 124. AEH proposed ‘non tepet’ for ‘intepet’. See AEH to Butler, 6 July 1930. 2 Bredon Hill (ASL XXI), went through two notebook drafts, dating from July 1891 and 1891/2–Feb. 1893 respectively. 1 For ‘Monro’. 2 See AEH to Monro, 20 Aug. 1929.

165

14 January 1930

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Jan. 1930 Dear Sirs, Mr Peter Warlock1 may publish Mr C. W. Orr’s setting of Farewell to barn and stack and tree2 if it is a setting of the whole poem, omitting nothing. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 151.

TO JA M E S G E O RG E L E I P P E RT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 9 Jan. 1930 Dear Mr Leippet,1 Your letter came too late; but I hope that the ink I use will last a few centuries. Quotations I do not write for anyone, even if they have been christened Alfred Housman.2 This is my only address; and I shall hope to see you here in the summer. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Jan. 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose 22 more pages of manuscript of Manilius V to satisfy the cravings of the printers. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman The Richards Press Ltd. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 154. Maas, 290. 1

Pseudonym of composer Philip Arnold Heseltine (1894–1930). Composed in 1927. The setting was not published until 1934, as one of seven in Cycle of Songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’. 1 For ‘Leippert’. 2 See the notes on Leippert in the List of Recipients. 2

166

Letters 1927–1936

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Jan. 1930 Dear Mr Wilson, I must lose no time in acknowledging the kind present from you and your students and returning my sincere thanks. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. The Fales Library, New York University, MS.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 20 Jan. 1930 Dear Scholfield, I think that the Library might get the whole Corpus Paravinianum.1 Some of them are very bad, but Landi’s Fasti 2 is quite good, and Castiglioni3 is exercising more care in choosing editors than Pascal4 did. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 19 .

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Jan. 1930 My dear Richards, Thanks for your enclosures, but I have enough liqueur brandy for my needs for some years. Yes, I should like to see D. H. Lawrence’s book,1 and I am grateful to you for the trouble you take to keep me supplied with improving literature. 1 Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum Paravianum, founded in 1915. AEH writes ‘Paravinianum’ by mistake. 2 Carolus Landi’s edn. of Ovid’s Fasti was published in the Corpus in 1928. He had collated afresh the Vatican codices (A and U ) and various Italian MSS. 3 Italian classical scholar Luigi Castiglioni (b. 1882). 4 Italian classical scholar Carlo Pascal (1866–1926), who was general editor of the Corpus (1916–18) and edited several vols. himself. 1 The Paris edn. of Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Richards, 251 n.). In Britain the book was banned for obscenity until 1960.

167

27 January 1930

My kind regards to Mrs Richards and H´el`ene. I have got something like lumbago myself.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | The Thatched Cottage | Virginia Water | Surrey’ and redirected to The Cottage, Upper Culham, Henley-on-Thames. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 251 (wrongly dated 30 Jan.).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Jan. 1930 Dear Sirs, The Copp Clark Co.1 must be told that by a rule of many years standing I do not give permission to include poems from A Shropshire Lad in anthologies. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 155.

TO M A X J U D G E Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Jan. 1930 Dear Sir, Bredon, so far as it is anything, is the Worcestershire hill: the Shropshire Breidden is very different and covered with bracken, though I understand that the local church-bells are audible there. The poem is one of the earliest, and I did not know that the book would be so much about Shropshire.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘Max Judge Esq. | 3 Loudoun Road | St John’s Wood, N. W. 8’.

2

Richards had been in bed for nearly three weeks with lumbago. Toronto-based publishers, established in 1869 by William Copp and Henry Clark, who acted as agents for many American and British publishers. 1 See AEH to Butler, 3 Jan. 1930, n. 2. 1

168

Letters 1927–1936

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Jan. 1930 Dear Mackail, torquet in Verg. Aen. IX 402 was suggested by Ribbeck in 1862,1 but I do not like it, because it takes suspiciens away from the verb precatur, to which in sense it belongs. Your objection to amens2 is one which I have heard before; but similarly amens in XII 742 is followed by tum uero amens formidine in 776. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.10. Maas, 426.

TO E . W. M O RE TO N RI CH A RDS O N Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Jan. 1930 Dear Mr Moreton Richardson, The alleged influence of my poetry on other writers is a subject about which I am not the best person to apply to. I have heard of it, but have not noticed it much. You had better try to find one of the influenced writers, and ask him. I am sorry not to be of more use. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS. Housman Society Newsletter, 7 (Feb. 1998), 7.

TO A . D. NO CK Trinity College 3 Feb. 1930 Dear Nock, I shall be delighted to come to lunch with you at 1. 15 on the 11th . Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. 1 In his edn. of the Aeneid (1859–68). Mackail in a letter to AEH of 25 Jan. 1925 (SJCO Higham MS) had proposed torquet instead of torquens in Aeneid 9. 402. 2 In AEH’s conjecture at 9. 403, suspicit altam amens lunam, proposed in the preface to Manilius I. Mackail had rejected the emendation on grounds that ‘amens there would … be premature and out of place; it comes in its place later, in l. 424’.

169

4 February 1930

TO MILDRED PLAT T Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Feb. 1930 Dear Mrs Platt, The intoxicant has arrived. As you advised me to keep it till March, I have not opened the bottle, and am therefore in a condition to express my gratitude legibly and grammatically. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 165. Maas, 291.

TO J O H N C A RT E R Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Feb. 1930 Dear Mr Carter, I do not know of any copies of the Introductory Lecture except my own and that in the British Museum.1 It was not published, but two or three hundred were printed by the College Council and distributed to members of the College. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4. Envelope addressed ‘John Carter Esq. | c / Charles Scribner’s Sons | 168 Regent Street | London W. 1.’ Maas, 290–1.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Feb. 1930 Dear Sirs, The printers have now had a large batch of the MS of Manilius V for more than two months without doing anything to it; though I suppose I ought not to count the first week of January, during which they were doubtless drunk.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 157. Clemens (1941), 12–13 (nearly complete); Maas, 291. 1 AEH delivered the lecture at UCL on 3 Oct. 1892. Carter and his friend John Sparrow were to arrange a private reprint of 100 copies by Cambridge University Press in 1933. 1 As a result of New Year celebrations in Scotland.

170

Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Feb. 1930 My dear Richards, I return D. H. Lawrence,1 with thanks /for/ your perilous enterprise on my behalf. It did not inflame my passions to any great extent, but it is much more wholesome than Frank Harris2 or James Joyce.3 I hope you and yours are well. I have not seen any news of H´el`ene. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 251; Maas, 291.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Having packed up D. H. Lawrence to return to you, I find I am not sure of your present address. A. E. H. 5 Feb. 1930 Trin. Coll. Camb. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | The Cottage | Upper Culham | Henley-on-Thames’. LC-GR t.s.

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N The Irish, with all their faults, are good conservatives of language, and I wish we could re-import some of our lost pronunciations. Yrs A. E. H. 10 Feb. 1930 Trin. Coll. Camb. St Andrews MS 23596: p.c. addressed ‘Professor D’Arcy W. Thompson | The University | St Andrew’s’. (‘Andrew’s’ should be ‘Andrews’.)

1 3

Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). Ulysses (1922).

2

My Life and Loves, 4 vols. (1922–7).

171

4 February 1930

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Feb. 1930 My dear Kate, I am quite willing to inscribe the copy of A Shropshire Lad, but I have always refused to copy out verses and sign them. There is a bookseller here who the other day offered £120 for a copy with my autograph possessed by a friend of mine, but that was probably in good condition. I suppose there was a maniac millionaire in the background. I can hear nothing of any portrait of A. J. Macleane, and it is extremely unlikely that we should have one. He was neither eminent nor resident; and it is only of late years that the college has cared to secure portraits even of those who are. At the end of the holidays I spent a few days near Oakham and saw a number of fine churches in south Lincolnshire. Boston must be the largest and finest parish church in England: Yarmouth and St Michael’s Coventry are said to cover more ground, but they have less bulk and grandeur. I did not know that Jerry was to be in England this year, and I am glad to hear such a good report of him. I expect however that you told me he was coming and that it passed out of my senile memory. Love to all. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 1 Claremont | Exeter’ ( TCC Add. MS c. 50 91 ). Maas, 292.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Feb. 1930 Dear Sirs, The amount of manuscript still to come is much less than a quarter of the whole and will pretty certainly be finished before the end of April: instalments of it could be sent earlier. As it will not contain much of the small print and intricate matter, it should not give much trouble to the printers’ readers. The index of course cannot be constructed before the book is in pages. I do not think that the printers at any stage have been held up by lack of manuscript; so that they could hitherto have ‘proceeded without interruption’ so far as I am concerned.

172

Letters 1927–1936

When I sent you the first manuscript I offered to pay a deposit of £100 (I think), but you said that it did not seem expected. I can pay it now, or more, if you think it advisable. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 160–1. Clemens (1941), 13 (incomplete); Maas, 292.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D I have received to-day 8 pages of proofs of Manilius V with MS. A. E. Housman. Trin. Coll. Camb. 18 Feb. 1930 BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 162: p.c. addressed ‘The Richards Press Ltd. | 90 Newman Street | W. 1’.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Feb. 1930 Dear Sirs, Mr Corbett Sumsion is at liberty to publish his settings of the five poems which he names.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 164.

1 C. Corbett Sumsion (1890–1943) published settings of four poems from ASL (XIII, XV, XX, LII) in 1930. In the same year he published settings of ASL II and XXVII individually, and in 1933 settings of ASL XXXIV and XXXVIII.

173

27 February 1930

TO C. M . B OW RA Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Feb. 1930 Dear Mr Bowra, I am ashamed to say that my reading of Pindar has been much more literary than scholarly, and I have really nothing that I could send you1 beyond what I have published on the Paeans and other fragments at the time of their discovery.2 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘C. M. Bowra Esq. | Wadham College | Oxford’.

TO F. W. H A LL Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Feb. 1930 My dear Hall, Extremum hunc (at least I hope so) mihi concede laborem,1 if you will be so good. I molest you rather than A. C. Clark2 because I have molested him more in the past. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection.

1

Bowra’s edn. of Pindari Carmina was published in 1935. ‘On the Paeans of Pindar’, CR 22 (1908), 8–12: Classical Papers, 763–9. 1 Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem (‘My last task is this—vouchsafe me it, Arethusa!’): Virgil, Eclogues, 10. 1. 2 Albert Curtis Clark (1859–1937). Corpus Christi Professor of Latin at Oxford, 1913–34; FBA, 1916. 2

174

Letters 1927–1936

TO D R G E O F F R E Y K E Y N E S Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Feb. 1930 Dear Mr Keynes, The MS1 is not in my handwriting. It seems to be copied from the journal, The Academy I think, in which the poem appeared in 1899 or thereabouts.2 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 8534/9.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 6 March 1930 Dear Scholfield, Could you and would you provide me with means of admission to your College1 chapel for the afternoon service next Sunday? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 20 .

TO C H A R L E S W I L L I A M S Trinity College | Cambridge 8 March 1930 Dear Mr Williams, Many thanks for your kindness in sending me your book, which I have been reading. The chief criticism I have to make is that you praise us all too much.1 I have given you a great deal of fruitless trouble about Shelley, I am afraid.2 1 Of Illic Jacet (LP IV), marked ‘given me by A.E.H. H.F.B. 1901?’, and inserted in a 1st edn. of LP presented by AEH to Horatio F. Brown. The volume had come into Keynes’s possession. 2 It appeared in The Academy, 58. 1451 (24 Feb. 1900). AEH misremembered the publication details again when he told Cockerell ‘ ‘‘Academy’’, 1899’ (TLS, 7 Nov. 1936; Richards, 436). 1 KCC. 1 Poetry at Present (1930). His discussion of AEH’s poetry (pp. 30–9) is reprinted in Critical Heritage, 226–33. 2 See AEH to Williams, 21 Sept. and 1 Oct. 1929.

175

11 March 1930

The prelude to Last Poems has nothing to do with Banville3 but is from an old French nursery rhyme: Nous n’irons plus au bois, Les lauriers sont coup´es; La belle que voil`a Ira les ramasser.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. OUP MS.

TO A R N O L D RU B I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 11 March 1930 Dear Mr Rubin, Thanks for your letter. What you say of agricultural poverty is distressing and surprising, for in England we hear of nothing but the prosperity of the United States. It is kind of you to dedicate your sonnet to me, but I am old-fashioned and should like it better if the lines were all the same length, not so short as the last nor so long as the last but one. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45.

TO JA M E S G E O RG E L E I P P E RT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 11 March 1930 Dear Mr Leippert, The book-plate seems to me quite charming, and I have signed it and sent it to your uncle. Your poem about the bubble is pretty and pleasantly simple. The novel has not yet arrived, but I am looking forward. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS (Vault: Housman). 3 In his book Williams had alleged that AEH’s poem was a ‘paraphrase … from Th´eodore de Banville’. Th´eodore Faullain de Banville (1823–1901) uses the opening as the first line of a poem which otherwise bears no close resemblance to the original. See AEH to Mark Van Doren, 19 and 21 June 1928. 4 The poem is in J.-B. Weckerlin’s collection, Chansons Populaires de Pays de France (Paris, 1903), 2. 227.

176

Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 12 March 1930 Dear Sirs, I do not desire to take any part of the fees received for Mr Corbett Sumsion’s songs when reproduced /or broadcast./ Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 167.

TO M . R . R I D L E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 20 March 1930 Dear Sir, You have my permission to print the two passages.1 If you succeed in reproducing the Epitaph without mistakes you will do what few have done. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Reading MS (Bell Archives 7271).

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 21 March 1930 Dear Mr Wilson, Thanks for the photograph and for the invitation; but I am now very hard to move from home. Yours very truly A. E. Housman Yale MS.

1

In Poetry and the Ordinary Reader, compiled by Ridley.

177

27 March 1930

TO C H A R L E S W I L L I A M S Trinity College | Cambridge 21 March 1930 Dear Mr Williams, On the one hand I must thank and congratulate you, but on the other you have cooked your own goose, for Mr Ingpen’s report contradicts that on which I relied.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. OUP MS. Maas, 293.

TO W. H . S H E W RI NG Trinity College | Cambridge 27 March 1930 Dear Sir, I should guess doubtfully that the man was loosely girt, so that a purple undergarment showed down the front between the two borders of the overgarment, themselves also purple, I presume. The Greek translator seems to have understood somewhat thus.1 Certainly discinctatus is not correctly formed from a noun of the fourth declension, and apparently can mean no more than discinctus, which you cite from another MS, and which should perhaps be read. One of the vagaries of scribes is to dilate words by inserting syllables, as in Livy, 45. 28. 3 nobilitatemplo for nobili templo. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 426, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing.

1 For background, see AEH to Williams, 21 Sept. 1929, and n. 5. Shelley expert Roger Ingpen wrote on 18 Mar. 1930 to Frederick Page of OUP that in Sir John Shelley-Rolls’s MS of Shelley’s A Lament Shelley had first written line 8 as ‘Green spring, and Autumn [written above a heavily cancelled word beginning ‘su’, doubtless ‘summer’], and winter hoar’, and that in Shelley’s fair copy of the stanza the line reads ‘Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar’, i.e. it takes the familiar form which AEH had been dismissing. Carter and Sparrow in their appendix to AEH’s The Confines of Criticism (1969), 50, demonstrate that Ingpen’s report was ‘incomplete, misleading, and inaccurate’. 1 AEH’s suggestion was adopted and acknowledged in Shewring’s edn. with translation of the Passio SS Perpetuae et Felicitatis (1931).

178

Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 29 March 1930 My dear Richards, Yes, I should like to see the book,1 the more so as I thought that Willy2 had drunk himself to death long ago and that this was the reason why Colette was going on without him. You gave me some of your father’s copies of their books. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 338; Maas, 293.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 30 March 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose 24 pages of MS for Manilius V. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Richards Press Ltd. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 170.

TO M E S S R S DAV I S & O R I O L I Trinity College | Cambridge 2 April 1930 Dear Sirs, A little while ago I signed my name in a copy of A Shropshire Lad in your possession. I should be glad to know if you still have it, and what price you are asking for it. If it is sold, I should like to know who bought it, if that is not improper. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs Davis & Orioli SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. 1

Le Troisi`eme Sexe (1927). Pseudonym of Henri Gauthier Villars (1859–1931), husband of the French novelist Colette (1873–1954), with whom he collaborated in several books. ‘Colette and even Willy too, Housman read, and with pleasure’: Richards, 338. 2

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9 April 1930

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 7 April 1930 Dear Sirs, Messrs Collins’ request is flattering, but they cannot really be so hard up for specimens of good English as all that, and I shall not break my rule for them. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 172.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 9 April 1930 My dear Richards, I return Willy.1 A lot of second-hand stuff: such as scandal about Frederick the Great from the spurious Matin´ees, when he might have gone to Voltaire.2 I expect to be going to Paris for a fortnight early in June. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. Richards, 338 (almost complete).

1

See AEH to GR, 29 Mar. 1930. and n. 2. Les Matin´ees du Roi de Prusse (1766), sometimes attributed to Voltaire, was a pamphlet that discussed the homosexual activities of Frederick the Great. Voltaire began a correspondence with Frederick the Great (1712–86) in Aug. 1736. When Voltaire’s wife Emilie died in 1749, he finally accepted Frederick’s invitation to become Chamberlain at his court, and he remained there for three years (1750–3) before disagreements prompted his departure. 2

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Letters 1927–1936

TO C. RAL PH BEN N E TT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 16 April 1930 Dear Sir, I always say that the meaning of a poem is the meaning which it conveys to a reader. My opinion of the universe is of no particular importance, and if it is not well expressed in No. LXII of A Shropshire Lad,1 that does not much matter. I am obliged by the terms of your letter. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr C. Ralph Bennett | 2530 Scioto Street | Cincinatti | Ohio | U. S. A.’

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 April 1930 My dear Richards, Boulestin’s noble invitation is just the thing to draw me to London,1 which the Italian pictures did not.2 Of course lunch would suit me better than dinner, and I suppose you too; and no Wednesday nor Friday would be possible. I did not know of the white Haut Brion,3 and I see from Cassagnac’s4 book that it is a recent invention. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | The Cottage | Upper Culham | near Henley-on-Thames’ and redirected to Pavillon des Citronniers, Monte Carlo, Monaco. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 252; Maas, 293–4.

1

Terence, this is stupid stuff. ‘Xavier Marcel Boulestin (d. 1943), French music critic, novelist, theatrical designer and culinary expert, opened his London restaurant in 1925’ (Maas, 293 n.). Following a conversation with Richards, he invited AEH to lunch or dinner at the Southampton street restaurant: Richards, 251–2. At the dinner on 7 May 1930, the guests were AEH, GR, and A. H. Adair: Richards, 252. 2 See the letters to Mildred Platt and Dr Percy Withers, 31 Dec. 1929. 3 Bordeaux chˆateau famous for first-growth claret. GR had told AEH that Boulestin’s cellar contained some of the white, which is a rarity, and a bottle was drunk at the dinner: Richards, 252. 4 French Wines by Paul de Cassagnac, translated by Guy Knowles (1930). 1

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22 April 1930

TO M RS N. M . M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 21 April 19031 Dear Madam, I am much obliged by the kindness of your letter. Yours very faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs N. M. Martin | 2 Ashland Ave. | Folcroft | Pa. | U. S. A.’ and postmarked ‘21 IV 30’.

TO M O N I C A B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 22 April 1930 Dear Mrs Bridges, I write to offer you my sympathy in your loss,1 which indeed we all share in a measure; but of your husband’s departure it may be said, if of anyone’s, that nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail or knock the breast.2 A fortunate and honoured existence is ended in the fulness of time; life did not long outstay strength; and his poetry, though the vulgar could never admire it rightly, did at last win him fame even among the vulgar. For myself, I do not suppose that there is anything which I have read oftener than the first four books of Shorter Poems. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 119. 78–9. Maas, 294.

1 1

AEH’s mistake for ‘1930’, as noted in Naiditch (2005), 34. 2 Robert Bridges died on 21 April. Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1721–2.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 22 April 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose the manuscript of the preface to Manilius V. There is nothing more to come, except the index, which I cannot compose till all the rest is in print and in pages. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman The Richards Press. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 174.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 24 April 1930 Dear Sirs, All the volumes of my Manilius have been published at much less than cost price; and six shillings net, the same as book IV, is the price I should put on book V, which I think will not be much larger.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 176. Clemens (1941), 13 (nearly complete); Maas, 294.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 25 April 1930 Dear Sirs, Messrs Dodd Mead & Co.1 should be told that A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in the United States and they do not need my permission. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 177.

1

The Richards Press had proposed a price increase. American publishers, founded in New York in 1839 and so named from 1876. AEH omits the comma after ‘Dodd’. 1

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5 May 1930

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 25 April 1930 My dear Richards, Wednesday May 7 would suit me well for dinner. Please make B.1 understand that I appreciate his amiable invitation very much. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | The Cottage | Upper Culham | Henley-on-Thames’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 252 (excerpt).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 29 April 1930 Dear Sirs, As the printers appear to be speeding up, I should be obliged if you would tell them that it will be more important for me to have proofs of the last instalment of MS (preface) than of the last but one (orthographia codicum). Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 179. Clemens (1941), 13 (nearly complete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 May 1930 My dear Richards, I will come to Garlands’1 Hotel at 7. 55 on Wednesday. Yours A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | c/ E. Hemmerde Esq. | 1 Hare Court | Temple | E. C. 1’. LC-GR t.s.

1 1

Xavier Marcel Boulestin: see AEH to GR, 16 April 1930, n. 1. For ‘Garland’s’.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 6 May 1930 Dear Sirs, The Daily Mail has no business to do this. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 182. AEH encloses a press cutting (fo. 183) from the issue of 3 May, when Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries was printed without permission.

TO G. H . W I G G I N S Trinity College | Cambridge 10 May 1930 Dear Sir, I do not want an advertisement of my book from the Daily Mail. They ought simply to publish their regret that the poem was reprinted without my permission. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 1187. Maas, 295.

TO J O H N M A S E F I E L D Trinity College | Cambridge 11 May 1930 Dear Masefield, My purpose in writing is not chiefly to congratulate you that the King has made the choice which I should have made myself,1 but rather to warn you, if you need the warning, that you will now become the target for a good deal of spite, and to exhort you not to worry about it. You do not need to be consoled, as some Laureates might, for the vanished butt of Canary sack.2 1

Masefield was elected Poet Laureate on 7 May 1930. A ‘terse of Canary Spanish Wyne yearely’ was given to Ben Jonson in 1630, and a butt of sack is specified in the letters patent to Dryden, Shadwell, and Tate, and seems to have been continued till 1790, when the Laureate Henry James Pye petitioned to have it commuted for cash: Edmund Kemper Broadus, The Laureateship: A Study of the Office of Poet Laureate in England, with some account of the Poets (1921), 40, 227. Masefield ‘liked a simple diet and abstained from alcohol and tobacco’: Constance Babington Smith, John Masefield: A Life (1978), 220. 2

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11 May 1930

In sporting circles here they are asking the question: if Boar’s3 Hill get it three times, do they keep it?4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS Eng. lett. c. 255, fos. 155–6. Envelope addressed ‘John Masefield Esq. | Boar’s Hill | Oxford’. Maas, 296.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 11 May 1930 My dear Withers, Although you are not to be home till the 17th from the tour which I hope you are enjoying, I had better write to you while I am at leisure and thank you for your invitation. So far as I can judge, I shall be travelling to Worcestershire about August 8, and could take you on my way, as I did once before. Next month I expect to be going to France. I am rejoiced to hear of your return to wine-bibbing. Laurence of this College1 (I forget if you have met him) has been suffering from gouty eczema, well earned: his doctor limited him to whisky, and he made no progress. So he called in another doctor, who ordered him a bottle of Burgundy a day: he mended rapidly and is now well. I think Masefield is the right Laureate. The other poets in the same class were out of the question for one reason or another; and Newbolt,2 who would do the job best, is too little of a poet. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 98 (excerpt); Maas, 295.

3

For ‘Boars’. Like the previous Poet Laureate Robert Bridges, Masefield lived on Boars Hill, just outside Oxford. Triple winners of a sports trophy were customarily allowed to retain it. 1 R. V. Laurence. 2 Sir Henry John Newbolt (1862–1938), poet and barrister, who published several volumes of patriotic ballads and lyrics and vols. 4 and 5 of the official naval history of the 1914–18 war (1920). He was knighted in 1915 and made Companion of Honour in 1922. 4

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Letters 1927–1936

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge. 12 May 1930 My dear Laurence, The quotation is from Landor’s dialogue Aesop and Rhodope;1 but I would rather that you should send the information yourself, because if Ida sees the Cambridge postmark she will ask me to stay with her, as she has done before. No, I was not given the chance of being Laureate. I thought Masefield the right choice, as all the other good poets are too obviously unsuited for the official duties. Love to Clemence[.] Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 183; Maas, 296 (both incomplete).

TO J O H N D R I N K WATE R Trinity College | Cambridge 14 May 1930 Dear Mr Drinkwater, It is very contrarious, but I cannot take advantage of your kind invitation on either date. On the 18th a friend from Oxford is coming to see me, and on June 1 I shall be in the throes of leaving for the Continent. I wish it were not so. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Marquette University MS (Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, series 5, box 4).

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 15 May 1930 My dear Kate, Thanks: I return Jeannie’s letter. I expect to be at Tardebigge August 11 to 25. I am going to France for a fortnight early in June. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 30 . 1

In Walter Savage Landor’s Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans (1853).

187

21 May 1930

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Have Morgan and Pott1 (if that is their present style) a branch in London which practises as a travel agency, and if so at what address?2 A. E. Housman. 17 May 1930 Trin. Coll. Camb. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | The Cottage | Upper Culham | Henley-on-Thames’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 253.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 20 May 1930 Dear Roberts, I enclose a copy of Juvenal with the necessary corrections. I shall also have to write a preface to the 2nd edition; but this should keep you busy and happy for the present. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 15 . Maas, 296.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 21 May 1930 Dear Sir, I enclose corrected proofs of the text and notes of Manilius V. The additions and subtractions have been calculated so as to involve the least possible shifting of lines, and the printers should observe this and not resort to more change than is necessary. The text and notes can now be combined into pages. The utmost care should be taken that every note should begin on the page containing the line of the text to which it refers. This is not absolutely necessary, though desirable, in the case of two pages facing one another (e.g. 2 and 3), but it is absolutely necessary that when two pages are back to back (e.g. 3 and 4)

1 2

See AEH to GR, 14 Sept. 1929, and n. 2. AEH was planning a trip to Paris, where he met Edith Wharton: Richards, 253–4.

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Letters 1927–1936

the note should not begin on one when the line of text which it belongs to is on the other. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman The Richards Press Ltd. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 189–90.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 30 May 1930 My dear Kate, I shall leave here on Monday, sleep at Croydon, and fly to Paris on Tuesday for about a fortnight. If I do not come home alive, my book V of Manilius, all written and mostly printed, will be seen through the press by a Fellow of this college named Andrew Gow. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 31 – 2 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 1 Claremont | Exeter’. Maas, 296–7.

TO M . R . JA M E S 5 June 1930 I do not grudge this cruelly expensive post-card as a vehicle of congratulation; nor do I grudge the letters O. M., which you ought to have had before,1 but I apprehend that they should not be attached to the title of Provost2 in an address. Yrs A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7481/H132: p.c. Published in Richard William Pfaff, Montague Rhodes James (1980), 387. Naiditch (1995), 170, points out two errors in Pfaff ’s transcription.

1 2

James was awarded the Order of Merit on 3 June 1930. He had been Provost of Eton since 1918.

189

18 June 1930

TO G. H . W I G G I N S    | 35.37.39,   |  6 June 1930 Dear Sir, What business has Mr Ainley1 to be broadcasting my verses? Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 191.

TO R. S H A F E R 7 June 1930 Dear Sir, I will give you my permission to print VII and IX and XI from Last Poems, but on condition that you do not print more than five poems from A Shropshire Lad.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Mr R. Shafer BMC MS.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 18 June 1930 Dear Roberts, I much prefer A to B. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 16 .

1 Henry [Hinchcliffe] Ainley (1878–1945), English actor who specialized in Shakespearian roles. 1 In the revised (1931) edn. of his 1924 anthology From Beowulf to Thomas Hardy, 2. 768–71, Shafer printed ASL IV, VIII, XXXIV, XLVIII, and LXII, in addition to the three poems from LP.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 20 June 1930 Dear Sirs, Miss Booth may quote the stanza as she desires , if she can punctuate it correctly. I received from you rather more than a fortnight ago the final instalment of the preface to Manilius V. I suppose that you have not since received from the printers and forwarded to me the paged proofs of the text and notes. I ask, not that I think them overdue, but because in transmission to France there are sometimes losses in the post. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 197–8. After ‘desires’, the full stop is converted to a comma and the rest of the sentence is squeezed in. Clemens (1941), 13 (incomplete).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 27 June 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose 3 batches of corrected proofs to be put into pages. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Richards Press Ltd BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 202.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 29 June 1930 Dear Sirs, In the paged proofs of Manilius V which I received last week I find that the printers have inserted in p. 4 line 5 from the bottom a comma which was not previously there, and have altered strepitus to strepticus in p. 17 line 3 from the bottom. I shall therefore have to read these 94 pages through with minute care to find out what other pranks they have played. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 203–4. Clemens (1941), 13 (nearly complete); Maas, 297.

191

29 June 1930

TO H E NRY TO NK S Trinity College | Cambridge 29 June 1930 Dear Tonks, Ages though it is since we last met, I feel that on the occasion of your retirement I must write to congratulate you on the successful tenure of the Slade chair which you have brought to a close1 and to wish you contentment and happiness in your leisure. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS. Maas, 297.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 29 June 1930 My dear Richards, H. V. Carrington himself had sent me his list of Moselles, mentioning your name; but I have recently bought rather a lot of quite nice Moselle for ordinary drinking, and my cellar is full. Blette, the vegetable we ate at Auxerre, I have now seen at a greengrocer’s. It is something between a Cos lettuce and a cabbage: the edible part is the stem near the root. I had splendid weather in Paris, and motored out to a good many places I did not see two years ago. There is a nice little restaurant (very crowded on Sundays) called the Vanne Rouge, at Montigny-sur-Loing, south of Fontainebleau, right on the brink of the stream. I expect to stay here now into August. Hel`ene1 and her husband were here in my absence. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | The Cottage | Upper Culham | Henley-on-Thames’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 254.

1 1

Tonks was Slade Professor of Fine Art at London University, 1917–30. For ‘H´el`ene’.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO E D I T H W H A RTO N [Royal Monceau Hˆotel, Paris 30 June 1930] Dear Madam, [I had heard from] our friend, G. T. Lapsley [that you would] probably now be at home and might be willing to let [me] come and pay [my] respects to [you]. This I could do any time in this next week that might suit [you]. [Yours faithfully A. E. Housman.] Text reconstructed from Richards, 339 n. 1, with Lapsley’s initial corrected from J to T.

TO E D I T H W H A RTO N [Royal Monceau Hˆotel, Paris c.1 July 1930] Dear Madam, [I will come] with great pleasure [on Tuesday] but do not send to fetch me, as I have a tame motor, and the chauffeur is supposed to know all about the environs of Paris. The correct pronunciation of my name is Oozman: at least, when I gave it so to the commissionaire here, he said ‘‘vous parlez fran¸cais tr`es bien, Monsieur’’. [Yours faithfully A. E. Housman.] Richards, 339 n. 1.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 3 July 1930 Dear Sirs, Messrs MacLehose offer a vague general explanation which does not touch the peculiar mysteries to which I called attention. I can understand that strepitus on p. 17 may accidentally have been altered by the transposition of two of its nine letters, to streptius; but what I do not understand is what happened next. I should have thought that the compositor, if he suspected that something had gone wrong, would have looked at the proof, which must have been somewhere on the premises, and put it right; instead of which he seems to have gone to the case of type, picked out a tenth

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7 July 1930

letter, c, and stuck it in. And, similarly, whence came the intrusive comma on p. 4? It did not fall from the sky. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 208–9. Clemens (1941), 13 (nearly complete); Maas, 297–8.

TO H . E . BU T L E R Trinity College | Cambridge 6 July 1930 Dear Butler, I have not ever conjectured agris in Prop. IV I 124;1 but I had come to the opinion that the lake, being shallow, as its disappearance seems to indicate, would be tepid rather than cold. In repayment for your excerpts from examination-papers I send you, though it is a different sort of thing, a word of Ridgeway’s2 which was quoted to me the other day: ‘I’m not so deaf as the man who said family prayers kneeling on the cat.’ Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305. Maas, 427.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 7 July 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose corrected proofs of the preface to Manilius V, to be put into pages. Matters will have to be so managed that the table on slip 11 is not split in two. I also enclose MS of the page which is to face p. 1 of text and notes. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 210.

1 et lacus aestivis intepet Vmber aquis (‘and Umbria’s lake is tepid with summer waters’). Butler adopted the emendation agris for aquis in his 1933 edn. of Propertius, produced in collaboration with E. A. Barber. See AEH to Butler, 3 January 1930. 2 Sir William Ridgeway (1853–1926), Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge, 1892–1926; Brereton Reader in Classics, 1907–26; knighted, 1919.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 11 July 1930 Dear Sirs, 1. The table on slip 11 must not be shifted to any other place in the preceding or following type matter: if it is shifted at all it must have a page to itself. But I have been measuring, and I calculate that if the first page of the preface is made to contain only 18 or 20 lines, that will bring the table to the top of a later page. This will be very nearly what was done in book IV: I daresay the look of the first page will horrify you and the printers, but I do not mind. The blank space after line 14 could be widened. 2. Some time ago you wrote to me about the paper for this new volume, suggesting that it should be better and more durable. I in my ignorance had supposed that the paper of the others was rather good, and in I–III I thought it pleasing: the paper of IV is too thick, and I only acquiesced in it because I was told that the other had ceased to be manufactured. Perhaps you would let me know your ideas. The new paper ought not to be too unlike the old. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 212–13. Maas, 298. The last sentence in paragraph 1 is squeezed in.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 18 July 1930. Dear Sirs, I think it would be well to remind the printers that I cannot complete the index to Manilius V until I have the whole book in pages. The portions following the text and notes have been in their hands since the end of last month, and it cannot be a heavy job. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 214–15. Clemens (1941), 13 (nearly complete).

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28 July 1930

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 25 July 1930 Dear Mr Bynner, Of course I shall be very glad to see you and your friend1 if you come here. I shall be away most of August and perhaps the beginning of September. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/22. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | 342 Buena Vista Road | Santa Fe | New Mexico | U. S. A.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 27.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 28 July 1930 My dear Jeannie, I must begin by saying how delighted I am to hear that you are so much better, after the alarm I got from Kate some time ago. I only wish that Basil had mended at the same rate. I look forward to seeing you a fortnight hence; but I want to ask if I may come on the Tuesday instead of the Monday. The reason is that I had arranged to go to a friend in Oxfordshire from Aug. 8 to 11, and he has asked me to make it a day later. I should come by car as usual. I had a fortnight’s holiday in June in France, with the finest weather possible except one day. Love to Basil. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1 ‘Robert Nichols Hunt, who later edited Bynner’s Selected Poems (Knopf, 1936)’: Bynner/Haber (1957), 27 n.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO F. C. OW LE TT Trinity College | Cambridge 30 July 1930 Dear Mr Owlett, Many thanks to you for sending me your Chatterton1 in its finished form, which certainly is very finished. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘F. C. Owlett Esq. | 14 Queen Victoria Street | London E. C. 4’. Maas, 298.

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College 1 Aug. 1930 Dear Mr Clemens, As you seem to be making a stay in Cambridge, perhaps you and your friend would give me the pleasure of being my guests at dinner in Hall on the Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday of next week, coming to my rooms about 7. 50 p.m. We do not dress. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Columbia MS, A. E. Housman Collection, box 1. Envelope addressed ‘C. Clemens Esq. | Garden House Hotel’, and marked ‘Local’ by AEH. Clemens (1936), 9.

TO S T E P H E N G A S E L E E Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Aug. 1930 Dear Gaselee, I am going away on Saturday and had intended to be absent about 3 weeks, so that I can be back on the 30th to swallow your fragrant bait. I have abstained from getting the book you mention because it might conceivably, though not probably, delay me a bit in getting out my last book of Manilius. If it sticks to Nonnus,1 it cannot go much into the 1 Chatterton’s Apology; with a short essay on Blake and a note on Cowper, printed for the author by Thomas Knight & Co (1930). The main part of the book (pp. 9–28) is taken up by ‘An Imaginary Conversation between Chatterton, Burgum the Pewterer and Horace Walpole’. 1 Poet, fl. 5th cent. ; author of Greek epic Dionysiaca.

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8 August 1930

technical minutiae of astrology, and therefore will not be formidable in that respect. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/72. Naiditch (1996), item 45.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Aug. 1930 My dear Richards, I do not know who Mr O’Conor was, but probably an undergraduate reading for Part II of the Classical Tripos. But what in the world should you be buying letters of mine for?1 I am going away for three weeks on Saturday and shall spend most of the time in Worcestershire. My kind regards and condolences to Mrs Richards.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | c/ Edward Hemmerde Esq. K.C. | 1 Hare Court | Temple | E. C. 4’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 254 (excerpts).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Aug. 1930 Dear Sirs, Of these three specimens I like A best and prefer both A and B to C, because they seem to be of closer grain and likely to show up the small print, of which there is a great deal, more clearly. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 218.

1 See AEH to ‘O’Connor’, 6 June 1929. The letter had been put up for sale at Sotheby’s and bought by GR. 2 GR’s wife Maria was in bed following surgery to her leg.

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TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College 8 Aug. 1930 Dear Mr Clemens, It would have given me great pleasure to come to tea with you next Wednesday, as you kindly ask me, but to-morrow I am going away for a month. I am afraid you may not be here when I return, so I will wish you goodbye and all success. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Columbia MS, Housman Box.

TO M A RY W I TH E RS Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove 13 Aug. 1930 Dear Mrs Withers, We made a good journey, with one or two sharp showers, but not enough to make one regret having put down the hood. Views of course very clear, and the bit of country which was new to me proved quite interesting. I had a very delightful stay with you and am now as ever much in your debt. My brother is a good deal better than I expected. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove] 14 Aug. 1930 Dear Sirs, Mr Collins must be told that I do not allow poems from A Shropshire Lad to be included in anthologies. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 221.

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18 August 1930

TO I . R . B RU S S E L [Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove] 17 Aug. 1930 Dear Mr Brussel, I shall not be in Cambridge till the end of the month; but if you will then send the book to Trinity College, enclosing an envelope suitable for returning it, I shall be pleased to write my name in it, though I do not approve of the illustrations.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. 4. Envelope addressed ‘I. R. Brussel Esq. | 45 Gower Place | London W. C. 1.’, and bearing Bromsgrove postmark. White (1950), 406.

TO W. G. PA RTI NG TO N 1 [Trinity College | Cambridge]2 18 Aug. 1930 Dear Mr Partington I am naturally flattered by your proposal, and obliged to you for sending me the book; but you are like Wordsworth’s harper inciting the good Lord Clifford to war with France or Scotland: he ‘did not know For what a soul his ardent lay was framed’.3 Typography leaves me cold and limited editions are not to my taste. Nor indeed have I the material: there are indeed a few published things of mine which have not been reprinted, but I shall lend no aid to their discovery. The poem in The Venture reappeared in Last Poems,4 and I certainly never contributed anything to the Pall Mall Magazine or the Oxford Magazine. I am sorry if I disappoint you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1

It was probably, therefore, the illustrated edn. of ASL (1908). b. 1888, English man of letters. 2 The square brackets are AEH’s. He was still staying at Tardebigge. 3 Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, 157–8: ‘Alas! The impassioned minstrel did not know | How, by heaven’s grace, this Clifford’s heart was framed’. 4 The Oracles (LP XXV) first appeared in The Venture, ed. LH and W. Somerset Maugham, 1 (1903), 39, signed ‘A. E. Housman’. 1

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TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D The Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove 20 Aug. 1930 Dear Sirs, The dilatoriness of the printers is beyond all bounds. The addenda were in their hands, for correcting and paging, at the end of June, and the preface about ten days later. It cannot be a heavy job, and if the diagram appended to the preface offers any difficulty, there is no reason why the rest should wait for that. At present, not having paged proofs, I cannot proceed with the index. I wrote on the subject nearly a month ago, and was told that the men were on their holidays: are they not yet back? Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. I shall be at this address till Monday the 25th . BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 224–5. Clemens (1941), 13–14 (nearly complete; misdated ‘30 August, 1935.’).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D I received the batch of proofs,1 but the string round the envelope had come untied and the contents had almost escaped. A. E. Housman. 25 Aug. 1930. SIU MS VFM 1082: p.c. addressed ‘The Richards Press Ltd. | 90 Newman Street | London W. 1’. Bromsgrove postmark.

TO F RA NCE S F RE NAG E Trinity College | Cambridge | England 30 Aug. 1930 Dear Miss Frenage, There can be no doubt that ille in Luc. II 372 is Cato. No punctuation will affect the question. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Miss Frances Frenage | Six-twenty-nine A. Avenue | Colorado Beach | California | U. S. A.’ and redirected to ‘3817 Oak Rd., Philadelphia, Pa’. 1

Of Manilius V.

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10 September 1930

TO I . R . B RU S S E L Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Aug. 1930 Dear Mr Brussel, I shall be pleased to see you any time between 10. 30 and 1 on Tuesday. Yours very truly A. E. Housman Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘I. R. Brussel Esq. | 45 Gower Place | London W. C.’ HSJ 2 (1975), 18.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Sept. 1930 Dear Sirs, You tell me in your letter of the 18th ult. that the printers think there will be about 256 pages of Manilius V. According to my calculation there will only be about 230; but even so the volume will be considerably bulkier than any of the others. Therefore I think that the price should be 7/6, and that the paper, which you say is obtainable in various ‘weights’, should be rather ‘lighter’ than that used for books I and II and III, if it will be none the worse for that. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 227–8. Clemens (1941), 14 (nearly complete).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Sept. 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose for second corrections, which I hope will be final, the entire paged proofs of Manilius V, and also manuscript matter to be printed on p. xlvii. I shall now be able to send the MS of the Index within a week. I have made alterations in the title page. I am afraid I do not know the Latin for ‘Ltd.’, and if you value that term it must be added, as you suggest, in English elsewhere. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fos. 231–2. Clemens (1941), 14 (nearly complete); Maas, 299.

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TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Sept. 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose MS (31 pages) of Index for Manilius V. It may be put straight into paged proof without passing through the galley stage. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Richards Press Ltd. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 233. Clemens (1941), 14 (nearly complete).

TO J O S E P H I S H I L L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 17 Sept. 1930 Dear Mr Ishill, I am naturally flattered by your proposal; but I am averse to limited editions.1 It is true that I have lately allowed one to be printed in England,2 but that was because I felt an obligation to one of the persons concerned.3 But, as A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in America, you are of course at liberty to do whatever you like with it and snap your fingers at me.4 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Am 1614/73. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Joseph Ishill | Berkeley Heights | New Jersey | U. S. A.’ Maas, 299.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Sept. 1930 My dear Richards, I ought to write and say that I received your letter about your business prospects, which of course interested me very much, and I hope all will go well. 1 Ishill had asked if he might publish a limited edn. (50 copies) of ASL for distribution among friends: White (1959), 6. 2 The Alcuin Press edn. (1929). 3 F. L. M. Griggs or Percy Withers: see Richards, 213; Withers, 79–80. 4 ‘This I did not do’: Ishill to White, in White (1959), 7.

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19 September 1930

I forget if I told you that I have discovered the vegetable blette, which we ate at Auxerre;1 and therefore, as I may already have described it to you, I will not run the risk of repetition. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Sept. 1930 Dear Sirs, Messrs A. M. Heath & Co’s1 request2 must be refused. Mrs Gardiner has written to me and I have answered her in the same sense. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44923, fo. 236.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Sept. 1930 My dear Richards,] I agree with you in preferring the heavier weight and the white shade. But you seem to be wrong in saying that in these specimens the 98 lb. paper is creamy and the 100 lb. paper white. I am glad to see that the binders have stuck on the label right end up,1 and I hope they will repeat their success when the book is issued, for the first copies of books III and IV had it upside down. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Clemens (1941), 14.

1 1 1

See AEH to GR, 29 June 1930. London literary agency, founded in 1930. On a mock-up copy.

2

To quote from ASL..

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Letters 1927–1936

TO M . R . JA M E S Where in Dickens is this? ‘‘ … the Swan of Avon. I refer,’’ said Mr , ‘‘to Shakespeare’’.1 Probably you can answer straight off: if not, never mind. A. E. Housman. Trin. Coll. Camb. 23 Sept 1930 CUL Add. MS 7481/H133: p.c.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Sept. 1930. Dear Mr Wilson, Thank you for sending me your pamphlet, which I have read with great interest; and I admire your spirited action. But in spite of all your merits you will not see me at Willington. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 299, where it is wrongly dated 27 Sept. 1930.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Sept. 1930 Dear Sirs, The specimens of the cover of Manilius V which you have sent me do not carry out my corrections of the title-page. There was an addition to be made. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 1.

1 It is not in Dickens, and it has not been traced. See AEH to James, 26 Sept. 1930 and notes. It was Ben Jonson who first called Shakespeare ‘Sweet Swan of Avon’: To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare, And What He Hath Left Us, 71.

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29 September 1930

TO T H E R E V D A . Y. C A M P B E L L Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Sept. 1930 Dear Campbell, I am flattered by your letter and obliged by your communication, which I think I partly understand. The ‘series of breakfasts’ is not clear to me. It is vexatious that neither of the new papyri contains the passage. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO M . R . JA M E S Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Sept. 1930 My dear James, Many thanks. I do not think Miss Pinkerton1 is what I was after, and perhaps I read it in some other author, or dreamt it; but it seemed so like Mr Pecksniff that I looked through Martin Chuzzlewit and then wrote to you.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7481/H134.

T E S T I M O N I A L F O R W. H . S E M P L E Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Sept. 1930 Learning that Mr W. H. Semple is a candidate for the Professorship of Latin in the University of Bristol I have great pleasure in saying that I am sure he is well qualified for such a post. When Mr Semple came to Cambridge as a research student he was placed under my direction, and I was immediately struck by his possession of judgment and maturity much in advance of his years. He pursued his studies with intelligent industry and sound method, and the result, now published as a part of the Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society, is an examination, based 1 2

In Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. See AEH to James, 23 Sept. 1930, and note.

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on full knowledge and conducted with great exactness, of many difficulties in the letters and poems of Apollinaris Sidonius which constitutes a notable advance on his predecessors and a valuable contribution to the understanding of the author. I expect from Mr Semple in the future even more distinguished work. A. E. Housman. Manchester MS (box A).

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Sept. 1930 Dear Sir, I am flattered by the invitation of your Association, but I have never lectured except when there was a sort of obligation to do so, and I hope that they will not mind if I only thank them and decline it, as I have declined many others. A second edition of my Juvenal is to be issued by the Cambridge Press next spring. I was born in a house called The Little Valley (to distinguish it from The Valley Farm on the other side of the road)1 about two miles north-west of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, in the parish of Catshill, near the hamlet of Bourneheath. From 1860 to 1873, and again from 1877 to 1882, I lived at Perry Hall in Bromsgrove, at the foot of the church hill. From 1886 to 1905 I lodged at Byron Cottage, North Road (no. 17 I think),2 Highgate; and the whole of A Shropshire Lad except no. XIV was written there.3 It is, or was, very pretty, and well worth photographing. The other houses do not matter, and I have forgotten some of them; the one I liked best, and lived in from 1873 to 1877,4 has been utterly ruined. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. 1 Naiditch (2005), 1–2, demonstrates from census results that AEH is mistaken, and that he was born at the Valley House, near the Clock House, in Fockbury, as KES maintained. 2 He is right. 3 AEH consistently gave 1886 as the date when he began writing the poems of ASL. The first poem from ASL in his notebook is not, however, XIV but XL, on page 63. XIV is on page 82. Naiditch (1995), 104, thinks that ‘if the statement in the letter is correct, then Housman blundered’. This may be so, but it is also possible that ASL XIV was written during an absence from Highgate. See Poems (1997), Introduction, lv. 4 Fockbury House (known as The Clock House), a seventeenth-century building. KES in Recollections, 12: ‘The house had no gas, no water taps, no drainage, and it was far from the

207

30 September 1930

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Sept. 1930. My dear Withers, I am glad you have made up your mind to come here next month. Thursday the 16th will suit me well, as would any day that week except the Friday; but there is no longer any difference between Thursday and the other days of the week. My August holiday was cold, but not bad in other respects. The nectarines and peaches on our wall here, an abundant crop, were wholly or partly ruined by the weather; the figs however were very good. In the vale of Evesham the plums were so many that they were selling on the roadside for next to nothing. Black currants, grown on a great scale by my sister-in-law’s family, fetched in the Birmingham market exactly the price of the baskets in which they were sent. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Sept. 1930 Dear Sirs, Here is the last day of September, and I begin to wonder whether the book will be out before Christmas. The printers have had the MS of the Index for a fortnight, and the corrected proofs of the rest for three weeks. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 2. Maas, 300.

School, town, and our father’s office; but it was a good place for children. It had originally been the home farm of the estate, and in addition to its large garden and its orchard we had the range of farm buildings with rick-yards, barns, lofts, and cart-sheds. Near us, besides woods and lanes, fields, pools, and brooks, were friendly farms dotted about the neighbourhood, part of our grandmother’s property, affording us truly exciting playing places. … The whole of this countryside delighted A.E.H. When first we moved to Fockbury he made walking for the love of it his chief recreation.’ The house was demolished in 1976: Page, 23.

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TO I . R . B RU S S E L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 30 Sept. 1930 Dear Mr Brussel, Pray accept my best thanks for the handsome volume which you have been kind enough to send me.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr I. R. Brussel | The Sesphra Library Service | 433 Hopkinson Avenue | Brooklyn N. Y. | U. S. A.’ and redirected to 1625 E. Parkway. HSJ 2 (1975), 18. ‘Sesphra’ should be ‘Sephra’.

TO F. C. OW LE TT Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Oct. 1930 Dear Mr Owlett, I shall be very glad to help in raising the fund which you are starting in recognition of Watson.1 I might be able to get George Trevelyan,2 Lowes Dickinson, and my brother Laurence, but I will not approach them till you have secured your President and Treasurer. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection.

1 Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV notes that the letter’s being addressed to a library service ‘makes the transaction to be one of business’: HSJ 2 (1975), 18 n. 4. Tom Burns Haber, A. E. Housman (1967), 119, states that ‘in his latter years’ AEH subscribed to the New York-based service and received such volumes as James Branch Cabell’s The Cream of the Jest (1917) and Jurgen (1919) and of Theodore Dreiser’s autobiographical Dawn (1931). 1 The poet William Watson (1858–1935), who published several vols. indebted to Tennyson. His Collected Poems appeared in 1899 and 1906. 2 See List of Recipients.

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6 October 1930

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Oct. 1930 Dear Sirs, The covers of Manilius V, of which I keep one and return the other, are now correct. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 4.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Oct. 1930 Dear Sirs, I wish only 400 copies to be printed of Manilius V. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 6.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Oct. 1930] Refuse.1 A. E. H. Note added to t.s. letter from Charles W. L. Orr to the Richards Press, 6 October, 1930 (SIU MS VFM 1082). Richards, 254.

1 Orr had proposed to publish some settings of poems from ASL with the ‘Universal Edition, Vienna’, and had requested permission to have a German translation printed along with the English.

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TO F. C. OW LE TT Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Oct. 1930 Dear Mr Owlett, I am not prepared to sign your letter;1 and though Kipling and Masefield might be more goodnatured, I feel sure that they would not like signing it. In style it is not sedate and business-like prose; and its expressions of opinion, even supposing that they are entirely just, are inopportune, provocative, and likely to injure your cause; for you know that Watson’s work does not now stand high in general esteem among literary people. In my opinion he has chiefly brought this on himself by contentedly writing rhetoric instead of poetry for the last 40 years or so. Wordsworth’s Grave is one of the glories of English literature, and a few more poems of about the same date had the same quality; but the best things he has written since 1890 have the merits of epigram rather than of poetry. I should advise you to get a poet to write the Letter for you, because poets’ prose is generally prosaic, as it should be. The obvious person to ask is the Poet Laureate;2 the person whom I should expect to do it best is Mr Laurence Binyon,3 who is probably more in sympathy with Watson’s manner than most others now are. Or Sir Henry Newbolt. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS. Maas, 300.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Oct. 1930 Dear Sirs, I acknowledge receipt of cheque for £45. 11. 7. You have my permission to print 5000 copies of the small edition of A Shropshire Lad. But I thought that this was stereotyped; in which case it ought not to be necessary for me to see the proofs: though I do remember that once an alteration was surreptitiously made on the metal. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 8–9. 1 An appeal on behalf of the poet William Watson. See AEH to Owlett, 3 Oct. 1930, and AEH to Blakeney, 25 Nov. 1930 and n. 3. 2 3 John Masefield. See List of Recipients.

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22 October 1930

TO C L AU D E C O L L E E R A B B OT T Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Oct. 1930. Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your poems,1 which I have read and found fresh and pleasing. I thought the last two lines on p. 9 particularly good.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Durham University Library MS, Abbott Papers, Box 4. Envelope addressed ‘C. Collier Abbott Esq. | King’s College | Aberdeen’. (‘Collier’ should be ‘Colleer’.)

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Oct. 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose the proofs of Manilius V with about 20 new corrections, mostly very minute. I also enclose a correction for the Index. To make the printers understand that they must not make corrections on their own initiative, you might point out to them the stupid ‘correction’ their reader has made on p. xxvii, which I have had to scratch out. With perfect confidence, without even a query, he has put a full stop in the middle of a sentence. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 12–13. Clemens (1941), 14 (nearly complete).

1

Ploughed Earth: Poems (1930). The closing lines of Bird Nesting: ‘Who walks far off with all a sunny day | And boyhood’s happiness for company’. 2

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Oct. 1930 Dear Sirs, I do not allow my poems to be printed on programmes. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. In answer to your letter of yesterday’s date.1 BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 15.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 27 Oct. 1930 My dear Roberts, You postponed the second edition of my Juvenal to suit my convenience, and, though I have now finished the new and additional preface, I am not in the least impatient to see the book appear: the only reason why I now write is this. In the new preface there are many references to the pages of the old. It would therefore be most convenient if that could be reprinted page for page as it stands; but this I suppose would be difficult, and rendered slightly more difficult by the few small changes I have made. The next best thing therefore would be that the numbering of the old pages should be given in the margin, and, consequentially, that the pages should have no numbering at the top, since it would confuse the reader; and, for the same reason, the arabic numbering of pages should begin, not, as usual, with the text, but with the second preface. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 17 . Maas, 300–1.

1 Requesting permission to reprint In the morning, in the morning (LP XXIII) in the programme of a recital by Miss May Chapman to take place at Southend on 4 Nov.

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3 November 1930

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Oct. 1930 Dear Sirs, I return corrected the paged proofs which I received this morning. Yours faithfully A E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 17.

TO G E O RG E B E L L & S O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 2 Nov. 1930 Dear Sirs, For many years past I have made it a rule not to allow poems from A Shropshire Lad to be printed elsewhere; and I may add that I am no better pleased than Horace was at the thought of being used in schools.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Reading MS (Bell Archive 6089)

TO THE MIDLAND BA NK LTD Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Nov. 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose cheque for twenty guineas for the Sir William Watson Testimonial Fund Account. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Midland Bank Ltd. BL Add. MS 48980, fo. 29.

1 Horace, Epistles, 1. 20: see AEH to Drinkwater, 3 Oct. 1927. Bell & Sons wished to include AEH’s poems in an anthology for schools by D. Shillan.

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TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Nov. 1930 Dear Sirs, The corrected proofs which I sent you on Oct. 22 must now have been in the printers’ hands about 12 days, and as the corrections could easily be made in one hour I suppose they will only take about 12 days more. In the mean time I write to say that I wish the book to be advertised on its appearance both in the Classical Review and the Classical Quarterly; and it will be necessary for me to see the advertisement in proof, as the advertisement of vol. IV ten years ago was incorrect. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 18–19. Clemens (1941), 14 (nearly complete); Maas, 301.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Nov. 1930 Dear Sir, There is nothing in Tib. III 5 which would suggest to me that it was by Propertius or that it was of other authorship than the rest of the book. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Yale MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Nov. 1930. Dear Sirs, I wrote to you on Monday or Tuesday about the delay of the printers and about advertising Manilius V on its publication; and as I have had no reply, and another letter posted at the same time has not reached its destination, I am in doubt whether you received the one posted to you. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 21–2.

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13 November 1930

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Nov. 1930 Dear Sirs, I have not seen proofs embodying the corrections which I sent you on Oct. 22; but perhaps it was not necessary, as they were few and slight. I will send you shortly a list of persons to whom copies ‘from the author’ should be sent, and another /list/ of the journals, British and foreign, which should receive copies for review. Do not go beyond it: the Classical Quarterly, which you mention, does not review books. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 23–4. Clemens (1941), 14 (nearly complete).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Nov. 1930 Dear Sirs, I thought that you would by now have been able to assure me that my last lot of corrections was actually inserted before the printing began. If not, it must stop. It was begun without my permission, and therefore I cannot feel as sure as I should like that the corrections were first carried out. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 25. Clemens (1941), 14 (nearly complete); Maas, 301.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 13 Nov. 1930 Dear Witter Bynner, I am sorry that I am not to see you at the beginning of next year: I hope it may be before the end. I am much in your debt for the two books. Indian Earth1 is fresh and striking. Of Chinese poems2 I generally feel that, while they are free from 1

Published in 1929. In The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology, being Three Hundred Poems of the T’ang Dynasty translated by Bynner from the texts of Dr Kiang Kang-hu (1929). 2

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the usual vices of western poetry, they have not enough positive virtue. Your translation keeps a high level of purity and simplicity, and there are lovely lines, such as the last two on p. 57.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/23. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | 342 Buena Vista Road | Santa F´e | New Mexico | U. S. A.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 28. (AEH writes ‘F´e’ for ‘Fe’.)

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D [Trinity College c.14 Nov. 1930] The lady1 is not clever, nor even very intelligent, and to the interpretation of Lucan she contributes nothing. She collects from prose authors parallels to parts of Lucan: they yield no particular result, and the more important are not new; but the assemblage is greater than would be found in any one place elsewhere. Much space is wasted on analysis. Still there are many emptier pamphlets in the Library, and I think it might be bought, especially as it will be pushed by her teacher Jacoby2 and his circle. A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 21 . AEH’s reply is written below a request from Scholfield for a report to the Book Recommendation Sub-syndicate of the University Library, Cambridge. Henry Maas, ‘Additions and Corrections to The Letters of A. E. Housman’, HSJ 2 (1975), 34.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Nov. 1930 Dear Mr Wilson, My other works are editions of Latin poets: Juvenal 1905, Lucan 1926, Manilius in five volumes from 1903 to the present year (the last should appear next month). They would do your students no good, and great part of them is written in Latin. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | Watling Villa | Willington | Co. Durham’. ‘And I feel no change, though the mountain darkens | And cloudy autumn heaps the sky.’ Marie Wuensch in Lucan-Interpretationen (Leipzig and Berlin, 1930). 2 Felix Jacoby (1876–1959). Professor at University of Kiel, 1906–34, and editor of the monumental collection of fragments (i.e. quotations in other writers) of the incomplete or lost Greek historians. He had some twelve Ph.D. students at Kiel, all in classical philology. Wuensch’s vol. was purchased for CUL. 3 1

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25 November 1930

TO G A I L L A R D L A P S L E Y Trinity College 23 Nov. 1930 Dear Lapsley, Many, many thanks. Unfailing love and modern standards is an imperishable expression which I shall carry to my own Grass Vault. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS.

TO E . H . B L A K E N E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Nov. 1930 Dear Sir, I am naturally flattered by your solicitude for my miscellaneous writings, but I so little share your desire that when I next make a will I intend to forbid their collection and republication.1 A list of them down to 1926 was privately printed here by A. S. F. Gow, and after my death it can easily be brought up to date and issued to the public.2 Thanks for your stanza on Watson. The appeal published the other day3 seemed to me so injudicious in its terms that I could not bring myself to sign it, nor, I suppose, could Masefield; and I know that others signed it with great reluctance, fearing that it would defeat its purpose, which they thoroughly approved. I am glad to hear that the fund is prospering.4 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Tipped-in in Blakeney’s copy of M. Manilii Astronomicon Liber Secundus (1912). T.s. copy: BL Add. MS 48980, fo. 15. Letters from A. E. Housman to E. H. Blakeney (Winchester 1941); Maas, 302.

1 AEH’s will of 17 Nov. 1932 stated: ‘I EXPRESSLY DESIRE and wish my desire to be made as widely known as possible that none of my writings which have appeared in periodical publications shall be collected and re-printed in any shape or form and I expressly forbid the bank to allow the re-printing of any such articles the copyright of which is vested in myself.’ 2 This was done in Gow, 63–137. See AEH to Gow, 18 Mar. and 4 June 1926. 3 In The Times, 3 Nov. 1930, the appeal described Watson as ‘a lord of language … in the Miltonic tradition’. Signatories included Lascelles Abercrombie, Barrie, Binyon, Blunden, de la Mare, Drinkwater, Elgar, Galsworthy, Lloyd George, Kipling, Mackail, and Shaw. 4 See AEH to the Midland Bank Ltd, 3 Nov. 1930.

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TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Nov. 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose lists of the persons to whom presentation copies of Manilius V should be sent, and of the journals to which copies should be sent for review. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 30.

TO M O N I C A B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Nov. 1930 Dear Mrs Bridges, The inscription1 was composed in Latin by Dr Bridges himself, who only asked me to trim it for him, and I made as little change as possible. The form of the proper names is his own, and I approve it. Roberti and Harrietta would be sham Latin, as the names of course were not known to the ancients, and Elizabetha would be positively wrong, for Elizabeth in the Latin Bible, as in the Greek, is not inflected. The Latin does mean that the widow spent 19 years of widowhood at Yattenden;2 and if that is not true it will want altering as you say. I hope that you and yours are well; but your son must not hope for heaven if he writes MCMXXX for MDCCCCXXX. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 119. 80–1. Maas, 303.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Nov. 1930 Dear Sirs, I agree that the proofs of the advertisement are unsatisfactory. For one thing, ‘accedunt addenda libris I II III IV’ should be one line, as I made it; and the insertion of full-stops and commas after the numerals is 1

For the gravestone of Bridges’ mother in Yattendon.

2

For ‘Yattendon’.

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28 November 1930

particularly silly. The advertisement of book IV filled half a page (I enclose a copy, which please return), and so should the present one if possible. Time does not press: the Classical Review will not appear before the middle of December, and the Classical Quarterly not till January. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 31–2. Clemens (1941), 14–15 (nearly complete); Maas, 302.

TO E . F. C O L L I N G WO O D 1 Trinity College 28 Nov. 1930 Dear Collingwood, 1. At the Audit feast the sherry started on its rounds only from the Master’s left (his less honourable side), and if I had not made a row, most of those on his right would have finished their soup long before it reached them. 2. I am tired of writing in the suggestion book about Irish Stew and saying that it ought to have lots of potato and lots of onion. On the last occasion it not only had neither but was strangely and shockingly garnished with dumplings. 3. Which reminds me that it must be 3 years since I have eaten boiled beef in Hall. Now that you have moderated the chef’s passion for boiled mutton, he might consent to cook it now and then. 4. I was sitting last night next the Professor of Agriculture,2 to whom I related my success in introducing leeks to the High Table and my failure to introduce salsify. He was much surprised: at St John’s they have both frequently as a matter of course. I write to you because I am told that when the world is out of joint you are the only means to set it right.3 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS Letters c. 1 144 . Maas, 303–4.

1

1900–70. Mathematician. Elected Steward of TCC’s high table, 1930. Frank Leonard Engledow (1890–1985). Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, 1919–85; Drapers Professor of Agriculture at Cambridge, 1930–57. 3 Hamlet, 1. 5. 189–90: ‘The time is out of joint. O curs`ed spite | That ever I was born to set it right!’ 2

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Letters 1927–1936

TO M E S S R S C H AT TO & W I N D U S Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Nov. 1930 Dear Sirs, I am obliged by your letter and flattered by your proposal, but a similar proposal was made to me some time ago by the Oxford University Press, and therefore, if I ever publish the writings you mention, which is not at all likely, they will have the first claim on me. Many thanks for Mr Huxley’s book. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Reading MS 2444.

TO G. H . W I G G I N S Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Dec. 1930 Dear Sir, The advertisements are right in all essentials. As to the spacing of the letters I rather agree with you. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 35.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College 5 Dec. 1930 Dear Sirs, Thanks for your note about the publication of Manilius V. I should like to have six copies. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 37.

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11 December 1930

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Dec. 1930 Dear Sirs, The Journal of Roman Studies is published by the Society for the promotion of Roman studies at 50 Bedford Square W. C. 1. I should be glad if you could let me know how many copies of Manilius II, III and IV respectively remain unsold. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 39.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1930 My dear Kate, I am very sorry to hear of Edward’s illness and your anxiety. Asthma, whether ‘cardiac’ or not, is a horrid thing, and I am glad that he is not in pain. My poor gondolier1 is dead, after a bad pulmonary attack of about three weeks. Now there is nobody in the world who respects me as much as Noble2 did. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS. Facsimile in Pugh (1974), Appendix F, lxxx–lxxxi. A copy is in Lilly MSS 3.1.10.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1930 Dear Sirs, I enclose cheque for £277. 7. 6 in payment of Messrs Maclehose’s1 bill. I should like to have a copy of the items to keep. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Richards Press Ltd BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 43. 1 1

2 Andrea. Identified by Graves, 247, as the Housman family’s dog. For ‘MacLehose’s’.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1930 My dear Roberts, I have just received proofs of the first preface to Juvenal. Please do not let the printers go on to the text at present; for what must come next is the second preface, of which I will send the MS immediately. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 18.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Dec. 1930 My dear Laurence, I hesitated before opening this envelope, which seemed to be impartially addressed to you, me, and Quiller-Couch. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 3. 1. 10 (copy).

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Dec. 1930 My dear Roberts, As the copy1 in which I made the corrections has not been returned to me I cannot certify that they have all been inserted, but I am willing to assume that they have, and I do not suppose that I need see a revise. But the list of MSS will have to disappear from p. xxxviii, because the second preface will begin on p. xxxvii.

1 ‘The ‘‘copy’’ is part of book three with our [?last] proofs in one batch’: pencil note (not in AEH’s hand) written on the MS.

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15 December 1930

The manuscript of the second preface I will send you by hand on Monday morning. It must first be set up in what I believe you call galley proofs, not in pages. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Corrected proofs enclosed. CUL Add. MS 7735 19 . Maas, 304.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S [Trinity College] Second preface to Juvenal. A. E. Housman 15 Dec. 1930 CUL Add. MS 7735 20 .

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 15 Dec. 1930 Dear Scholfield, I shall now be bringing out an editio minor,1 and even after that I shall keep the photographs2 as long as I live. I had thought of bequeathing them to the Trinity Library:3 you ought to be able to give me impartial advice. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 22 . Maas, 304.

1

2 Of the Manilius. Of MSS of Manilius. As Scholfield had suggested. AEH’s will did not arrange this, but LH gave them to Trinity College Library. 3

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Letters 1927–1936

TO P RO F E S S O R C A M I L L E M C C O L E Trinity College | Cambridge | England 15 Dec. 1930 Dear Professor McCote,1 I am afraid I can no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat. We both recognize the object by its effect on our senses. For instance, if a line of poetry comes into my head while I am shaving, the hair bristles on my skin, and I have to stop.2 Text from David Randall, Dukedom Large Enough (1969), 166. First printed in Andrew Smithberger and Camille McCole, On Poetry ( c.1930), 164–5.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Dec. 1930 Dear Mackail, I am glad of your approbation and grateful for your condolence and congratulation;1 though the condolence is not needed, for I am always glad when a job is finished. I shall now be bringing out an editio minor, just text and apparatus in one volume; but it will be a thin octavo, not suitable for your genteel pocket, as I want a roomy page. I do not mean to impoverish myself any more for the public weal, and I have no doubt that either of the University presses would undertake it. The Cambridge Press has volunteered to produce a new edition of the Juvenal, which is now printing. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.11. Hawkins (1958), 188–9; Maas, 304–5.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College | Cambridge 19 December 1930 Dear Roberts, I am not revising the text and notes of Juvenal till they are complete and till I get back the copy of the book;1 but I notice some stupidities. I do not know why they should desert (as at I 44) the system by which in 1 2 1 1

For ‘McCole’. AEH repeats the substance of the letter in NNP 46–7; Ricks (1988), 369–70. On the publication of Manilius V. See AEH to Roberts, 13 Dec. 1930, and note.

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26 December 1930

the first edition (as at I 98) a note on one verse is separated from a note on another, for it is lucid and an aid to the reader; but when in similar circumstances the space separating two notes on different words in the same verse is abolished (as at III 37 and still worse in the last line of p. 49) the damage is serious. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 21 . Maas, 305.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Dec. 1930 Dear Sirs, The proofs of covers and labels of books II and III which I return herewith are correct. You have not yet answered, as you said on the 8th that you would, my question about the number of unsold copies of books II III and IV;1 and in the meanwhile I am perplexed by the conduct of booksellers. Deighton Bell & Co in this town, when selling copies of III and IV to a friend of mine the other day, told him that they were the last and that there were no more to be had; and Basil Blackwell at Oxford has been stating for a year or more that II is out of print. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 46–7. Clemens (1941), 15 (nearly complete); Maas, 305.

TO J O S E P H I S H I L L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 26 Dec. 1930 Dear Mr Ishilf,1 Pray accept my thanks for your kind gift of The Soul of Japan2 from the Oriole Press. It is really too good for me, because I am not educated to appreciate beauty of typography. 1 At this stage, 44, 80, and 181 respectively. By 16 Feb. 1931 (BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 53), when the binders had unearthed more copies, the Richards Press told AEH that the stock at the end of 1930 stood at 90, 123, and 176 respectively. 1 For ‘Ishill’. 2 By Elie Faure (1873–1937), translated by the publisher’s wife, Rose Freeman-Ishill, 1930: White (1959), 8.

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The pompous edition of A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems was printed at the Alcuin Press, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, and published by The Richards Press, Ltd, 90 Newman Street, London W. 1, in 1929; but /I/ believe that all the 300 copies were sold before publication. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard University bMS Am 1614/73. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Joseph Ishilf | The Oriole Press | Berkeley Heights | New Jersey | U. S. A.’ Maas, 306.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 26 Dec 1930 Dear Scholfield, What Deighton Bell & Co. told you is merely part of the conspiracy among book-sellers to restrict the sale of my graver works. Of vol. III, though the binders have lost or mislaid some 40 copies, there remain about 80, and of vol. IV about 180. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 23 . Maas, 306.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Dec. 1930 My dear Jeannie, This is to thank you for your Christmas letter and to send Basil and you my love and best wishes for the New Year. I am very glad that things are going better with Basil than a month ago. Edward’s illness is pretty much what might have been expected, as he is older than the rest of us and has been getting slow and lethargic for some years past. I have just published my last book, so I am ready to die to-morrow, and look forward to becoming slow and lethargic myself, as I shall now have no important work to bother about. However, I am all right at present, and taking my food nicely. Kind regards to all your family. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Graves, 248 (brief extract).

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27 December 1930

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Dec. 1930 My dear Withers, Between a Feast last night and a dinner-party this evening I sit me down to thank you and your wife and family for their Christmas greetings and wish you all a happy New Year. Rutherford’s daughter, married to another Fellow of Trinity, died suddenly a day or two ago;1 the wife of the Emeritus Professor of Greek,2 who himself is paralysed, has cut her throat with a razor which she had bought to give her son-in-law; I have a brother3 and a brother-in-law4 both seriously ill and liable to drop dead any moment; and in short Providence has given itself up to the festivities of the season. A more cheerful piece of news is that I have just published the last book I shall ever write, and that I now mean to do nothing for ever and ever. It is one of my more serious works, so you will not read it. I am glad that there is a chance of seeing you again in Cambridge before so very long. I hope and believe that the 1908 port will last out till then. Trusting that you are in rude health I remain Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 76 (excerpt); Maas, 306–7.

TO WA LTE R A S H BU RNE R Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Dec. 1930 My dear Ashburner, As you are generally good enough to send me your works, I will try hard to live till your loathsome tit-bits of Criminal Jurisprudence appear.1 Connected as you are with Italy, England and the United States, it may interest you to learn that Mussolini and I are honorary vice-presidents of the Mark Twain Society.2 In company, I ought to add, with less distinguished persons. A cousin of the author’s, a Mr Cyril Clemens, a very vacuous young man, has been going about Europe this summer 1 Eileen Fowler, wife of R. H. Fowler, F.R.S., died in childbirth on 23 Dec. 1930: Maas, 306 n. 2 3 4 A. C. Pearson. Basil. Edward Symons. 1 Ashburner had been Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford, 1926–9. 2 See AEH to Clemens, 2 Feb. 1927.

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Letters 1927–1936

establishing ‘centres’, and stayed here for some time trying to improve his mind. I see you are still at the old address: I thought you were going into a villa. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. NLS MS 20369. Ashburner/Bell (1976), 24.

TO H E NRY S TUA RT J O NE S Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1930 Dear Stuart Jones,1 I am afraid that this note is belated. For the true meaning of λαικάζειν (fellare) see Heraeus in Rh. Mus. LXX p. 38 note; though he has no right to say that it also means cunnum lingere. λεσβιάζειν and λεσβίζειν also have the former sense and not the latter, which is φοινικίζειν: see Kroll Paul.-Wiss. XII p. 2100. I do not think there is any place where λαικάζειν means wench. I ought to have said at the proper time that καταπύγων is nothing so vague as the lexicon says but precisely cinaedus.2 So let me say now, before the proper time, that this, not pedico,3 is what πόρνος means in ‘‘Dem. 1489. 3.’’ Theramenes is φίλος Παυσανίᾳ τῷ πόρνῳ because ‘‘pulchre conuenit improbis cinaedis’’. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman To-day, by the way, is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. H. D. Jocelyn, ‘A Greek Indecency and its Students. ΛAIKAZEIN’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, 206 (1980), 37.

1 Stuart Jones was revising Liddell and Scott’s Greek–English Lexicon. In the 1925 preface AEH was credited with never failing to provide a solution to the thorny difficulties encountered in dealing with astrological vocabulary. In the 1940 postscript it is recorded that the late Professor Housman was among those who read the proofs. 2 3 A catamite. A sodomite.

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31 December 1930

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Dec. 1930 My dear Kate, In returning Jeannie’s letter, which I have accidentally torn in half, I wish a happy New Year to you and Edward. I was very glad to hear from your postcard how well he is going on, and I hope that you are not tiring yourself out. The last volume of my great work is now published, and now perhaps I shall have leisure to improve my mind and prepare to meet my God. Christmas here has not been very gay, as Sir Ernest Rutherford’s only daughter, married to another Fellow of the College, has died suddenly, and the wife of the Emeritus Professor of Greek, who himself is paralysed, has cut her throat with a razor which she had bought to give to her son-in-law.1 I do not much expect to be going away anywhere before the beginning of next term. At dinner last night a man from London was praising the superiority of the Cambridge air, which is not generally admired. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 33 – 4 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 1 Claremont | Exeter’.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 31 Dec. 1930 My dear Laurence, Answering a lot of letters and then tearing them up I tore up yours without having answered it, and I cannot now remember if it required an answer. There was something in it about F. C. Boden’s Pit-head Poems1 which somebody sent me three years ago. There was some good in them, and I find that I marked the last stanzas of 11 and 12. Then I heard that a subscription had been made to send him to one of the provincial universities. Whether it is a kindness I do not know, for I should hardly

1 1

See AEH to Withers, 26 Dec. 1930, and notes. Frederick C. Boden, Pithead Poems (1927).

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Letters 1927–1936

expect him to come to very much. I doubt even if Edmund Blunden will, who impressed me most among the younger generation. Anyhow a happy New Year to you and Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1931 TO A L I C E ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Jan. 1931 Dear Lady Rothenstein, When anything of this sort happens to a friend of mine,1 I always write to his wife, if he has one, and if I have the honour of her acquaintance, because she is the person who is chiefly concerned and who takes most pleasure in it. I therefore send you my warm congratulations (from which I do not altogether exclude Sir William), and my earnest hope that you will not be stuck up. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS 1148 (740) 47. Maas, 307.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Blette (that is how to spell it) is also called Poirée, and in English is Leaf-beet, Seakale-beet, Swiss-chard-beet, in botany Beta Cicla.1 It belongs to the genus Chenopodium or Goose-foot, as your newspaper said. The leaves can be cooked like spinach. A. E. H. 12 Jan. 1931 Trin. Coll. Camb. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 255; Maas, 307.

1

A knighthood was conferred on Rothenstein in the New Year Honours list. AEH and GR had eaten the unusual vegetable at Auxerre in 1927: AEH to GR, 29 June 1930. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

TO E . L . B. M E U R I G - DAVI E S Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Jan. 1931 Dear Sir, I am glad if my Lucan is of use outside the circle for which it was meant; for I suppose that you are not yet an editor.1 Perhaps some day you will tackle Columella,2 a very unpretending fellow. The questions you ask are questions to which I do not really know the answers.3 I am Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. LC-GR1: t.s. copy.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Feb. 1931 Dear Sirs, It would be absurd to send a copy of Manilius V to The Listener.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 52. Maas, 307 (incomplete).

1 The edn. of Lucan was published in 1926 editorum in usum (‘for the use of editors’). P. G. Naiditch, HSJ 29 (2003), 66–8, establishes that the phrase is ‘meant in part to be identifiable with elementary instruction, and thus it is a calculated insult’. 2 Meurig-Davies had urged AEH to edit Columella. 3 Meurig-Davies, a seventeen-year-old undergraduate, had asked ‘those maddening general posers about life and literature which one is so ready in one’s teens to thrust both at oneself and everybody else’: Meurig-Davies to Richards (LC-GR1 MS). 1 The BBC magazine’s assistant editor had requested one, stating that it would be reviewed by the editor, R. S. Lambert.

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16 February 1931

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Feb. 1931 Dear Mr Wilson, You probably are not deluded by any expectation of seeing me in Durham; but still it is kind of you to ask me. I am sorry to hear of your mother’s illness and hope that she is better. Yours very truly A. E. Housman SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection.

TO P E T I C A RO B E RT S O N Trinity College 8 Feb. 1931 Dear Mrs Robertson, I have to thank you for another pound of the priceless (in every sense) sugar. Sir Robert Walpole said that women who will not take money will take diamonds; so I am saving up. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO I . R . B RU S S E L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 16 Feb. 1931 Dear Mr Brussel, I find it a trouble to invent titles for poems, and do not think it worth while.1 I am not alone in this: for instance many of Bridges’ Shorter Poems have no titles. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. Envelope addressed ‘Mr I. R. Brussel | 1625 Eastern Parkway | Brooklyn | N. Y. | U. S. A.’ White (1950), 406; Maas, 308.

1

Even so, 16 of the 63 poems published in ASL and 17 of the 42 in LP have titles.

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Feb. 1931 My dear Richards, I have not heard anything about the Richards Press. Certainly I should be ready to see you and pleased to have you here.1 There is some good in Middle Earth.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 255 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Feb. 1931 My dear Richards, I heard from Elkin Mathews & Marrot this morning and have put them off. Now you will have to convince me that you are better than Peter Davies,1 who has long been asking to have the books,—or else the classical books, I am not sure which. Your young man brought the Chateau Grillet safe.2 Thanks for it: it is a wine I like, and I suppose that 1915 was good on the Rhone as well as in Burgundy. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 255–6 (incomplete). 1 GR to AEH, 18 Feb. 1931 (LC-GR t.s.): ‘Something, I do not know what, is happening at The Richards Press. General gossip in the trade says that the business is in process of being sold to Elkin Mathews and Marrot.’ GR then asks to come and discuss the possibility of the transfer of AEH’s publications should such a sale go through. 2 ‘A new book of poems of which I myself thought very well … by Gamel Woolsey, a young American woman…. Later he gave me back the book and I saw with interest with what care he had read it, care that I found later he gave to almost any book that came his way which had any claim on his interest. Thus on page 15 he has pointed by a note in the margin to the rhyming of ‘‘dawn’’ and ‘‘horn’’; he has also drawn attention to the line ‘‘You’d feed me brown bread, chicken white’’, to the fact that ‘‘peacocks with a thousand eyes’’ was sheer Christina Rossetti, that ‘‘under bare apple boughs’’ was Swinburne, to the use of ‘‘will’’ instead of ‘‘shall’’, and so on’: Richards, 255. 1 Peter Davies (1897–1960) set up his publishing business in 1926. 2 GR had Pat Lawrence, an undergraduate at Corpus, deliver a bottle of Ch. Grillet 1915 to AEH: Richards, 255.

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24 February 1931

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [22 Feb. 1931] Wednesday not Tuesday PM MS: telegram to Grant Richards, 26 Stanford Road, Kensington. Date as postmark. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Feb. 1931 My dear Richards, On Tuesday we have a sort of Feast, to which I cannot invite you, because four days’ notice is necessary. On Wednesday I lecture at 11, but ought to be back soon after 12. I will order a cold lunch that you may not be anxious about times. I suppose you will be sleeping in Cambridge, and I might be able to get you a bed in College if you preferred it, though our Guest Room has been the scene of a fire. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Feb. 1931 My dear Richards, There will be a bed for you, and a dinner. The Elkin Mathews people ask me to suspend my decision till next week. Yours A. E. Housman PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s.

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TO WA LTE R M A K I N Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Feb. 1931 Dear Sir, The Richards Press has always treated me very well and I have no inclination to seek another publisher; but if it is made over to or merged in another firm, I shall prefer to transfer the books to their former publisher Mr Grant Richards. Yours very truly A. E. Housman W. Makin Esq BL Add. MS. 44924, fos. 54–5.

TO R . W. C H A M B E R S Trinity College| Cambridge 26 Feb. 1931 Dear Chambers, Many thanks to you and Grattan1 for your learned and scientific enquiry. Did you ever hear of the newspaper which reported an address of mine ‘On the application of thought to sexual criticism’?2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 8781/194. Maas, 308.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Feb. 1931 Dear Sirs, The Cambridge University Press has offered to produce a second edition of my Juvenal which is now printing and should be out before June.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45. 1 John Henry Grafton Grattan (1878–1951), Lecturer in English at UCL, 1912–30, Professor of English at Liverpool University, 1930–43. He collaborated with Chambers on The Text of Piers Plowman: Critical Methods (1916) and also published Our Living Language: A New Guide to English Grammar (1925) and an edn. of The Owl and the Nightingale [?1935]. 2 Instead of The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, delivered at Cambridge on 4 Aug. 1921 and published in Proceedings of the Classical Association, 18 (Aug. 1921). 1 The Richards Press had asked AEH whether he intended to publish a new edn.

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1 March 1931

TO L. W. PAY NE Trinity College | Cambridge | England 1 March 1931 Dear Mr Payne, In spite of your courteous and amiable letter I will not assist or encourage young men to write theses on ‘The art of A. E. Housman’.1 All that need be known of my life and books is contained in about a dozen lines of the publication Who’s Who (A. & C. Black Ltd., 4 Soho Square, London, W. 1), which probably circulates in America. I have received a good many similar enquiries and have answered them much in the same way; so do not feel hurt. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Texas MS. Maas, 309.

TO A R N O L D RU B I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 1 March 1931 Dear Mr Rubin, I am glad to have news of you, and interested to hear that you have returned from North Carolina. As you ask about my doings I may say that I have published the 5th and last volume of my chief work, an edition of the Latin astrological poet Manilius. I do not send you a copy, as it would shock you very much; it is so dull that few professed scholars can read it, probably not one in the whole United States. But I rank much higher among English scholars than among English poets. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45. Naiditch (1996), item 46.

1 ‘This thesis by Ouida Mary Valliant, a pupil of Payne’s, was completed in 1931. It has not been published’: Maas, 309 n.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 March 19311 My dear Richards, The University Press have volunteered to bring out a new edition of the Juvenal, which is to appear before June. I fancy the price is 10/6. Yes, I was aware of Churchill’s misquotation.2 A letter from the Richards Press leads me to suppose that the deal is not completed. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq., | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’.

TO L E T T I C E D ’ OY LY WA LT E R S Trinity College | Cambridge 6 March 1931 Dear Sir, You have my permission to include my Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries in your anthology,1 provided that you print it as it appears in my book, and introduce no improvements, as some anthologists have done. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. L. D’O. Walters Esq. BMC MS.

1 The postmark on the envelope is 3 Mar. 1931, which lends weight to the note on the LC-GR3 t.s. copy querying the date 23 Mar. 1931 on the autograph MS: AEH is clearly replying to GR’s letter of 2 Mar. (LC t.s.) which asked ‘Did you know that Churchill had made use of your poem?’ The date should therefore be 3 Mar. 1931. 2 On p. 7 of The World Crisis: 1911–1918 by the Right Honourable Winston S. Churchill (revised edn., Feb. 1931), the first two verses of ASL XXXV (On the idle hill of summer) are used as an epigraph. In l. 2, ‘flow of streams’ is misquoted as ‘sound of streams’, and there is a superfluous comma after ‘louder’ in l. 6. 1 Probably Anthology of Recent Poetry, first produced in 1920 and revised in subsequent edns.

239

13 March 1931

TO R E G I NA L D H AC K F O RT H Trin. Coll. 12 March 1931 Dear Hackforth, The average Englishman is a sexual monomaniac; and if you and I have escaped the taint we may be thankful. I am quite accustomed to having my contributions rejected,1 and I may say with Mr Pecksniff ‘Do not weep for me: it is chronic.’2 The last occasion was when one editor of the Classical Quarterly, having heard me read a paper, asked me to let them have it, and his colleague declined it without consulting him.3 You seem to have behaved with strict propriety.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 11242 : a copy in an unidentified hand. Maas, 309.

TO D. S. RO B E RT S O N Trinity College 13 March 1931 Dear Robertson, It does not seem to me that ualet is a sufficiently good opposition to minima, whereas frequens would be just right. I hear from Hackforth that I have been causing you some trouble and perhaps polluting your mind.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

1 ‘Praefanda’, a note on textual problems relating to sex in the Latin poets, had been accepted by the CQ and was in proof (Gow, 76) when it was suddenly rejected. Gow, in a note on the verso of TCC Add. MS c. 11242 , thought R. S. Conway, who was a member of the journal’s Management Committee, responsible, but D. S. Robertson (see next letter) may have shared the responsibility. ‘Praefanda’ was published in Latin in the German periodical Hermes, 66 (6 Oct. 1931), 402–12 (Classical Papers, 1175–84). An English translation by James Jayo appeared in Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics (Boston University, Fall 2001), 180–200. 2 3 Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. 9. See the note on AEH to Hall, 15 Jan. 1923. 4 As Editor, with J. D. Denniston, of CQ. 1 See n. 1 on previous letter.

240

Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 March 1931 My dear Richards, I am leaving Cambridge on Thursday, but letters arriving here down to Saturday evening will be forwarded: after that I shall have no address for a fortnight. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s.

TO M E S S R S D O D D, M E A D & CO Trinity College | Cambridge | England 18 March 19131 Dear Sirs, I am obliged by your letter of the 6th inst., but I should never take part in bringing out a signed edition of any book of mine. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. 2 Messrs Dodd Mead & Co. BMC MS.

TO OX F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S, NE W YO R K Bordeaux 25 March 1931 HJS/RB

Dear Sirs, In view of the smallness of the book I have made the rule that not more than five poems from Last Poems should be included in any anthology. You are at liberty to print any five of the six which you name; and I suggest

1 2

For ‘1931’. The letter bears the firm’s stamp ‘MAR 28 1931’. For ‘Dodd, Mead’.

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12 April 1931

that you should omit the Epitaph, of which people must be getting tired, and which is not really one of my best. The copyright is entirely my own, and I do not charge any fee. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Oxford University Press, New York. Worcester College, Oxford, MS 387. Envelope addressed ‘The Manager | Educational Department | Oxford University Press | 114 Fifth Avenue | New York’, with ‘États unis | d’Amerique’ in the bottom L. corner.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Bordeaux 12 April 1931 Dear Mr Witter Bynner, Under special circumstances I have twice sanctioned an edition de luxe of A Shropshire Lad,1 but I dislike such things and have sworn that I will never do it again; so that even the prospect of a preface by you will not move me. Also I object to combining the two books.2 But, as you know, the earlier book is not copyright in America, and I shall not feel the slightest grievance whatever may be done with it: only I do not give my sanction. I am hoping to see you in England some time this year. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/24. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | 342 Buena Vista Road | Santa Fé | New Mexico | États Unis d’Amérique’. Bynner/Haber (1957), 29. AEH writes ‘Fé’ for ‘Fe’.

1 The edns. were by Warner (1914) for the Medici Society: Riccardi Press Books, no. 7; and by the Alcuin Press (Chipping Camden, 1929). See letters to GR of 1 Apr. 1914 and to Withers of 15 Jan. 1929. 2 See AEH to GR, 5 Oct. 1924, and note.

242

Letters 1927–1936

TO G U N D R E D S AVO RY Trinity College | Cambridge 15 April 1931 Dear Miss Savory, Many thanks for your kind letter,1 which came while I was abroad. I remember your name at University College, and I shall be pleased to write my name in your books, if you will send them in a way which will make it easy for me to return them. Nature meant me for a geographer,2 but I had to abandon the study on rising above the lowest form at school. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Miss Gundred H. Savory | 96a Lower Addiscombe Road | Croydon’.

TO M O N I C A B R I D G E S Trinity College | Cambridge 15 April 1931 Dear Mrs Bridges, The letter J did not exist in ancient times, and when I write inscriptions myself I never use it, and try, sometimes in vain, to prevent the stone cutter from inserting it. But in such a detail I probably followed, in my copy, the original in Dr Bridges’ handwriting. If ejus /and jacet juxta/ /are used/, consistency would require hujus and cujus. The phrase which I took for te decet hymnis was not familiar to me, and I supposed that the construction was elliptical (for te decet hymnis celebrare or the like). But as you seem to know it, and to know that hymnus is the regular form, it is probable that I miscopied what Dr Bridges wrote.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I have been abroad and only came home yesterday. Bodleian MS, Dep. Bridges 119. 82–3. Maas, 310.

1 Gundred Savory in the Birmingham Post, 22 June 1937, quoted in Richards, 331: ‘on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, I wrote to wish him well, and to thank him, not only for A Shropshire Lad, but also for the memories of thirty years before’. 2 She had told AEH that she had become a lecturer in geography. 1 The phrase is te decet hymnus in Sion, from the Vulgate’s Ps. 64: 3.

243

15 April 1931

TO J. DA RLI NG TO N Trinity College 15 April 1931 Dear Sir, I regret that the enclosed was brought to my rooms and that I opened it without looking at the address. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. J. Darlington Esq. Private MS. Christophe Stickel cat. 14, no. 276.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 15 April 1931 Dear Sirs, I am just returned from a month’s absence abroad. 1. Mr E. V. Vale’s request must be refused. 2. I have forgotten all about Sir H. Robertson,1 but no doubt I gave permission as usual to the publication of the setting. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 59.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 April 1931 My dear Richards, I was interested in your account of the Rothenstein dinner.1 Mackail, of whom you speak so disparagingly, is a remarkably handsome man.2 I have just come back from nearly a month in the South of France, Pyrenees and Bordeaux; at which last place I ate for the first time in my 1 For ‘Roberton’: The setting of Bredon Hill for male choir by Sir Hugh [Stevenson] Roberton (1874–1952) was published in 1931. 1 To celebrate his knighthood, a dinner for about fifty people was held at Kettner’s restaurant. See AEH to Alice Rothenstein, 1 Jan. 1931, and note. 2 GR to AEH, 27 Mar. 1931 (LC-GR t.s.): ‘Mackail was there too, reminding me faintly of you—a kind of watered-down version.’ Cf. GR’s account (Richards, 256 n.): ‘I wrote that Mackail had a fine head, reminiscent of Housman’s own, but not so forceful. ‘‘Disparagingly’’ was Housman’s joke.’

244

Letters 1927–1936

life garlic soup, called tourin blanchie or tourin Bordelaise: very good, though it contained an egg, which I thought irrelevant. Never go to Narbonne: I don’t add Quillan, because no one would think of going there, unless mad like me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 256; Maas, 309–10.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 April 1931 My dear Withers, I rejoice at the prospect of seeing you this term, and May 13 would suit me quite well; but May 14 would be even better, because that is our Ascension Feast: only then you would have to encumber yourself with an evening suit. I took my long holiday at Easter (Pyrenees and south of France) and shall be here all June; and I shall be peculiarly grateful if I may pay you my visit sometime in the week 15th –20th , when Cambridge is least habitable. I am very glad to hear better news of your son. My kind regards and thanks to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 74 (excerpt).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 May 1931 My dear Richards, Many thanks indeed for the Carte Gastronomique, which is a great possession. I don’t however trust it implicitly. In 1919 I stayed a fortnight at Brioche and paté1 de foie gras was unprocurable. Also it gives no idea of the wine district round Chablis.

1

For ‘pâté’.

245

15 May 1931

I have copied out the poem. What I told you probably was that I no longer copy out poems for admiring strangers, as I once or twice did long ago. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 256.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 5 May 1931 Dear Sirs, I beg to acknowledge receipt of cheque for £43. 19. 9. The type of Manilius V may be distributed. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 63.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 14 May 1931 Dear Sirs, Mr Ellingham1 is welcome to use No. XXV of Last Poems as he proposes, if he thinks he can print it correctly; but this is found very difficult by persons to whom I give such permission. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 65. Printed by Henry Maas in HSJ 2 (1975), 34.

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 15 May 1931 Dear Mr Clemens, I have much pleasure in returning the copy of Last Poems, signed, under a separate cover, with greetings to the Society. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Cyril Clemens | Mark Twain Society | Webster Groves | Missouri | U. S. A.’ 1

A Mr C. J. Ellingham.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 22 May 1931 Dear Sirs, Messrs Nelson & Sons must be told that I do not allow poems from A Shropshire Lad to be included in anthologies. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 67.

TO A R N O L D RU B I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 22 May 1931 Dear Mr Rubin, The translations in this book1 are not the first things of mine which appeared in print; but I have made and initialled a correction of a misprint on p. 109.2 I am amused to hear of Dr Einstein3 being your guest: certainly a great honour to the Group.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. White (1950), 407.

TO A R N O L D RU B I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 27 May 1931 Dear Mr Rubin, I must begin by thanking you for your good-will and for the compliment you pay me in dedicating your sonnets to me. I do not like criticising verses and presuming to sit in judgment on them. But there are now living hundreds of people who can write sonnets which 1 Odes from the Greek Dramatists, ed. Alfred W. Pollard. (1890). The volume contained AEH’s renderings of odes from Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Thirteen pieces by AEH had been published before 1890: The Death of Socrates (1874), A Rhapsody, The Sailor-Boy, Tennyson in the Moated Grange, Jones His Repartee, Over to Rome, and The Eleventh Eclogue (all 1878), Parta Quies and New Year’s Eve (1881), A Morning with the Royal Family (containing seven poems) and Hendecasyllables (1882), Fragment of a Greek Tragedy (1883), and (thanks to his father) the corrupt Hypermnestra (1884). 2 See AEH to Witter Bynner, 4 Jan. 1928. 3 Albert Einstein (1879–1955), who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. He spent the winter of 1930–1 at Pasadena, California, as visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology. 4 Rubin’s Literary Group: see AEH to Rubin, 16 Oct. 1929.

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4 June 1931

are technically perfect, and therefore there is not much room in the world for sonnets which are not. Your skill is defective: for instance, in the second sonnet, the words lie in verse 5 and within in verse 6 are inappropriate, and the one was forced upon you by the rhyme and the other by the metre. And I do not think that the verses have so much poetic quality as to make one forget technical deficiencies. Certainly I shall hope to see you here if you come to England. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Arnold Rubin | 365 Grand St. | New York City | U. S. A.’

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 4 June 1931 Dear Mr Wilson, My feelings are much the same as Huxley’s;1 but in my case school is not the cause, for I was quite uninfluenced by my school, which was a small one. I think the cause is in the home. Class is a real thing: we may wish that it were not, and we may pretend that it is not, but I find that it is. Thanks for your kind enquiries: I had a month’s fine weather abroad. I am sorry to hear of your mother’s state of health. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Maas, 310.

TO I . R . B RU S S E L Trinity College | Cambridge 4 June 1931 Dear Mr Brussel, I expect to be here all this month except from the 15th to the 20th , and I should be pleased to see you if you pay Cambridge a visit. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘I. R. Brussel Esq. | 322 Camden Road | London N. 7’. HSJ 2 (1975), 18. 1 Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), novelist and essayist. Huxley looks to have been expressing an opinion privately, perhaps in response to a question from Wilson.

248

Letters 1927–1936

TO H A RO L D W I L E N S K Y Trinity College | Cambridge | England 6 June 1931

Dear Mr Wilensky, I am flattered by your consulting me, and I will give you the best advice I can. You ask what I should do if I were in your place. I should do what I did in my own. Anything is better than trusting to literature for a livelihood; and if I had tried it I should have starved. I earned my bread by teaching. I did not enjoy it, and some of my pupils in London did not care for anything beyond passing examinations. Things are much worse in America, I suppose; but still I advise you to keep literature for an occupation of your leisure and not to make it your trade. I am yours truly A. E. Housman.

Yale MS (Vault: Housman). Envelope addressed ‘Mr Harold Wilensky | 201 Henry Street | New York City | U. S. A.’

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 12 June 1931

My dear Jeannie, It is some time since I have heard from any member of the family (and also no doubt some time since any member of the family has heard from me), but I hope that you and Basil have been going on reasonably well. If I remember right, you kindly invited me to stay with you at some date this year and I proposed August 10–24. I have always realised that when the time came the state of Basil’s health might upset the arrangement, and so I have not regarded it as a certain fixture; but what has now happened is that a man who has bought Artornish1 in Argyllshire wants me to go to him for a week from August 19th . I said I should prefer the 24th , but that does not suit with his plans. So I am now writing to you to ask if it would suit you that I should leave you on the 19th , and whether you would prefer me in that case to come earlier than the 10th . If you wish to stick to the original arrangement, I will do so as well; for I am not really very anxious to go to Scotland. Love to Basil. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Partial facsimile in Superior Auction Galleries, 2 Feb. 1994. no. 24.

1

For ‘Ardtornish’. But see AEH to Withers, 20 Dec. 1931.

249

23 June 1931

TO H . W. H E T H I N G TO N [Trinity College | Cambridge c.17 June 1931] I thank you // for the terms in which you have /conveyed/ to me the generous proposal of your Committee to number me among the recipients of Honorary Degrees in the University of Liverpool. My sense of the honour /designed/ for me is high, and my gratitude proportional; and if I nevertheless ask leave to decline it, as I have declined similar /distinctions/ // /placed within my reach/ by the kindness of other Universities, I trust that I may not be deemed thankless in /thus/ adhering to a resolution taken long ago and founded on reasons which still seem to me sufficient, though they could not /be/ briefly or easily // expressed. I am, with sincere obligation, yours [A. E. Housman.] Lilly MSS 1. 1: draft in pencil on verso of t.s. letter from H. W. Hethington, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 23 June 1931 My dear Roberts, I return the proofs and revises1 which I received on the 20th . I am indebted to the proof-corrector, who must have taken a great deal of trouble. Where I have scratched out his ‘?’, that means that the correction is to be made. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 773522 .

1

Of the second edn. of the Juvenal.

250

Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 24 June 1931 My dear Richards, I shall be passing the night of July 10 (Friday) in London. You were kind enough to say that you had a bed in your bijou residence, and if it is empty and you are there I should much like to occupy it. I should also like to take you and Mrs Richards to dine with me somewhere; and if you will come I should be obliged if you would select the restaurant and order the dinner, for which I give you carte blanche. I shall not have evening dress with me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 256; Maas, 311.

TO W I L BU R C RO S S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 25 June 1931 Dear Mr Cross, No, I am afraid there is no possibility. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Yale MS. Envelope addressed ‘The Editor of the Yale Review | P.O. Box 1729 | New Haven | Connecticut | U. S. A.’

TO I . R . B RU S S E L Trinity College | Cambridge 2 July 1931 Dear Mr Brussel, You overwhelm me with benefits. I have begun Babbit,1 so my opinion of Cabell2 must be postponed. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘I. R. Brussel Esq. | 322 Camden Road | London N. 7’. HSJ 2 (1975), 19. 1 2

Correctly, Babbitt, a novel by Sinclair Lewis (1922). James Branch Cabell (1879–1958), American novelist.

251

20 July 1931

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS I think of coming to London on Friday by the train which gets to Liverpool Street at 6. 10, so I suppose I ought to reach your doorstep before 7, even in the present state of traffic. A. E. H. 7 July 1931. Lilly MSS 2: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 26 Stanford Road | Kensington | W. 8.’ PM MS (copy in Richards’s hand). LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 July 1931 My dear Richards, Thanks for Pinchbeck Lyre,1 which I return. It seems to have more spite than wit. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 257.

TO L A S C E L L E S A B E RC RO M B I E Trinity College | Cambridge 20 July 1931 Dear Mr Abercrombie, Naturally I am flattered by the terms of your letter, but my last poems have already been published, and a posthumous poem would be premature. My barrenness is so well known that my absence from your miscellany,1 to which I wish all success, is not likely to cause remark. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Lascelles Abercrombie Esq. | 7A Stanley Gardens | London W. 11.’

1 The mock-eulogy of a dead poet, An Unterrestrial Pity: being Contributions towards a Biography of the late Pinchbeck Lyre by Orpheus Scrannel (pseudonym of John Gawsworth) was published in 1931. 1 New English Poems: a miscellany of contemporary verse never before published, collected by Lascelles Abercrombie (1931).

252

Letters 1927–1936

TO LO U I S E M O RG A N Trinity College | Cambridge 23 July 1931 Dear Madam, I am grateful to you for sending me the interview with Mr Yeats,1 but not even gratitude will induce me to be interviewed myself. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082. Maas, 311.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 23 July 1931. Dear Sirs, Mrs A. M. Henderson1 must be told that I do not allow poems from A Shropshire Lad to be reprinted. It so happens that I have received this morning a Tauchnitz edition (vol. 5000 of their series) of a book called Anthology of Modern English Poetry by Levin L. Schücking which contains two poems, Nos. IV and XLVIII, from A Shropshire Lad, without consent from me. I presume the Anthology was originally an American book, and Mr Schücking was of course quite entitled to include the poems, as A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in America; but I thought that British copyright holds good on the Continent, and that Tauchnitz would have no right to print the poems without my consent, although the book is ‘not to be introduced into the British Empire’. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 59–60. Maas, 311.

1 The interview of W. B. Yeats by Louise Morgan, editor of the London Everyman (1930–3), was published in Writers at Work (1931), 1–9. It is reprinted in W. B. Yeats, Interviews and Recollections, ed. E. H. Mikhail (1977), 2. 199–204. 1 Compiler of Attractive Readings in Prose and Verse (1932), which contained nothing by AEH.

253

30 July 1931

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 29 July 1931 Dear Sirs, So long as you are carrying on your publishing business as heretofore I do not propose to take my books away. I heard a report that you were likely to be giving it up, and I wished to be prepared for that event. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. Ms 44924, fo. 73.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 30 July 1931 My dear Jeannie, If all goes well I shall come to you by car on Tuesday Aug. 4, probably getting to Tardebigge about 3 o’ clock in the afternoon, and hoping to find you both pretty well. I will do what I can to bring fine weather with me, but I have none at present. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 30 July 1931 Dear Sirs, Please tell Mr Benturich not only that I do not allow poems from A Shropshire Lad to be reprinted but that I have a particular dislike to their use in schools. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 75.

254

Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Trinity College | Cambridge] 6 Aug. 1931 Dear Sirs, As I grow old, I suppose I am losing my memory. I have no recollection of acceding to Tauchnitz’s request, and I do not know why I did; but they would hardly say that they had my consent in writing if it were not true, so the matter had better be left.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 77–8. The brackets round the address are AEH’s.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Aug. 1931 Dear Sir, I return your copies of A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems with my signature. The missing comma and semicolon on p. 52 of the latter mean that it belongs to the first issue (4000 copies) of the first edition. Yours very truly A. E. Housman SIU MS VFM 1082. White (1950), 407–8.

TO G E O RG E S JA M I N [Trinity College | Cambridge]1 [20 Aug. 1931]2 Dear Sir, I thank you for your translations, which seem to me natural and straightforward. I am not enough of a French scholar to judge of their literary merit; but when I return to Cambridge at the end of this month (for I am now travelling about) I will take the opinion of friends who know the language better. Meanwhile I send some remarks on particular points. I have tried to express the meaning in French, but I daresay my French is often incorrect. 1 1 2

See AEH to the Richards Press, 23 July 1931, and to GR, 13 Nov. 1931. The square brackets enclosing the address are AEH’s. The date ‘20 Août, 1931’ is written on the MS, possibly in the recipient’s handwriting.

255

21 August 1931

I must apologise for having addressed you wrongly. There is a French lady who also wrote to me a few years ago about translating A Shropshire Lad; and I, remembering George Dandin3 and forgetting Georges Clemenceau,4 imagined that Georges was the feminine form of the name and that you were she. I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO H . E . BU T L E R Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove [4–21 Aug. 1931] Dear Butler, I think it much most likely that Propertius had no definite idea what he meant; but in view of time the verse ought to have reference to καταρχαί and to mean that for him it will be dangerous to set out on a journey, or to marry, or to undertake any other piece of business when the Moon is in Cancer. terga Cancri, i.e. testudo Cancri, is probably a periphrasis for the whole sign, and sinistra means ominous,1 without reference to such subdivision as you find in Firmicus. I shall be chasing you to the Hebrides as far as Ardtornish. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Exeter College, Oxford, MS ([E. A.] Barber Papers, box R.I.7.A).

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N 21 Aug. 1931 , | , | .1 My dear Jeannie, As you see, I have reached my destination, after changing at Stafford, Crewe, and Stirling, and waiting an hour or so at each place; so even if I had taken a sleeper I could not have laid my head on its uneasy pillow till after 2 a.m. About meals there was no difficulty. It rained continuously 3 4 1 1

Character in Molière’s play Le Mari Confondu (1668). 1841–1929. French Prime Minister, 1906–9, 1917–20. In 4. 1. 150. AEH’s only visit to Scotland.

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through the north of England and the south of Scotland, but improved when the train turned west. However, I have got very wet this morning on the moors in the bracken. I hope Basil is going on more easily, and I am in debt to both of you for a very pleasant stay in spite of the weather. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Housman | Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove’.

TO M R S OW E N S M I T H [Trinity College | Cambridge c.29 Aug. 1931] After a very calm voyage to Oban and a train journey in which the evening light on the hills at the top of Loch Awe was about the most beautiful I ever saw, I am safe home again, and congratulate myself on having made my first acquaintance with Scotland under your auspices. [I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Text from Nicholas Goodison, ‘Housman in the Highlands: A Poet’s Argyllshire Holiday’, Country Life, 25 Oct. 1973, 1276.

TO G E O RG E BA R N E S Trinity College 30 Aug. 1931 Dear Sir, I have been away from Cambridge for a month. I now return the book with lettering corrected. The division IVVE-NALIS is the practice in Latin inscriptions and ancient manuscripts. SATVRAE I have struck out as being superfluous, and also in order to conform with my other books. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Please look at p. xl, mutilated since I saw it last G. R. Barnes Esq. CUL Add. MS 773523 . Maas, 312.

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TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Sept. 1931 My dear Kate, Well, I came back here at the end of last month after eight days in Argyllshire and in the only good weather I got while away. The scenery was exactly what I had supposed it would be, and quite good of course, though not my favourite sort:1 an artist there2 whom I knew was however much delighted, especially with the atmospheric conditions and haziness. One of my fellow guests was an immensely distant relation of ours, Richmond Palmer, now governor of the Gambia,3 who has called on me several times at Cambridge. He knew the Housmans at Lancaster, and told me that Fanny Ellwood, née Housman, died some weeks or months ago. She must have been a great age, for when I was 6 she seemed to me over 20. The only new flower that I came across was Grass of Parnassus, which I had only seen in illustrations to books of botany: a single green-veined white flower at the top of a slender stalk. I hope that Edward is going on well and that Denis’s finger is healed. I heard that you had got a house at Exmouth and were meaning to spend the holidays there. Basil had two sharp attacks of pain in the fortnight I was there, but was fairly easy most of the time. He did not look worse than last year, but is feebler on his legs. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 36 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 1 Claremont | Exeter’, and redirected to 126 Exeter Road, Exmouth. Maas, 312.

TO E DWA R D J. T H O M P S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Sept. 1931 Dear Sir, I am obliged by your letter, but, as you anticipate, I am not inclined to be represented in the series.1 The public can buy my small output pretty cheap already. 1 Similarly, Withers, 26–7: ‘Under persuasion he joined friends in the Highlands … later he … had nothing to say of it but that it was much what he expected, and he certainly shouldn’t go again.’ See AEH to Withers, 20 Dec. 1931. 2 Henry Tonks. 3 Sir Herbert Richmond Palmer (1877–1958), Governor of Gambia, 1930–4. 1 The ‘Augustan Books of Poetry’ series, ed. Edward Thompson. It included a volume of selected poems of Ernest Myers, ed. Ernest Benn (1931).

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I must thank you for the selections from Ernest Myers, and I was glad to see included the two poems which really are poetry, Love and Fate and the third section of Philhellene. The last line but two of the latter has been cruelly spoilt, I suppose by the author himself: it used to be ‘waiting to be dead’.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS Eng. c. 5291, fos. 152–3.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Sept. 1931 My dear Richards, I suppose nothing will cure me of procrastination. I bought What to Eat and Drink in France1 a week or two ago, and was meaning to tell you about it: and now comes your gift. If there is anyone else you would like to have it, I will forward it; or I will return it to you. I do not believe all I read in it: for instance the list on p. 254 of the best claret years since 1918 causes me some surprise. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 257.

TO G E O RG E S JA M I N 1 Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Sept. 1931 Dear Sir, I have now been able to submit your translations, which I return herewith, to the judgment of one who is thoroughly versed in the French language and literature; and his opinion is that, though, except the errors which I pointed out, they are close and exact, they are too pedestrian and 2 Philhellene, 3. 17–18: ‘Some harping of the God of golden head | By Delian waters wakened from the dead’. 1 What to Eat & Drink in France: A Guide to the Characteristic Recipes and Wines of each French Province, with a Glossary of Culinary Terms and a Full Index by Austin de Croze (1931). 1 ‘To Monsieur Georges Jamin’ is written on the MS, possibly in the recipient’s handwriting.

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prosaic to give a true idea of the original to readers not acquainted with English. This was also my own impression; and finding it thus confirmed I must say that although I am flattered by your wish to translate me and grateful for your generous estimate of my verse, I am not disposed to authorise the publication of your rendering. My friend suggests that if you cared to write in some journal an article on my poetry, with quotations in English, these translations of yours would be well suited to accompany those quotations; and he tells me that a French scholar has lately been writing such an article on Shelley. But I do not make this suggestion myself, because you have already shown me too much good-will and taken too much trouble about me. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Sept. 1931 Dear Sirs, I am charmed to hear that I possess the copyright of Sir William Rothenstein’s drawing, and I certainly shall not allow it to be reproduced.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 81. Maas, 313.

TO H . M . A DA M S Trinity College 23 Sept. 1931 Dear Adams, The College library possesses one of the two most important MSS of Ovid’s Ibis, O. 7. 7 (unless you have altered its number), so I should like it also to possess these photographs (six pages) of the other, Turonensis 879. The last 4 lines are lacking, but contain no variant of any importance. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11122 . Maas, 427. 1 Messrs Simpkin Marshall had wanted to reproduce Rothenstein’s portrait of AEH from Portrait Drawings of William Rothenstein in Books of the Month.

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TO E DWA R D J. T H O M P S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 2 Oct. 1931 Dear Mr Thompson, Thanks for your handful of poems. I thought An Elfin Storm very charming. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS Eng. c. 5291, fo. 154.

TO D. S. RO B E RT S O N Trinity College 9 Oct. 1931 Dear Robertson, I did not propose the captiui 1 which was urged upon us by Harrison2 because it was there on the list and not yet used. Preparing the lectures3 gives me a good deal more trouble than usual, because the students will require so much preliminary matter, not only about rival theories of Ueberlieferungsgeschichte4 but about prosody and Iambenkürzung5 and hiatus,6 without which there can be no critical study, and which they cannot learn from Lindsay7 without at the same time being bamboozled. So I am not disposed to take up additional work which incidentally will keep me here in June when I particularly wanted to be abroad, and so to brim with bitterness one of the few and evil years8 remaining to me on this side of the seventh circle of the inferno,9 which apparently is where 1 Plautus’s play, which was chosen as ‘the special book prescribed for textual study in Part II of the Classical Tripos’ (Gow, 60). 2 Ernest Harrison. 3 AEH lectured on the Captiui in the Lent and Michaelmas Terms of 1932 (Gow, 61). 4 The history of textual transmission. He is being dismissive: in his Juvenal (1905), xxviii, he stated ‘I have no inkling of Ueberlieferungsgeschichte’. In his Lucan (1926), xiii, he berated the term as ‘a longer and nobler name than fudge’. 5 Iambic shortening: in the verse of Latin comedy, the second syllable of a sequence consisting of a short and a long syllable may be shortened if the accent does not fall on the long syllable. 6 A break between two vowels coming together without an intervening consonant in successive words or syllables. 7 W. M. Lindsay’s Early Latin Verse (1922), which is not an easy book to follow. AEH admired his abilities as a palaeographer but not as a textual critic: Naiditch (1995), 75–8. 8 Gen. 47: 9: ‘few and evil have the days of the years of my life been’. 9 In Dante’s Inferno, XV, Dante’s friend and counsellor, the philosopher and scholar Brunetto Latini (c.1220–94) is represented as a sodomite, and he is accompanied by the Latin grammarian Priscian (fl. 500).

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scholars go, and where Muretus10 will find great fault with my Latin style. Besides, if I am indispensable this time I shall be indispensable in 1933, as the captiui is to recur. Is there not a Mr W. B. Sedgwick?11 or someone else known to the editors of the C. R. or C. Q . As to Gow, I could lend him what I have written for the lectures, which might be some help. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 12 Oct. 1931 Dear Gow, Gaselee is dining with me in my rooms on Saturday Nov. 14 at 8 o’ clock, and the Imperial Tokay1 is to be produced. Will you come too? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11243 .

TO I . R . B RU S S E L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 15 Oct. 1931 Dear Mr Brussel, It is true that during the first five months of 1895, in which I wrote the greater part of A Shropshire Lad, I had what is called a relaxed sore throat.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. Envelope addressed ‘Mr I. R. Brussel | 1625 Eastern Parkway | Brooklyn | N. Y. | U. S. A.’ 10 French humanist Marc Antoine Muret (1526–85), who produced learned editions of various classical authors as well as publishing his own Juvenilia et Poemata Varia, Orationes, and Epistolae. At the age of eighteen he attracted the attention of the elder Scaliger. He was admired as a master of Latin style. 11 W[alter] B[radbury] Sedgwick. Publications include: an edn. of The Cena Trimalchionis of Petronius, together with Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis and a selection of Pompeian inscriptions (1925); ‘The Style and Vocabulary of the Latin Arts of Poetry of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Speculum, 3 (1928), 349–81; numerous articles in CR, including ‘Lucretius and Cicero’s Verse’, CR 37. 5/6 (Aug. 1923), 115–16, ‘Notes on Petronius’, CR 39. 5/6 (Aug. 1925), 117–18, ‘Again the Bacchae’, CR 44. 1 (Feb. 1930), 6–8; articles in CQ, including ‘The History of a Proverb’, CQ 21. 3/4 ( Jan.–Oct. 1927), 207, and ‘The Dating of Plautus’ Plays’, CQ 24. 2 (Apr. 1930), 102–6. 1 Hungarian dessert wine. 1 See the note on the letter to Webb, 17 June 1896.

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TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 22 Oct. 1931 Dear Mr Clemens, I am naturally flattered that you should entertain the idea of writing a biography of me, but neither you nor anyone else could possibly write one, and I certainly would give no assistance. I have sometimes thought of depositing in the British Museum a few pages to be published 50 years after my death.1 At present Who’s Who gives all the external facts. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Cyril Clemens | Mark Twain Society | Webster Groves | Missouri | U. S. A.’ Clemens (1947), 256, inaccurately, and reproduced in Maas, 313.

TO I . R . B RU S S E L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 22 Oct. 1931 Dear Mr Brussel, Many thanks for Jurgen1 just received. At this moment I am making my way through another American book, Dreiser’s Dawn.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.). Envelope addressed ‘Mr I. R. Brussel | 1625 Eastern Parkway | Brooklyn, N. Y. | U. S. A.’

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Oct. 1931 Dear Mr Wilson, Thanks for your letter. I hope that you too are well, and it seems so, for you appear to be as sanguine as ever about enticing me to your neighbourhood; but I am still coy, though yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | Watling Villa | Willington | Co. Durham’. 1

He never did this. By American novelist James Branch Cabell (1879–1958). Published in 1919 and suppressed as being immoral. 2 Autobiographical work, published in 1931, by novelist Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945). 1

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TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 2 Nov. 1931 Dear /Gow (excuse senile dementia)/, I believe it was J. A. Bengel the theologian who formulated the rule in the eighteenth century,1 but I have not got the reference. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 11244 .

TO T. R. G LOVE R Trinity College 4 Nov. 1931 Dear Glover, What sets me writing to you is that the Vice-Chancellor has just summoned me to a meeting of the Electors to the University Scholarships on Nov. 11 at 4. 30 p.m. in the University Offices. It is your year off, so I am anxious to know whether you will be away preaching to the Gentiles, or whether, if not, you are going to do us the kindness you have /done/ on some other such occasions by acting as Secretary though not examining. In any case, remember that the priceless books which I suppose are in your custody, will be required. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. St John’s College, Cambridge, MS (Glover Box 8).

TO T. R. G LOVE R Trinity College 6 Nov. 1931 Dear Glover, It is all right about the books: Robertson has them, and I am sorry I troubled you. Certainly there is no reason why we should expect you to attend; but on at least one former occasion you did so out of pure benevolence, and 1 J. A. Bengel (1687–1752), German Lutheran theologian and pioneer in critical exegesis of the NT, formulated in his Apparatus Criticus and Nouum Testamentum ( Tübingen, 1763), 17 the principle that ‘the more difficult reading is to be preferred’. Sebastiano Timparano, La genesi del metodo del Lachmann (Padua, 1981), 28 n. 30, points out that Clericus got there first and Weltstein elaborated the principle further.

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we were grateful, and I did not know whether you might still be amassing merit by works of supererogation. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. St John’s College, Cambridge, MS (Glover Box 8).

TO J O S E P H I S H I L L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 6 Nov. 1931 Dear Mr Ishill, I have to thank you for another of your pretty books,1 which I expect to enjoy reading. The author is new to me. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Am 1614/73. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Joseph Ishill | The Oriole Press | Berkeley Heights | New Jersey | U. S. A.’

TO B E RT R A M G O U L D I N G B ROW N Trinity College 8 Nov. 1931 Dear Sir, You rightly suspect that Verrall’s mutilated text1 will not yield the sense he asks from it. As for his objections: there can be no such thing as ‘hiatus’ where elision is not allowed, as between line and line in this metre. His nonsense about Calabrae Pierides2 and the order of words in 14 sq. I incidentally showed up in my lecture. What he says of rediit is wrong: see petiisse III 14 2.3 All his solid objections are removed by Madvig’s removal of two lines only. And observe that he never mentions, and has therefore not perceived, the chief absurdity. I took notice of Elter4 because he has a following: Verrall has none, so I was glad to leave him alone.

1 Plant Physiognomies by Elie Reclus, in a translation by the publisher’s wife, Rose FreemanIshill, with introductory appreciations by Elie Faure and Havelock Ellis: White (1959), 9. 1 A. W. Verrall, Studies Literary and Historical in the Odes of Horace (1884). 2 3 Horace, Odes, 4. 8. 20 (‘Muses of Calabria’). Of Horace’s Odes. 4 Anton Friedrich Elter (1858–1925), Donarem pateras … Horat. Carm. 4, 8, (Bonn, 1907).

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The most convenient text of Propertius for general use is Hosius’,5 though I should say that Postgate’s6 comes nearer to the truth. Richmond7 is often right in what he borrows, but hardly ever in what he originates. Phillimore8 I am glad to see you do not mention. The fullest commentary is Rothstein’s (Weidmann),9 but it is not acute or even always honest; and in fact no one edition is anything like sufficient. Butler tells me he is shortly bringing out a new one, very different from his first.∗10 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. ∗ I reviewed this in Classical Review XIX pp. 317 sqq. Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘B. Goulding Brown Esq. | 16 Brookside’ and marked ‘Local’ in AEH’s hand.

TO J. M . E D M O N D S Trinity College 11 Nov. 1931 Dear Edmonds, I understand your restorations in part, /but/ do not get a clear and continuous sense out of /the whole/ /but that may be partly my fault/.1 enable me to interpret ἐλλομένα as περικλειομένη, / /In the/ books of reference on which I depend I do not /find/ χορτίον, and ἐλλομένα only in the sense of περικλειομένη/, which however I do not understand, but they do not contain χορτίον. And your supplements introduce three trochaic caesuras in the 4th foot, which is a high percentage. SJCO MS (Higham Collection): incomplete draft in ink corrected in pencil.

5

6 Teubner series, 1912. In Corpus Poetarum Latinorum (1894). O. L. Richmond in his Cambridge edn. of Propertius (1928). 8 9 Oxford, 1901, and Riccardi Press, 1911. Max Rothstein’s, Berlin, 1898. 10 H. E. Butler’s edn. with commentary appeared in 1905. He published another jointly with E. A. Barber in 1933. 1 Edmonds had sent him his proposed reconstructions of part of the fragments of Erinna’s Distaff, discovered in 1929 (SJCO Higham Collection MSS). 2 H. Stephanus’s Thesaurus Graecae Linguae (Geneva, 1572), of which there was a third edn., ed. Carolus Hase et al. (Paris, 1831–65). 3 A Greek–English Lexicon, compiled by H. G. Liddell and R. Scott (1843); rev. edn. by H. Stuart Jones (1925). 7

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TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 13 November 1931 My dear Richards,] I have no recollection whatever of having given my consent to Tauchnitz; but when the Richards Press took them to task they said that they had a letter from me giving consent, and they gave its date; and I suppose they would not be brazen enough to tell an utter lie. But I did not give them consent to omit a comma, nor to alter the English word Reveille into Réveille, which is not even French. Moreover it is a wretched selection containing, for instance, six pieces of Sassoon’s;1 and I will not give my consent to Heinemann.2 [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 257.

? TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 16 Nov. 1931 Professor Housman hopes to join the Family in the Old Guest Room on Nov. 27 at 8 o’ clock. TCC Add. MS c. 11245 .

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 23 Nov. 1931 Dear Duff, I think Sil. III 520 means that he cuts steps in the smooth slope of resistant ice: premere of a wrestler Ou. Ib. 395 and Luc. IV 648, and in other connexions it means to urge hard.

1

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) Heinemann had arranged to take over from Tauchnitz the Anthology of Modern English Poetry made by L. L. Schücking, and had asked for AEH’s permission to include ASL IV and XLIII (Reveille and Be still, my soul): Richards, 257. See AEH to the Richards Press, 23 July and 6 Aug. 1931. 2

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I suppose plana /in 532/ must be even (not level) tracts, with all irregularities of surface obliterated by the snow, as is suggested by what follows.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 1963 . Maas, 427–8.

TO H U G H S T E WA RT Trinity College | Cambridge 26 November 1931. Dear Sir, I think that I ought to express my indebtedness to you for your minute examination of my book;1 and indeed I must pay a tribute not only of gratitude but of admiration and almost of awe to such a combination of care, patience and altruism. I am most beholden to you for detecting the mistake totamque in 385, which I feel sure I should never have noticed. I accept 18 of your corrections, some of which I had already made, together with a larger number which you do not mention, the worst being the omission at 205 of ‘proprios M, proprias GL’. Some of the discrepancies which you note are explained and justified by what I said on p. 162 about V. 471. Tib. ‘IV. 2. 20’ at 404 should not be corrected but deleted, as conchas is an obsolete reading. An accusative Catonis is improbable and ill-authenticated. Cuss. and Voss. I can no longer be cited as possibly independent of L2 . Steph. Byz. is an alphabetical gazetteer, and a reference would be an encumbrance. C. E. Stuart was young and inexperienced and made several mistakes in reading M, of which acutis at 70 is one. It was no excess of self-praise in me to say, with strict relevance to the matter in hand, that I thought I possess qualifications which I ought to possess and which my critics are always showing that they do not.2 The contrast does not elate me immoderately. Consider your own remarks on 450 sq. You say that no parallel is adduced for ora frontis. That phrase is not in my text, and it would be much less irrelevant to demand a parallel, which you will find in Hor. serm. I. 5. 61, for frons oris. This astounds you; and now you will begin to think, and recollect that no parallel is either adduced or demanded for frontis scripta in Ouid. trist. II. 241 or for uultus 1 1 2

Duff ’s edn. of Silius Italicus was published in the Loeb Classical Library in 1934. Stewart’s review of Manilius V (1930) appeared in in CR 45. 5 (Nov. 1931), 183–9. Stewart had censured AEH’s ‘self-praise’ in the preface to the volume.

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puer in Iuu. XI. 154. You feel dislike for frontis is, and as you think that a dislike ought to have a reason you persuade yourself that the cacophony, as you call it, is increased by what you call a pause. You do not see that you will be asked, first, how there can be any relation between two such things, and then, if there is, why a pause should make a cacophony greater rather than less. Incidentally you commit yourself to the opinion that the cacophony of quisquis is is diminished by the immediate addition of a word containing a fourth sibilant. If the next Bentley or Scaliger came along and told me that uincunt in 114 is no improvement on uictum, I should be discomposed and begin to examine myself; but when one of you gentlemen says it I only think of him what you think of me, that he ought to be more modest. Two of the conjectures which you select for dispraise have been selected for praise by Heraeus.3 Several people want me to produce an edition or else a text of Horace’s odes: a text perhaps I may; but it is about time that I gave up writing and tried to improve my mind in leisure.4 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS Eng. lett. c. 614, fos. 202–3 (t.s. copy). I correct ‘ couchas’ to ‘conchas’. Maas, 428–9.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Dec. 1931 My dear Richards, I once met Ford Madox Hueffer,1 as he then was, at Rothenstein’s, but I am sure I neither did nor said anything which would take even one page to tell. I hear that I appear also (as doubtless you do) in the reminiscences of Fothergill of Thame;2 and I am invited to buy the Private 3

Karl Wilhelm Heraeus (1862–1938). At the close of his review Stewart had expressed the hope that AEH would produce an edn. of Horace, or at least of the Odes. He never did. 1 Novelist and editor Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939), who changed his surname in 1919. Note written on the MS in GR’s hand: ‘I had told him about Return to Yesterday’ (a vol. of Ford’s reminiscences published in 1931). 2 John Rowland Fothergill (1876–1957), author of An Innkeeper’s Diary (1931). He started out as an archaeologist, but studied at the Slade School of Art and was a friend of Rothenstein. AEH met him when he was landlord of The Spread Eagle at Thame in Oxfordshire: AEH to GR, 22 June 1927. Fothergill’s book includes a section called ‘Founders’ in which he thanks his loyal customers, AEH and GR (and H. G. Wells and Henry Tonks) among them. 4

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Papers of a Bankrupt Bookseller 3 because on p. 216 there is something about A Shropshire Lad.4 I have bought for use The Hungry Traveller in France by Norman Davey (Jonathan Cape).5 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 258; Maas, 314.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Dec. 1931 Dear Mackail, Why is namque ‘intensive’ in Verg. Aen. V 733 and VII 122? It seems to me the regular ‘for’ with finite verb, postponed as in buc. I 14, and in your edition you do not seem to take it otherwise. In Juvenal IV 79 I did think of nempe, which is often confused with namque, but quippe seemed nearer. I hope you have not been buying my second edition,1 which our press sells at an absurd price: they over-pay their workmen and therefore overcharge their customers. I would have sent you a copy (I will now if you have not got one), but it has only about 20 pages of new matter. I see from reviews that literature has broken out in another of your family.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.12. Hawkins, 189 (excerpt); Maas, 429.

3

By W. Y. Darling. Published anonymously in 1931. In a ch. on War Books, the author describes ASL as ‘a favourite pocket-book’, and praises AEH’s Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries [LP XXXVII] for doing in eight lines ‘what the official histories of the war cannot do in volumes’. 5 Published in 1931. 1 Of Juvenal, published by Cambridge University Press, 1931. It included minor corrections and an additional twenty pages of preface. 2 His daughter Angela Mackail Thirkell (1890–1961), later a prolific novelist, had just published her first book, Three Houses. Mackail’s son Denis had published novels since 1920. 4

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TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Dec. 1931 My dear Withers, You are the most acrimonious of my correspondents, and insist on making a grievance of what you ought to regard as a natural phenomenon, like the voice of the peacock or the smell of the goat. However, on this occasion I have more to say than usual, because in August I went to Scotland for the first time in my life and was rewarded by finding the only fine weather of my summer. It was Artornish (in Scott’s Lord of the Isles,1 now spelt Ardtornish) on the Sound of Mull; the landscape exactly as I had imagined it. I enjoyed walking about among the red-deer and so forth, but ten days exhausted the neighbourhood and I shall not go again. Some of our feasts are suppressed for the sake of economy (i.e. that waiters may suffer from lack of employment and our champagne may go bad in the cellar)2 but not the Christmas one. I have had my annual milk punch at Jesus and am expecting my annual stout and oysters on St Sylvester’s day,3 after which I shall be able to face another year of life. Also I have lately had a blow-out at the Fishmongers’ Hall.4 Whether you are in palace or cottage, I shall be very glad to come and see you in the summer. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 74 (excerpt); Maas, 314–15.

1

1. 1. 2, 22. A national economic crisis peaking in Aug. 1931 had led Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald to form a coalition government and institute a general economy drive. Cf. AEH’s attitude here with LH, Memoir, 106: ‘He [AEH] was … spontaneously generous toward the National Exchequer in its time of need. At the beginning of the War he sent the Chancellor a donation of several hundred pounds, and again during the financial crisis in 1931, when the National Government was first formed, came to the rescue so far as his means allowed.’ AEH donated £500 in 1931, and was sent a letter of thanks by Neville Chamberlain, 25 Nov. 1931 (Lilly MSS 1). 3 4 31 Dec. On 12 Nov. 2

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31 December 1931

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 31 Dec. 1931 My dear Jeannie, This is just to wish you all a happy New Year. I was glad to hear from Kate the other day that you and Basil are better than you have been, but I wish she could have given a more satisfactory account of Mat.1 In August I went to Scotland as you know, and found there the only fine weather of the summer. Now I don’t suppose I shall leave here before June. Most of our Feasts have been put down to make a show of economy, the chief result of which, if it goes on, will be that the champagne will go bad in the cellar instead of being drunk. The Christmas Feast we did have as usual; and to-night nothing shall stand between me and my oysters and stout. I enclose for Basil the only existing portion of my second work of fiction,2 and love for both of you. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. Berg MS. 1

‘Matthew Dixon of Tardebigge, Jeannie’s brother’: Pugh, Appendix F, lxxxiii n. In AEH’s hand, Fragment of an afternoon with the Royal Family, recounting an episode in which the gardener’s boy has climbed into the boudoir of the princess and the two are engaged in conversation. A Morning with the Royal Family was originally published in The Bromsgrovian,  1. 2 (15 February 1882), 27–30, 1. 3 (29 March 1882), 52–9. 2

1932 TO P RO F E S S O R D. A . S L AT E R Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Jan. 1932 Dear Slater, I was glad to hear from you, and to know that the term of your Professorship will not leave you at a loose end.1 I remember A. G. Cox,2 though I did not know him at all well. He returned to Bromsgrove as 6th form master, perhaps in your time, but Millington had to dismiss him for economy. I did not see The Times on Bickham Escott,3 nor on any forthcoming work of mine: I am in fact just finishing an editio minor of Manilius, text and apparatus and index. I have forgotten the name of the new headmaster. Routh4 came to Cambridge last May or June and was entertained at dinner by the Cambridge Bromsgrovians, and as I am nominally their president I had to make a speech and propose his health. He spoke of not knowing how to expend his surplus energy, and meant to begin by travelling. A Morning with the Royal Family5 is not suitable for preservation, especially 1

Slater was retiring as Professor of Latin at Liverpool University. Arthur Gill Cox (1861–1907). He entered AEH’s school, The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove, in 1880, and served as Head Monitor, 1878–80. He won a scholarship at Hertford College, Oxford, 1879, graduated BA, 1884, and taught at the Preparatory School, Braeside, West Kirby (OBR, 79, 166). 3 Sir [Ernest] Bickham Sweet-Escott (1857–1941). He was educated at The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove, and at Balliol College, Oxford, and held various positions in the British colonial service, including that of First Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Seychelles, 1903–4, Governor and Commander-in-Chief, British Honduras, 1904–6, Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for Western Pacific, 1912–18. He was knighted in 1904. The Times, 26 Jan. 1931, 7, reported: ‘A well-dressed stranger who on Saturday was taken ill in a Brighton taxicab and was discovered by the driver to be unconscious has been found to be Major Sweet-Escott, whose home is in Wiltshire. Major Sweet-Escott was taken to the Sussex County Hospital, and revealed his identity on recovering consciousness.’ (Slater seems to have been confusing Sir Bickham with Major Sweet-Escott.) 4 R[obert] G[ordon] Routh (1869–1964). BA, Trinity College, Oxford, 1894; Master at The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove, from 1894; Headmaster, 1913–31; committee member, Old Bromsgrovian Club, c.1908–10. 5 A domestic sketch by AEH, written in the manner of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, and published without his permission by Basil Housman in The Bromsgrovian, The Magazine of King Edward VI Grammar School, Bromsgrove,  1. 2 (15 Feb. 1882), 27–30, 1. 3 (29 Mar. 1882), 2

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16 January 1932

as much the best chapter, about the state religion and a god named Goodness Gracious, was cut out for fear of parents. Good wishes for the year. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Jan. 1932 My dear Cockerell, Some things of Edna St Vincent Millay1 which I have seen make me think her the best living American poet, but as she is said to be profuse and unequal I have never tackled a book of hers; so I shall be grateful for a sight of the sonnets which you approve of,2 though I could wish that they were not sonnets. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 315.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Jan. 1932 My dear Richards, You correctly suppose that I will have no more editions de luxe.1 Talking of pornography,2 you have been remiss about promising me a sight of Frank Harris’s last two volumes,3 for I understand that there are four in all, and I have only seen two. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 258; Maas, 315.

52–9. It includes seven poems: Poems (1997), 209–12, 515–18. LH had it reprinted by Jonathan Cape in 1955. 1 2 1892–1950. In Fatal Interview (1931). 1 Jack Kahane of the Obelisk Press, Paris, had sought permission to publish a de luxe edn. of ASL. 2 In his letter to AEH (LC-GR t.s.), GR had described Kahane as a writer of ‘semi-improper novels’ and ‘a publisher of more or less pornographic stuff ’. 3 Of My Life and Loves. The four vols. were privately printed in Paris, 1922–7, and reissued there c.1934.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 16 Jan. 1932 My dear Roberts, We had some conversation last year about my editio minor of Manilius.1 This is now complete, text, apparatus, and index, all except the preface, which will be quite short; so I shall be obliged if you will propose it to the Syndics.2 I have ideas of my own about size of page and print, and I also want it to be fairly cheap, though I do not suppose you can emulate the Oxford classical texts in that respect. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 773524 . Maas, 315.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 20 January 1932 Dear Roberts, I am sending herewith in two envelopes the text, apparatus criticus, and index of the ed. minor of Manilius. It may spare you some calculation to know that the text is about 4270 hexameters. The point on which I am chiefly set is not anything absolute, but relative: that the page should be wide enough, or the print small enough, to let the longest line be printed without running over. Some of the lines are very long: for instance in the neighbourhood of II 935. It might be well to have an interview, which we could arrange when we meet on Friday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 773525 . Maas, 316.

1

Published by Cambridge University Press, 1932. The Press Syndicate of Cambridge University Press, a special committee of the Senate of the University which advises on, and gives final approval for, publications. 2

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29 January 1932

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Jan. 1932] There is no harm in this, if they think they can print the verse correctly;1 but where do you come in? PM MS. Note in AEH’s hand on letter from ‘Child Education’ addressed ‘Messrs. Grant Richards, Ltd., | 8 Regent Street, | S. W. 1.’ LC-GR t.s. Richards, 258 (incomplete).

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Jan. 1932 My dear Kate, I opened your letter with a presentiment, and indeed for some time past I have felt that the blow might any day fall, and have been grieved to think that you must be feeling the same; though this may have taken away something from the sharpness of your loss.1 To me he was a kindly and companionable friend; and your long married life must have been in essentials a happy one, and has ended as in the course of nature it should, by the survival of the younger.2 In the manner of death we must agree that he was fortunate indeed, and there are many consoling thoughts to heal this sorrow in the course of time. I am with much sympathy Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Text based on that printed in Pugh, Appendix F, lxxxii.

1 1

Child Education had sought permission to print ASL II 5–8 in their Spring Extra Number. 2 Her husband Edward had died. By five years.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 31 Jan. 1932 My dear Cockerell, I am very much obliged to you for letting me see Fatal Interview, which is mighty good.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Richards, 387 (excerpt).

TO D. B. H A RDE N Trinity College 2 Feb. 1932 Dear Mr Harden, I had hoped to be dead when the ten years were out;1 but as, like Peleus2 and Cadmus,3 I have lived too long, and as I am sure your intentions are kind, I have made a note of the date. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS a. 393.3. Envelope addressed ‘D. B. Harden Esq. | Trinity College’. Note added at lower corner: ‘A. E. H. to be asked again Lent Term | 1932’.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 6 Feb. 1932 My dear Roberts, For the second time your overpaid underlings refuse to print my apparatus criticus as I wrote it, and insist on running together lines which I carefully separated. There is also a detail in which the type is not satisfactory. The signs  and , since they mean MSS, ought to be of the same stature and obesity as GLM; though I must say that these three seem to me to be too obese. Matters were better in the Juvenal, though even there the signs  and
1 See AEH to Cockerell, 15 Jan. 1932. Cyril Clemens reports AEH as saying that he had got more enjoyment from Millay than from either Robinson or Frost: Clemens (1936), 10. 1 See AEH to Harden, 24 Apr. 1922. 2 In Greek myth, the son of Aeacus (mythical king of Aegina), who became king of Phthia in Thessaly; father of Achilles, whom he survived. 3 In Greek myth, the legendary founder of the city of Thebes (in Boeotia). He survived his daughter Semele and grandson Pentheus.

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11 February 1932

were not fully equal in size to PSAFGLOTU. In any case  and should be larger or thicker than they now are, for now they are on an equality with the surrounding letterpress. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I do not mean that should be as big as , but that it should belong (as now it does) to the lower case in the same fount. Text based on that in Maas, 429–30, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Feb. 1932 Dear Mr Wilson, Although it is only your fun, just to keep your pen in exercise, I must thank you for your repeated invitation, but need not repeat my answer. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Maas, 316.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Feb. 1932 My dear Kate, I am very glad to have the obituary notice you sent me, and to see that a Bath paper also had one. Laurence was here the other day and told me that you do not mean to stay in Exeter. I shall remember your pleasant house and garden, but Exeter is not a town where I should care to live, and Exmouth will probably suit you much better. Jeannie writes that Basil is very much better than this time last year, and that even Matt, against all expectation, has made some recovery. I heard the other day from Ted Wise, who is going strong at 80. I hope that you are tranquil and not depressed.1 With love Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS. Pugh, Appendix F, lxxxiii. 1

See AEH to KES, 29 Jan. 1932

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Letters 1927–1936

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 11 Feb. 1932 Dear Mr Clemens, The enclosed photograph, as you will see, is very old, but it is the only one I have, and it belongs to the time when I was writing A Shropshire Lad.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO K E N N E T H W E L L E S L E Y Trinity College 12 Feb. 1932 Dear Mr Wellesley, The other judges for the Montagu Butler prize,1 which I congratulate you on winning, have asked me to see you about certain modifications which they think should be made before the poem is published. I shall be here and pleased to talk with you any day next week between six and seven in the evening, if you will give me notice beforehand. You had better bring a copy of the poem. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 430, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 15 Feb. 1932 My dear Roberts, The specimen of printing is now altogether satisfactory; but as to the agreement, I mentioned in one of our conversations that I wished to keep the copyright and to receive as royalty anything that I might receive, and you offered no objection. I therefore return herewith the two copies of the form. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 316, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing. 1 1

c.1894, carte de visite by Van der Weyde. For a poem in Latin hexameters.

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18 February 1932

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 16 Feb. 1932 My dear Roberts, Formally to retain the copyright myself, as you say, and to have it stated in the agreement, is what I desire, and I am indifferent to the mode in which riches will accrue to me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 317, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing.

TO J. C. S QU I RE Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Feb. 1932 Dear Squire, I am obliged to you for sending me your appeal,1 much of which seems to me true and very well put; but for various reasons I do not wish to sign it, one of them being that I do not rate my own political sagacity high, and another that men of letters, however competent in such matters they may actually be, are not so regarded by the public. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 978/11.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 18 Feb. 1932 My dear Roberts, I enclose the two copies of the agreement signed. I have put down the date 31 March rather at random: in essentials the preface will be finished long before that, but I cannot complete it properly until I have the text and notes in type. 1 To preserve Stonehenge. During the war an aerodrome and a number of unsightly huts had been built by the military authorities nearby. A Stonehenge Protection Committee had been formed in 1927, and funds had been raised and signatures of prominent public figures collected (including those of writers Arnold Bennett, A. P. Herbert, Desmond MacCarthy, and Rebecca West).

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Letters 1927–1936

I want text and notes to be first printed separately in galley (I think you call it) before they are combined into pages. I made this petition in the case of the Juvenal also, and you said it should be done; but diabolis aliter visum.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 317, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing.

TO M R D O O H E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 18 Feb. 1932 Dear Mr Dooher, I am obliged by the kindness of your letter, though I wish that writers would not dedicate books to me nor describe me in public as the greatest of living poets, which you cannot possibly know to be true. I do not copy out poems for anyone, so you must try to get what poor satisfaction you can out of my autograph. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO K E N N E T H W E L L E S L E Y Trinity College 20 Feb. 1932 Dear Mr Wellesley, We have neglected to observe that modero, except in the past participle, appears to be only ante- and post-classical, so that ‘quaeque ipsa domum moderauerat olim’1 should be ‘cuique ante domus parere solebat’ or somethings else. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 430, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing.

1 ‘The devils decided otherwise’. Maas (317 n.) compares Virgil, Aeneid, 2. 429: dis aliter visum (‘the gods decided otherwise’). AEH is referring to printers’ ‘devils’ (apprentices). 1 Maas, 430 n., records that the printed version reads ‘quaeque ante domus moderamen habebat’.

281

25 February 1932

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Feb. 1932 My dear Richards, No; the Hindoos should behave better.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 258.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Feb. 1932 My dear Richards, I have had two tickets sent me for the dinner of the Girdler’s1 Company2 on Thursday March 17 at 7 o’ clock. Would you care to use one of them? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 258 (excerpt).

TO D E N I S S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Feb. 1932 My dear Denis, Thanks for your account of your frivolous evening. I have given the MS of A Shropshire Lad to the library of this College,1 where it reposes in the appropriate company of Milton’s Lycidas and most of Tennyson. If all goes well I shall be at Tardebigge in July, and if we go to Rodney’s pillar2 I may

1 The Bombay House branch of Longmans Green & Co Ltd had sought permission to reprint Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries (LP XXXVII) in an anthology for the use of schools in India: PM MS. 1 For ‘Girdlers’ ’. 2 Ancient London company, first publicly recognized in 1180, granted letters patent in 1327, and incorporated in 1448. 1 See AEH to Adams, 3 Mar. 1926. 2 Admiral Rodney’s Pillar, built in 1781, is a monument in the Breidden Hills commemorating the defeat, by ships built of Powysland oaks, of a French fleet at Dominica, in the West Indies.

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Letters 1927–1936

recover a gold band which fell off an expensive umbrella into the bracken there. Love to Phyllis and your offspring. Your affectionate uncle A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Symons Collection.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Feb. 1932 My dear Richards, Good. I enclose your ticket.1 I have accepted in your name as well as my own. We shall be placed side by side,2 and there is no reason why we should meet beforehand, but I am intending to stay as usual at the Great Eastern hotel in Liverpool Street, which is convenient for getting back to Cambridge next morning. I shall not wear a white waistcoat, partly because I have not got one, partly because I am told on high authority that, though now so common, it is incorrect unless dancing is to follow. The invitation is from the Master of the Company,3 who sent the second ticket because he will not be able to pay attention to a private guest. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 258–9; Maas, 317.

TO L. W. PAY NE Trinity College | Cambridge | England 28 Feb. 1932 Dear Mr Payne, I am obliged by your letter, but I rather avoid reading things written about me and will not trouble you to send me the essay. I shall be pleased to write my name in your copy of Last Poems if you care for it, but for many years past I have refused to copy out verses, though I did it once or twice long ago.

1 2 3

See AEH to GR, 25 Feb. 1932. The seating plan shows that they were placed at opposite ends of the top table. Walter Sibbald Adie, ICS.

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1 March 1932

One good result of the present financial stringency is that the absurd prices which used to be asked for the first edition of A Shropshire Lad are abating.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS. Maas, 318.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 1 March 1932 My dear Laurence, Your generous offer to pass on Coventry Patmore1 to me has its allurement, for I have often idly thought of writing an essay on him and have even been inclined sometimes to regard it, as you say, in the light of a duty, because nobody admires his best poetry enough, though the stupid papists may fancy they [do] so. But it would give me more trouble than you can imagine, whereas I want peace in my declining years; and the result would not be good enough to yield me pride or even satisfaction. I should say as little as possible about his nasty mixture of piety and concupiscence; but his essay on English metre is the best thing ever written on the subject,2 though spoilt by one great mistake. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 183; Maas, 318.

1 Naiditch (2005), 136–8, documents a gradual rise in prices from 1923 till 1929, and, in the U.S.A., a decline beginning in 1929 to the lower levels of the early 1930s. 1 ‘An attempt to get him to write on Patmore for Great Victorians’: LH, Memoir, 183 n. The Great Victorians, ed. H. J. Massingham (1932) contained essays by Herbert Read on Patmore and by LH on Florence Nightingale. 2 First published as ‘English Metrical Critics’ in the North British Review, 27: 53 (August 1857), 127–61, and repr. as ‘Essay on Metrical Law’ in Patmore’s Poems (1886), 2. 217–67. AEH refers approvingly to it in letters of 10 July and 28 Oct. 1933.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 4 March 1932 Dear Mr Clemens, I have corrected or marked the most inaccurate of your inaccuracies.1 I do not know why Americans are so fond of writing—and apparently of reading—about personal matters; but it seems to be a national characteristic, and it makes me unwilling to meet them, though they are always so kindly and friendly. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Columbia MS, Housman Box. Envelope addressed ‘Cyril Clemens Esq. | President International Mark Twain Society | Webster Groves | Missouri | U. S. A.’ Maas, 318–19.

TO B E RT R A M G O U L D I N G B ROW N Trinity College 5 March 1932 Dear Sir, The best text of Catullus is Schwabe’s smaller edition (with apparatus criticus), Weidmann, 1886.1 It is out of print, but I suppose second-hand copies can be got. Ellis’s smaller edition in the Oxford Classical series2 will do as a pis-aller. The best commentary, if you read German, is W. Kroll’s, Teubner.3 The Latin commentary of Baehrens4 is better than Ellis’s. The best handy text and apparatus of Ovid’s Metamorphoses is Ehwald’s editio maior, Teubner.5 There is a good German commentary by the same editor (it was Haupt originally, and then Korn & H. J. Mueller), Weidmann.6 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘B. Goulding Brown Esq. | 16 Brookside’ and marked ‘Local’ in AEH’s hand. 1 In ‘Housman as a Conversationalist’, intended for a biography but published in Clemens (1936), 9–10, 13, 18, 22. 1 AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2003), 111. 2 1904; previous edn., 1878. AEH owned copies of both: Naiditch (2003), 112, 111. 3 Leipzig/Berlin, 1923. AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2003), 112. 4 Analecta Catulliana (1874). AEH owned a copy: Naiditch (2003), 112. 5 Leipzig, 1915. AEH owned a copy of vol. 1 (1888): Naiditch (2003), 131. 6 M. Haupt, O. Korn, H. J. M¨uller, and R. Ehwald: Berlin, 1898, 1903.

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16 March 1932

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS You were wrong, and presumably I was right, about the fault on p. 52 of Last Poems, for I have just seen a copy (1922) in which it is not present.1 A. E. H. 8 March 1932 Trin. Coll. Camb. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 259.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 11 March 1932 Dear Sirs, I consent to the printing of the version of Be still, my soul 1 in Greece & Rome. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 84.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 March 1932 My dear Richards, I will be at the entrance of the Great Eastern Hotel at 6. 40 to-morrow. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | London S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s.

1 Richards, 259, tells how he had sent AEH an Elkin Mathews sale catalogue listing a first edn. of LP and stating: ‘Like most copies of the First Edition, this has faulty punctuation on p. 52 which is said to denote the first issue. It probably does nothing of the kind.’ AEH underlined ‘most’ and ‘the first issue’, commenting respectively ‘no’ and ‘the first 4000 I think’. He was right: the two missing marks of punctuation on p. 52 of the first issue of 4,000 copies were restored in the second impression of 2,000 copies, published like the first in Oct. 1922. Another 15,000 copies were issued in 1922. 1 ASL XLVIII in Greek elegiacs, by H. Rackham, printed in Greece and Rome, 2. 4 (Oct. 1932), 56. On Rackham, see List of Recipients.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO S Y LV I A M E E C H Trinity College | Cambridge | England 17 March 1932 Dear Miss Meech, I am afraid that I have never written any garden verse. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Texas MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 24 March 1932 My dear Richards, The restaurant with which I was best pleased at Bordeaux is one whose name I forget,1 but it can be found by means of the enclosed plan.2 It has the same name as a newspaper whose office is next door. The Chapeau Rouge keeps its reputation, though I did not think it so good as formerly. The Chapon Fin is losing its custom. The Basque restaurant Etche Ona is only middling. The cathedral is a good one of the second order; but the two most interesting churches are romanesque of the 12th century, St Seurin and Sainte-Croix. The ruin of a Roman amphitheatre called the Palais Gallien is worth seeing. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 260 (nearly complete).

1 ‘He means the Restaurant La Presse at 6 rue de la Porte Dijeaux. The Guide Michelin gives it only one star’: Richards, 260 n. 2 A hand-drawn map.

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31 March 1932

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 24 March 1932 Dear Mr Wilson, Many thanks for your photograph. I have found an old one of myself, taken about the time when I was writing A Shropshire Lad.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 26 March 1932 My dear Laurence, My knowledge of London restaurants is much out of date, and I can only have dined in two, both very expensive, in the last five years. I think you had better ask Grant Richards (Carlton Chambers, 8 Regent Street, S. W. 1), unless you would like me to ask instead. Thanks for your invitation, but I am shy of company, and in May there are many things which might interfere. Your approaching decease in January has attractions.1 Love to Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 184 (nearly complete).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 31 March 1932 Dear Sirs, Messrs Curwen may publish a setting of Loveliest of trees, and there is no fee to pay. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 85. 1

c.1894, carte de visite by Van der Weyde. LH represented himself on his deathbed in Nunc Dimittis, an epilogue to his Little Plays of St Francis. See AEH to LH, 28 Dec. 1932, 25 Jan. 1933. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

TO J O S E P H I S H I L L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 10 April 1932 Dear Mr Ishill, If you do not mind, I would rather that you did not reprint Eight o’ clock in your annual.1 I always give permission rather reluctantly, and there seems to be no particular fitness in its appearance. I do not know the laws of the United States, but the ‘Copyright 1919 by the Four Seas Company’ which you bring to my notice must surely be mere nonsense.2 I did not copyright the book in America when I published it in England in 1896, and I cannot imagine how anyone else could do it. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Am 1614/73. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Joseph Ishill | The Oriole Press | Berkeley Heights | New Jersey | U. S. A.’ Maas, 319.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D   |  14 April 1932 Dear Sirs, You have given the right answer to Messrs Curwen.1 I am publishing no new poems.2 I am bringing out a text of Manilius with the Cambridge University Press.3 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 87.

1

Free Vistas, An Anthology Of Life And Letters (Oriole Press, 1933). It contained nothing by AEH. He is right. White (1959), 10, identifies the edn. of ASL as that published in paper covers in the International Pocket Library series, with an introduction by William Stanley Braithwaite (1918, and subsequent edns.) 1 Refusing permission to print the words of ASL II on programmes, and requiring separate applications for broadcasting rights and gramophone recordings. 2 A bookseller had written to the Richards Press telling them that AEH was bringing out a new volume of poems. 3 The one-volume editio minor (1932). 2

289

25 April 1932

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D  , |  17 April 1932 Dear Sirs, Permission to reprint poems from A Shropshire Lad must be refused to Messrs Cape,1 and they should be told that this is my regular practice. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 89.

TO E . H . B L A K E N E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 22 April 1932 If a postcard dated April 19 but with neither signature nor postmark legible is yours, as I think it may be, I will say in reply that I do not think an edition of Persius is very much needed, and certainly I might be better employed. About Manilius I am not going to take any more trouble, when I have brought out an editio minor, just text and apparatus, now printing at the University Press. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 48980, fos. 16–17. Maas, 319.

TO E . H . B L A K E N E Y The commentary on Persius is Jahn’s,1 whom Conington2 and his fellows used as a quarry; though it is out of date as regards the MSS. There is a paper of mine (if you do not know it) in Class. Quart VII pp. 12 sqq. A. E. H. 25 April 1932 Trin. Coll. Camb. Private MS: p.c. addressed ‘E. H. Blakeney Esq | Orchard Lawn | Winchester’.

1

Messrs Jonathan Cape, publishers. Otto Jahn’s, in his 1843 edn. 2 The 1872 edn. by John Conington (1825–69) and Henry Nettleship (1839–93), both of them in their time Corpus Christi Professor of Latin at Oxford. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

TO E . H . B L A K E N E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 27 April 1932 Dear Mr Blakeney, Many thanks for your kindness in sending me your rare piece of handicraft. A. D. Nock1 and a Frenchman2 are engaged on an edition of the Hermetica for the Budé series: not that this is relevant, as there cannot be much of an index. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 48980, fos. 18–19.

TO M A LCO LM M ACLA RE N [Trinity College | Cambridge | England 28 April 1932] Dear Sir, You little know the vanity of authors if you think the civility of your letter, which I acknowledge, will atone for calling my poem1 ‘Be quiet, my soul’. But even if you had not thus stirred up my worst passions I should not have been willing to give the permission you ask, as some phrases in the translation, such as ‘nous avons goˆuté le charme’ and ‘dans ma vie am`ere’, are quite incongruous with the original. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Clemens (1947), 258–9, slightly amended.

1 See List of Recipients. He completed the text comparison for the Corpus Hermeticum in 1938 after a period of twelve years. The four-vol. edn. was published in Paris, 1945–54. 2 André-Jean Festugi`ere (1898–1982). 1 ASL XLVIII (Be still, my soul, be still).

291

29 April 1932

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 29 April 1932 Dear Mr Adelman, I am very grateful for the photograph you have kindly sent, and which I had entirely forgotten. If I remember right there was a photograph of me in 1896 in an English literary review called The Bookman.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Seymour Adelman | 303 East 19th Street | Chester | Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 29 April 1932 My dear Withers, I expect to leave Cambridge on May 28, and I could not ask you to dinner on the 5th , 13th , or 27th ; but otherwise I am not at present engaged and should be delighted. Perhaps the best day for me would be Wednesday the 11th . For your kind invitation to Souldern I suggest July 2nd to 5th , as I shall then be going into Worcestershire, and may perhaps trust to the resources of your neighbourhood for a car to take me on. My kind regards to Mrs Withers, whose rheumatism I am sorry to hear of, but glad that I have not to be more sorry than usual for you. I myself am conceited at the moment, because I have just made my annual visit to the dentist and he found nothing to do. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

1 The carte de visite photograph by Van der Weyde (c.1894), reproduced in The Bookman, 10 (Aug. 1896), 114.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 4 May 1932 My dear Rothenstein, I am afraid I cannot get heavy damages out of you for stealing three words, all the rest being Mrs Cornford’s. I am told there is another version in circulation with ‘small brown woman’.1 I am reading and enjoying your book. I suppose it is being a painter that makes you able to retain your experiences so distinctly and reproduce them with so much life. Haydon, Fromentin, and Frith are a mixed but respectable society for you.2 On p. 138 there is something very wrong with Webb’s first sentence.3 225–6. To ‘tell the truth’ about ‘a million million stars’, there are never many more than two thousand separately visible. 253. They have stuck in a comma between Lockwood and Kipling, as of course they would. 273. The place you call Longdon is Longfords. I should be very glad to see you here again. In this month I might not be able to get you a bedroom without longish notice. I am going away probably on the 27th , but shall be here for the last week of June, and again continuously after July 25 or thereabouts. My kind regards to Lady Rothenstein, who seems to have a number of nicknames.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS 1148 (740) 48. Maas, 319–20.

1 Rothenstein printed AEH’s parody of Frances Cornford (see letter of 22 Mar. 1910) in Men and Memories: Recollections of William Rothenstein 1900–1922, 2 (1932), 187. 2 Benjamin Robert Haydon’s autobiography was first published as vol. 1 of the 3-vol. Life of Haydon from his Autobiography and Journals, ed. Tom Taylor (1853). Eug`ene Fromentin published three vols. of reminiscences: Visites Artistiques ou Simples P`elerinages (1852–6), Un Ét´e dans le Sahara (1857), and Une Année dans le Sahel (1858). William Powell Frith wrote Autobiography and Reminiscences (2 vols., 1887) and Further Reminiscences (1888). 3 The first sentence of a letter from architect Philip [Speakman] Webb (1831–1915) reads: ‘Of course, such serious effects as Rothenstein’s in the way of leading the coming-on generation in following the arts—visible and literary—also in a serious way, that everything he writes calls for like thoughtfulness of attention.’ 4 Michael Field (an aunt and niece team of poets, actually Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper who wrote under the name ‘Michael Field’) nicknamed Alice Rothenstein ‘Noli me tangere’ (‘Touch me not’) in a letter of 20 Jan. 1907 (Rothenstein, Men and Memories, 2. 113) and proceeded to use a number of variations on ‘Noli’.

293

18 May 1932

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 10 May 1932 Dear Sirs, I acknowledge receipt of cheque for £43. 15. 3. I authorise you to print 5000 more copies of the small edition of A Shropshire Lad. If, as you fancy is the case, the printing is from stereotype plates, it ought not to be necessary for me to go through the proofs; but if there is any new setting of type, I must. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 91.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 18 May 1932 My dear Richards, Certainly Beerbohm has given you a very nice puff,1 and I hope it will work. I am very sorry to hear about Mrs Grant Allen,2 who always struck me as most interesting and clever. I shall be in Paris at the Continental from May 29 to June 14. I cannot offer you anything of an invitation, for I shall have a friend with me who would not mix with you nor you with him; but if by chance you should be there I hope you would come to dine or lunch with me one day. I have several menus of restaurants which you have sent me from time to time, and I should be grateful for any up-to-date information. If the last two volumes of Frank Harris can be sent to me, as you suggested, I shall be grateful to your friend for taking the trouble; but my wish to read them is not at all intense, and I hope he will not in any way put himself out.3 1 Introduction by Max Beerbohm to GR’s Memories of a Misspent Youth (published in May 1932). 2 GR’s aunt, widow of the writer Grant Allen (1848–99). Richards, 188, reports that she was a guest at his house whom AEH ‘was always glad to see’. 3 In a letter to AEH of 18 Jan. 1932 (LC-GR t.s.), GR had offered to get George Slocombe to procure the volumes.

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Letters 1927–1936

My kind regards to Mrs Richards. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 4 Cranley Place | S. W. 7’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 260; Maas, 320.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trin. Coll. 20 May 1932 Dear Scholfield, This is the book from Gaselee. Yours A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 8534/10A.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 24 May 1932 My dear Richards, I should have liked very much to see Sickert (no longer Walter)1 again and to sample your new house,2 but unfortunately I have on Friday evening a very sacred and long-standing engagement. You told me once that you had heard of a restaurant embedded in the country not far from Paris, like the Moulin de Bicherel but better. Can you remember about it? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I leave here on Saturday PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq | 4 Cranley Place | S. W. 7’. Richards, 261 (nearly complete).

1 The painter Walter Sickert. ‘Sickert and he had both said to me that they would like to meet’: Richards, 260–1. In Apr. 1925 he decided to call himself ‘Walter Richard Sickert’, but by the autumn he had opted for ‘Richard Sickert’. 2 At 4 Cranley Place.

295

27 May 1932

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 26 May 1932 Dear Mackail, fluvio cognomine dicta1 might perhaps be defended by Ovid fast. IV 631 dicta ferendo. But Lachmann Lucr. p. 326 shows that there is no harm in fluvii and that fluvi would be more remarkable. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 May 1932 My dear Richards, On no account let your good Mr Slocombe give himself any trouble.1 I have no firm belief in the existence of your Crouy-sur-Coing,2 and the Guide Michelin holds out little hope of Crouy-sur-Ourcq. But I recommend to you the Vanne Rouge at Montigny-sur-Loing, a few miles beyond Fontainebleau: only avoid Sunday.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 261 (incomplete).

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 27 May 1932 My dear Kate, In order to spare you any needless anxiety, such as befel last year, I write to say that I am crossing to France by the first aeroplane of Imperial Airways at 8. 30 on Sunday morning. I am leaving here to-morrow. 1

Aeneid, 3. 702. See AEH to GR, 18 May 1932, n. 3. 2 ‘This may have been a misspelling by me of Croix-Saint-Ouen’: Richards, 261 n. 3 See AEH to GR, 29 June 1930. ‘I wanted no introduction to the Vanne Rouge … . I had recommended the place to A.E.H.’: Richards, 261 n. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

I expect to be away till June 14, probably at Paris at least most of the time. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 37 .

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 31 May 1932   |  My dear Richards, Pray, pray, do not lift a finger more in the matter of the wretched Frank Harris. I have been to the Écu de France, which is good and evidently very successful, rather uncomfortably crowded after 8. I ate the two things given most prominence in the menu and [was] praised by the patron or chef-d’hˆotel or whoever he was: they were régional, which meant Norman. One was a sole with mushrooms, certainly very good, though it is not a mixture I approve of; the other was deadly dull, boiled or stewed fowl with mushrooms again, though not the same sort / and the hard uneatable parts of artichoke leaves /. The patron stands over the waiters while they serve one, in a menacing manner, so that it is clear their heads will be cut off if they fall short in anything. When I started to order Burgundy the sommelier insisted on Chambolle-Musigny 1921, which was most excellent. Though bouillabaisse was not on the menu, the restaurant was faintly pervaded by that agreeable smell or something very like it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | London S. W. 1 | Angleterre’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 261; Maas, 321 (both incomplete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Hˆotel Continental | Paris 3 June 1932 Les Tilleuls, Bougival. Situation perfectly beautiful, wine quite good, cuisine mediocre, service atrocious. Benedictine poured out in bucketfuls does not atone for badness and coldness of coffee. A. E. H. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | London S. W. 1 | Angleterre’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 262 (nearly complete).

297

10 June 1932

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N [Paris] 7 June 1932 Many thanks for κτίλος.1 C’rastu κεράστης2 is very pretty indeed. A. E. Housman. St Andrews MS 23597: p.c. addressed ‘Professor D’Arcy Thompson | University | St Andrews | Angleterre’.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D 9 June 1932   |  Dear Sirs, I shall be obliged if you will take the proper steps about the enclosed. I am returning to Cambridge on the 13th . Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 93.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Hotel Continental | Paris] 10 June 1932. I will answer your questions about punctuation when I am back in Cambridge next week.1 A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082: p.c. addressed ‘The Richards Press Ltd | 90 Newman Street | London W. 1 | Angleterre’. Clemens (1941), 15 (nearly complete).

1

‘Kτίλος’, CR 46. 2 (1932), 53–4. Thompson had noted the unique occurrence in Greek literature of the word κεράστα (‘horned one’) in Euripides, Cyclops, 52, and had discovered that ‘C’rastu’ was still used by modern Italian shepherds to refer to the ram that leads the flock. Euripides used the vocative; AEH gives the nominative. 1 The Richards Press Ltd to AEH, 8 June 1932: ‘we have noticed that in a previous edition [of ASL], the hand made paper one, you have commas after the words ‘‘shatters’’ on page 6 and ‘‘bad’’ on p. 98. But these commas did not appear in the last edition or in the Alcuin Press edition. Are they required?’ (BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 92). 2

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS 10 June 1932   |  Boeuf a` la Mode.1 The poulet a` la ficelle was cooked in my sight before an electric grate. Neither vine branches nor anything else was kindled underneath it.2 It was quite good, but not better than French chicken often is. The grenouilles a` la Provencale were excellent. The soup was not hot. Marins. Nothing out of the way. Mon Pays. Ditto. (Avenue de Chatillon) Korniloff, rue d’Armaillé, I am told by those who live in the quarter, was once good but is no longer so. Gaschy (if that is the name) I visited and liked the vin pelure d’ognon.3 A. E. H. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | London S. W. 1 | Angleterre’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 262.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS   |  [12 June 1932] Le Progr`es, 195 Avenue de Neuilly, is a problem. Right at the end, close to the bridge over the Seine, horribly noisy with trams and other traffic, it is about the most expensive restaurant I ever was in. It has a special wine-list of grands crus, running into three figures; and if there is a fool on earth who wants to pay 65 francs for a glass of Chartreuse, he can do it here. Cuisine good; service hardly sufficient and not in the least soigné. I cannot imagine how it subsists. A. E. H. L’homme at Chartres has lost its renown, and one is told to lunch at La Providence in Jouy, a few miles this side of Chartres. I found it good in a simple way. But I cannot stomach ‘haricots verts’ even when fresh. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | London S. W. 1 | Angleterre’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 262–3. Postmarked June 12, and received the next day by GR. 1

Like the others, the name of a restaurant. GR had advised AEH of this method of cooking the dish at the restaurant, and had recommended it to AEH on 2 June 1932 (BMC MS). 3 ‘The Arbois wine of which we had drunk so often in the Jura’: Richards, 262. GR had recommended the restaurant and the wine to AEH on 31 May 1932 (BMC MS). AEH writes ‘ognon’ for ‘oignon’ in accordance with the traditional pronunciation. 2

299

15 June 1932

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 15 June 1932 My dear Kate, I did not know anything of your varicose trouble, which you treated as the Spartan boy did the fox,1 but I am very glad that you are rid of it, as it seems you are; and it must have been serious, if the treatment took so long. It is also satisfactory that you are able to dispose of your numerous residential seats, and I hope you are now set free from all business worries. Your letter in the Birmingham Post is very interesting and puts things (some of which I did not know) into a clear and condensed form. I suppose that I did once hear of the awful fate of the books at Fockbury in our father’s youth, but I had quite forgotten it. Our grandmother of course had no brains at all that I could discover; but our grandfather ought to have been ashamed of himself. I am glad however that you have given Catshill his photograph. I return you the cuttings, as I have no proper place to put anything. In this last fortnight I did not spend any night outside Paris, and did not see many places or things which I had not seen before. The chief novelty was the great improvement which has been made in the aeroplanes in the last twelvemonth, in size, steadiness, freedom from noise, and even to some extent in speed. The science also seems to have progressed: when I began, pilots had to fly below the clouds, because if they flew above them they lost their way; but now they fly through them and keep their bearings all right. In leaving England we could see nothing but mist for the last quarter of an hour or more: then, at the coast, this cleared, and there was the blue channel under a blue sky: on the opposite side, instead of the land of France, a huge forest of white trees towering to all sorts of heights, over which, being then at 6000 feet, we proceeded to fly. Neither cotton wool for the ears, nor things to be sick in, are now provided or needed any more than in railway trains; and (on the ‘silver wing’, the most expensive machine—though the fare is only £5. 10. 0—) you can have a large lunch served if you want it. The first five days were proper June weather, the next five cold and showery; the last five stifling hot, and when I stepped into the aeroplane at Paris, which had been standing in the sun, I wondered 1 In Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus (so-called ‘Dryden’ translation): ‘So seriously did the Lacedaemonian children go about their stealing, that a youth, having stolen a young fox and hid it under his coat, suffered it to tear out his very bowels with its teeth and claws and died upon the place, rather than let it be seen.’

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Letters 1927–1936

how we were going to support the journey; but they kept up a throughdraught, and England was almost chilly. At the beginning of July I am going into Oxfordshire for a few days, then for a fortnight to Tardebigge, then for a week to Street.2 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 38 – 40 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | 126 Exeter Road | Exmouth’. Maas, 321–2.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 15 June 1932 Dear Sirs, The two commas on pages 6 and 98 should be inserted. I am much obliged to you for discovering the omissions. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 95.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge] The chief discovery I made in Paris was a new Bearnais1 or Bordelais restaurant, Albert Galen, 36 Boulevard Henri IV: very good and plentiful; and everything which should be hot is piping hot. A. E. H. A tiny, crowded, rather plebeian restaurant, called ‘Nine’ after its proprietress, 34 rue Victor Massé, is Marseillais, and has the best bouillabaisse I have ever eaten outside Marseilles. 16 June 1932 Trin. Coll. Camb. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 263.

2 1

In Somerset, where LH and Clemence lived. For ‘Béarnais’.

301

19 June 1932

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 17 June 1932 Dear Sirs, The Cumberland & Westmoreland 1 Herald seems to have been ignorant and innocent and may now be left alone. Thanks for your trouble. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 97.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 19 June 1932 My dear Roberts, In the paged proofs of Manilius which reached me yesterday I have noticed, what I might easily have missed, a change made on p. 94, wrongly, and without my authority: 549a and 549b substituted for 549A and 549B. This is very improper, and very disquieting; for there is no record of the change in the galley proof accompanying. Can you ascertain whether there has been more of this sort of thing, and in what places? or shall I have to go through the whole book letter by letter to find out? On p. 32 the proof-corrector has again given directions for making a change which ought not to be made; but there it has not been carried out, so I can frustrate it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 773526 . Maas, 322.

1

For ‘Westmorland’.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO F. H . F O B E S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 24 June 1932 Dear Mr Fobes, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your little book of Benner Greek.1 I am not altogether a worthy recipient, for I have no more appreciation of what typographers call beauty than of the ‘elegance’ of a mathematical proof or the points of a bull-terrier; and moreover I seem to find that thick type prevents me from reading quickly. The reform most needed in Greek type, now that the double sigma has been got rid of, seems to me to be the abolition of the subscript iota and the substitution, not simply of the adscript, which often causes ambiguity, but of the diminished adscript, as in Porson’s last edition of the Hecuba.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Maas, 431.

TO J O H N D R I N K WATE R Many thanks for the gift of your Midsummer Eve,1 which I have read with great pleasure and amusement. A. E. Housman. 29 June 1932 Trin. Coll. Camb. Yale MS: p.c. addressed ‘John Drinkwater Esq. | Pepys House | Brampton | Huntingdon’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 June 1932 My dear Richards, I enclose cheque for £200. 0. 0, which will do me no immediate injury. But it seems to me that you are likely to get into new difficulties if you order your finances in such a way that to be disappointed of pre-payment for a book has such dire results. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | London S. W. 1’. 1 A Greek type font devised by Fobes, and named after his fellow classicist Allen Rogers Benner, in collaboration with whom Fobes edited The Letters of Alciphron, Aelian, Philostratus (1949). 2 Published in 1800. 1 Midsummer Eve: A Play primarily intended for Wireless (1932).

303

6 July 1932

TO D E N I S S Y M O N S The Lower House | Tardebigge 6 July 1932 My dear Denis, It is very good of you to ask me to come and see you, and if as you suggest you would motor over to Shrewsbury I should be very much pleased to stay with you for that night, and then I could get back here by rail in the course of the next day. I do not like to subtract more than one night from my stay here; and at the end of it I am due at Street. Love to Phyllis1 and your household. Your affectionate uncle A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Symons Collection.

TO M A RY W I TH E RS The Lower House | Tardebigge 6 July 1932 Dear Mrs Withers, The driver remembered his way very well and avoided his mistakes of two years ago, / and / we did the journey in good time as well as fair weather, so that there was nothing to detract from the pleasure and benefit of my stay with you. Dr Withers’ first aid to my finger was evidently masterly and there are no signs of lockjaw. Kind regards to all. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS The Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove [6 July 1932] My dear Richards, I gave directions that in the edition of A Shropshire Lad which appeared simultaneously or nearly so with Last Poems there should be two alterations made in the text. These directions you disregarded, so the changes had to 1

Denis’s wife.

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Letters 1927–1936

wait for the next edition, which may have been the 1923 copy in Mr C. W. Orr’s possession.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards | Carlton Chambers | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 264.

TO P H Y L L I S S Y M O N S Lower House | Tardebigge 12 July 1932 My dear Phyllis, This letter expresses my hope that you have got home safe, my gratefulness for your hospitality and my pleasant stay, and conveys information for Denis which will not interest him much. On July 5 died the widow1 of his Cousin Henry,2 first cousin of my father and brother of my step-mother, once rector of Bradley not far from here, where Denis may perhaps have met him. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Symons Collection.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D 15 July 1932 Dear Sirs, This good lady has actually printed more of me than of her own twaddle; two entire poems, besides bits.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 98. Maas, 322.

1 For the alterations to the text of ASL, see AEH to GR, 22 Apr. 1922, n. 4. Orr, who had set several of AEH’s poems to music, had noticed the changes in the text by comparing copies of the 1918 and 1923 edns. 1 2 Susan, née White. The Revd Henry Housman. 1 AEH’s letter is accompanied by a cutting of a brief and banal article by Irene L. Watts from Great Thoughts in which she quotes, without permission and not altogether accurately, the whole of ASL XIV and XXVI among a total of sixty-eight lines of verse.

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30 July 1932

TO S T E P H E N G A S E L E E Trinity College | Cambridge 26 July 1932 Dear Gaselee, Thanks for the return of the notes on Plaut. capt., which are now in my hands again. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 29 July 1932 Dear Sirs, I do not want the money of the editor of Great Thoughts.1 I only hope that being rapped over the knuckles will recall him to propriety. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 105.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 30 July 1932 Dear Sir, I shall be happy to sign your copy of Last Poems if you will enclose a cover suitable for returning it. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS.

1

See AEH to the Richards Press Ltd, 15 July 1932.

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TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Aug. 1932 Dear Sirs, Messrs Boosey & Co are at liberty to publish the 3 settings of poems from A Shropshire Lad on the terms they mention. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. They can use the title The Ploughman.1 BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 108.

T O T H E E D I T O R S O F THE CLASSICAL REVIEW [Trinity College | Cambridge September 1932] I understood very well that Mr Labriolle’s was a book ‘`a l’usage du grand public’; and that is why I said that it did not call for much notice from a learned journal.1 I expressed no wish for anything which would alter its character, neither for an ‘appareil érudit’ nor for a ‘docte et illisible élucubration.’ I apologise for suspecting that Mr Labriolle had made the same mistake about the number and case of Juvenal’s Ombos which is made in Quicherat’s thesaurus poeticus linguae Latinae, Forbiger’s Handbuch d. alt. Geographie, Smith’s Dictionary of Gr. and Rom. Geography, Pauly’s Real-Encyclopaedie d. cl. Alterthumswissenschaft, and Pape’s Woerterbuch d. gr. Eigennamen. To my remark on his translation of XIV 50–3 he replies by defending his translation of 47–9. ... CR 46. 4 (Sept. 1932), 190.

1

For the setting of ASL VII (When smoke stood up from Ludlow). AEH’s scathing review of Les Satires de Juvénal by Pierre de Labriolle had appeared in CR 46. 3 ( July 1932), 131–2: Classical Papers, 1195. He had remarked ‘This book does not call for much notice from a learned journal’. 1

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23 September 1932

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Sept. 1932 My dear Richards, The parcel has arrived. If you could come and stay a night or two to carry out your benevolent labour,1 this next week would be the best to choose, as the college is still quite empty, and I could easily find you a room to take the place of the guest-rooms, both of which are permanently occupied. But the week-end would be impossible because of the Annual Gathering / on the 26th /: on the other hand Oct. 1 would be all right. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 265 (nearly complete); Maas, 323.

TO M E S S R S JA M E S B. P I N K E R & S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Sept. 1932 Dear Sirs, Mr Louis Untermeyer was entitled to print in his anthology my seven poems from A Shropshire Lad, which is not copyright in the United States; but for many years it has been my rule to refuse such permission where I have the right to do so, and this practice cannot now be varied. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs James B. Pinker & Son Princeton MS ( J. Harlan O’Connell Collection).

TO M E S S R S JA M E S B. P I N K E R & S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Sept. 1932 Dear Sirs, I have always foreseen that trouble of this sort might arise from the inclusion of poems from A Shropshire Lad in American anthologies, and, if I remember right, it has already once or more than once arisen. But the 1

‘The arranging of his miscellaneous modern library’: Richards, 265.

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anthologists ought to have foreseen it too, and I should not be asked to annul the natural consequences of their not foreseeing it.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Messrs James B. Pinker & Son BMC MS.

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N [Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Sept. 1932] Many thanks for your interesting and instructive birds and beasts,1 and all good wishes. St Andrews MS 23598: fragment of p.c. addressed ‘Professor D’Arcy W. Thompson | 44 South Street’. Date as postmark.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 3 Oct. 1932 Dear Scholfield, Some years ago I asked you if the Library would care to have, when the series was completed, a Bibliotheca Germanorum Erotica et Curiosa which I had ill-advisedly subscribed for,—an index of such literature.1 When the final volume arrived, I had mislaid the others, and they have only just turned up. If you are still, as you were, disposed to receive them, will you send a stout fellow to fetch them? They are nine volumes, of the shape and size of Pauly-Wissowa,2 but much thicker. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11224 . Maas, 323.

1

See AEH to the Richards Press Ltd, 19 Nov. 1932, n. 2. ‘On Some Greco-Egyptian Bird and Beast Names’, Studies presented to F. Lloyd Griffith, ed. S. R. K. Glanville (1932), 249–53. 1 By Hugo Hayn and Alfred N. Gotendorf; first edn., 1875. AEH had the enlarged 3rd edn. (1912–14), completed with the publication of vol. 9 in 1929: P. G. Naiditch, ‘The Extant Portion of the Library of A. E. Housman Part IV. Non-Classical Materials’, HSJ 31 (2005), 157. 2 The Real-Encyclop¨adie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, which began publication in 1893. 1

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6 October 1932

TO E . H . B L A K E N E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Oct. 1932 Dear Mr Blakeney, You should get Hosius Die Moselgedichte des Decimus Magnus Ausonius (N. G. Elwertsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Marburg 1. H.),1 which has a useful commentary and is quite cheap. In any case I have little authority to ‘settle’ difficulties in Ausonius or give ‘decisions’ on them. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 48980, fos. 20–1. Maas, 431.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Oct. 1932 Dear Sirs, Mr Sumsion1 may have permission to publish his settings to music of The New Mistress, The winds out of the west land blow, and The Merry Guide. As the last is rather a long poem, he must be warned that it must be published entire if at all. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 111.

TO U N K N OW N B O O K S E L L E R S Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Oct. 1932 Dear Sirs, I return the ‘Editio Quinta’ of Persius and Juvenal which you have procured me from Weidmann. It is, as I suspected it would be, an impudent fraud. It is an unaltered reprint of the Editio Quarta of 1910,

1 First edn., 1894. AEH gives the title-page description of the two subsequent edns. of 1909 and 1926. He owned a copy of the 1909 edn.: Naiditch (2003), 110. 1 Corbett Sumsion published settings of the first two of these poems in 1933 with J. & W. Chester Ltd.

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Letters 1927–1936

without even the insertion of the corrigenda which were given on p.  and which still remain there. Nothing is new but the lying title-page.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Private MS. Taped to the title-page of a copy of AEH’s 1931 edn. of Juvenal once owned by H. A. Wickstead of St John’s College, Cambridge.

TO LA DY DA RW I N Trinity College 10 Oct. 1932 Dear Lady Darwin, I shall be delighted to dine with you at 7. 45 on the 15th . Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Printed in Swann Galleries cat. 1097 (3 Apr. 1978), no. 107.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Oct. 1932 My dear Kate, As term has begun, I suppose it is time that I wrote you a letter. The alarm about Basil, I am glad to see, has died down, though I am afraid he must still be suffering a great deal. When I last heard from you, two of Denis’s children were ill, but I hope that also has passed over, and that you had plenty of grandchildren to play with in August and September. I have been here ever since I came back from Street, working quietly. September is a month when I always feel industrious, and a pleasant month in Cambridge. The chief event in this college is that we have a new chef in the kitchen, who is a great improvement on the last one. The last one however was not dismissed for his cookery but for his quarrelsomeness. The new one had an English mother and was born in England, which causes him to pronounce his French name

1 The 5th edn. is that of Bücheler’s Juvenal, as revised by Leo. AEH takes ‘editio’ to mean ‘edition’, but on a German title-page it represents Auflage, which may be an edition or merely an impression.

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15 October 1932

Bongers as if it meant / persons / who bong, to rhyme with congers. With love, Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 5041 . Maas, 324.

? TO JA M E S B. P I N K E R Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Oct. 1932 Dear Sir, In answer to your letter of yesterday I regret to say that the suggestion of the Albatross Press is not acceptable to me.1 The ‘other poems’ would have to be from Last Poems, and in order to fill the same space they would have to be an unduly large portion of that small book. Moreover I have for some years past been refusing as a general rule to allow the inclusion in anthologies of poems even from that source. If I on my part may make a suggestion, it is that the space might be filled by writings from the books of other poets, perhaps not yet included. For instance, Mr Roy Campbell’s poem on the island of Tristan da Cunha,2 if not already in the anthology, would be a great ornament to it[.] Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Berg MS.

TO V I RG I N I A R I C E [15 Oct. 1932] Not necessarily the last, but the last volume which will appear in my lifetime.1 A. E. H. The Saturday Review, 14. 12 (18 July 1936), 14, where the date of the p.c. is given.

1

See AEH to the Richards Press Ltd, 19 Nov. 1932. [Ignatius] Roy [Dunnachie] Campbell (1902–57), a South African poet who was born in Durham. The poem appeared in Adamastor: Poems (1930; 2nd edn., 1932). 1 Virginia Rice, then a college student, had written to ask AEH if LP would be his last collection of poems. 2

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Letters 1927–1936

TO J O H N H A L L W H E E LO C K Trinity College | Cambridge | England 18 Oct. 1932 Dear Mr Wheelock, I am obliged by your kind letter, but it is very unlikely that I shall ever publish another book. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. J. H. Wheelock Esq. BMC MS.

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 1 Nov. 1932 Dear Duff, Roughly thus. A frame all round him was faced with planking studded with points of equal length, and there was artfully compacted a painful system of puncture consisting of rows of projecting iron spikes. By this device sleep was denied him, and to whichever side passive drowsiness made him lean as time dragged on (producto), these spikes pierced deep into his flesh.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 196 4 .

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge] Tuesday Nov. 8 [1932] I may be away at lecture when you arrive to-morrow. I have put you in the New Guest Room for the night. A. E. H. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 Regent Street | London S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s.

1 AEH is translating Silius Italicus, 6. 539–44. Duff used the translation of these lines in his 1934 Loeb edn.

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14 November 1932

TO M A R I A R I C H A R D S Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Nov. 1932 Dear Mrs Richards, I should be delighted to lunch with you on the 12th , and as my train gets to Liverpool Street at 12. 36 I shall hope to be decently punctual. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S [Trinity College | Cambridge] Our grandfather1 took his B.A. from St John’s Coll. Cambridge in 1819, was ordained deacon in the same year by the bishop of Gloucester, priest in 19202 by the bishop of Lichfield & Coventry. In Crockford3 1860 he is incumbent of Catshill since 1844 ’’ 1865 ’’ Perpetual Curate ’’ ’’ ’’ (and Mr Liddon Perpetual Curate since 1864) In Crockford 1868 Mr Liddon is still Perpetual Curate and our grandfather does not appear. A. E. H. 14 Nov. 1932 Uncle Tom4 was a boarder at Bromsgrove, Uncle Joe a day-boy. There is no portrait of A. J. Macleane in any of his editions. Thanks for the extract. Pugh, 151 (reduced facsimile).

1 3 4

2 The Revd Thomas Housman (1795–1870). He means 1820. Crockford’s Clerical Directory, published since 1838 and first compiled by John Crockford. Thomas Brettell Housman (1823–74).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Nov. 1932 My dear Kate, I have just made a new will, which is in the custody of Messrs Few & Wild Sidney House 22–24 Sidney Street Cambridge. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Nov. 1932 Dear Sirs, If your interpretation of Messrs Curtis Brown’s1 letter is correct—that the Albatross Press have published in the United States an anthology containing poems from A Shropshire Lad and now wish to publish it in Europe,2 —I refuse to allow my poems to appear in it, as I refused in a similar case a few months ago. Your interpretation is countenanced by the remark that ‘should Mr Housman refuse permission … it will not be possible to proceed &c’, which seems to imply photographic reproduction of an already published book. But what they actually ask for is permission to include the poems in an anthology which they are ‘planning’. However, it makes no difference to my refusal. I do not know why they cannot print other matter and photograph that. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 114–15. Maas, 324–5. 1

London literary agents. The Albatross Book of Living Verse: English and American Poetry from the Thirteenth Century to the Present Day, ed. Louis Untermeyer (1933). In the Contents seven poems are listed as appearing on p. 499: The True Lover, The Carpenter’s Son, Loveliest of Trees, Oh, when I was in love with you, Is my team ploughing, When I was one-and-twenty, and On Wenlock Edge. However, on p. 499 is printed a note from the publisher (William Collins Sons & Co., Ltd.): ‘In fairness to the readers, it must be explained that the Editor included, in the American edition of this anthology, the poems given in the Contents, but the author refused permission for the European edition.’ 2

315

24 November 1932

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 20 Nov. 1932 Dear Roberts, Hospitality will protect you from violence, so do not be afraid to come on Friday; but what you make me say in your advertisement1 in the Classical Review is exactly the opposite of what I said, and intrinsically idiotic. ‘Some of these changes, the editor thinks, may be for the worse’, when I expressly said that these changes proceeded from a change of opinion, and excepted them from the ‘much greater number’ which did not. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 325, which was based on a MS in private hands that is now missing. Excerpt in S. C. Roberts, Adventures with Authors (1966), 125.

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 21 Nov. 1932 Dear Duff, ‘Ex murorum ruina nouus altiorque agger oriebatur, qui obstabat, et impediebat pugnantes: u. 374 iacens uallum dicitur. Lucani est locus simillimus III 508 procubuit maiorque iacens apparuit agger’ Ernesti.1 As certatim with prorutus would be foolishly irrelevant, I suppose it must mean that each part of the débris tried to rise higher than the rest. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 196 5 . Maas, 431–2.

TO A R N O L D RU B I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 24 Nov. 1932 Dear Mr Rubin, I am glad to hear from you again, and hope that all is well with you and that all will be well with your magazine. But a contribution from me is something that many magazines have asked, and none, within 1 1

Of the editio minor of Manilius. In his edn. of Silius Italicus, 1791–2.

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human memory, obtained. I do not remember that any of them suffered in consequence, and I do not suppose that yours will either. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

T O T H E E D I T O R O F THE TIMES Sir,—On page 14 of your issue of to-day1 it is said that Joseph Chamberlain wore an eye-glass when he made his first speech in the House of Commons. He wore a pair of spectacles with black and rather thick rims.2 Disraeli is described as ‘‘frail and cadaverous.’’ His complexion was a pale olive, but did not look cadaverous from the Strangers’ Gallery; and of frailty there was not a sign.3 Sitting as he did with one knee crossed over the other, he showed a very good pair of legs; he walked in and out of the House with a long, easy stride; and after answering a speech of Hartington’s, a few days earlier or later, about the Suez Canal shares, he threw himself back into his seat almost with violence. Chamberlain’s speech was very rapid, and at first too loud for the size of the Chamber.4 He showed no trace of nervousness except that once, after saying ‘‘I protest, Mr. Speaker,’’ he rather hurriedly changed the phrase to ‘‘I humbly protest.’’ Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Trinity College, Cambridge, Nov. 24. The Times, 25 Nov. 1932. Richards, 44–5 (nearly complete); Maas, 325.

1

In the fourth of a series of articles by J. L. Garvin on Chamberlain’s life. ‘I am … confident that the Professor is mistaken. My father then and for long afterwards used nothing but the eyeglass except when dressing, and then he wore gold spectacles. I do not believe my father ever possessed such a pair of spectacles as Professor Housman describes’: Austen Chamberlain, The Times, 26 Nov. 1932. In the same issue Garvin notes that Sir Henry Lucy gave him the impression, and recorded as fact, that Chamberlain wore an eyeglass in the House of Commons from the very first. 3 Garvin, loc. cit.: ‘Disraeli was less vigorous at the moment than Professor Housman seems to infer. A few days later, as may be read in Mr. Buckle’s pages, he retired from the House of Commons because of the state of his health.’ 4 Garvin: ‘A Liberal auditor said that the speech ‘‘struck the conversational key and tone of argument.’’ A Conservative auditor particularly noted its ‘‘easy confidence and well pitched tone.’’ ’ 2

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27 November 1932

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 25 Nov. 1932 Dear Mr Houston Martin, I am obliged and flattered by your letter, but it is now a great many years since I began to refuse requests for poems written out in my own hand, and therefore you must not mind if you receive the same answer as many others. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Martin (1937), 296.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Nov. 1932 Dear Sirs, You may print as you propose five thousand copies of the small edition of Last Poems. How many copies remain of the larger, original, edition? If I remember right, there were twenty-one thousand printed in 1922.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 117–18.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Nov. 1932 Dear Mr Wilson, I return the three books signed. Many thanks for The Forest Lovers.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Brigham Young University MS.

1 The total for sales and remaining stock was 20,846, with the remainder of the 21,000 made up by free copies and review copies: the Richards Press to AEH, 28 Nov. 1932 (BMC MS; BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 119). 1 The Forest Lovers: A Romance, by Maurice Hewlett (1898).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO S I R JA M E S G. F R A Z E R Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Nov. 1932 My dear Frazer, I lose no time in thanking you for your kindness in having sent to me the comely volume of The Frazer Lectures with the excellent portrait of your self.1 I hope I may assume that you are well, as I see that you have just been giving a course of lectures in London. My kind regards to Lady Frazer. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS Frazer 28 56 .

TO T H E R E V D D E LO S O ’ B R I A N Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Dec. 1932 Dear Mr O’Brian, I have had no photograph taken for many years, but in the ambition of decorating your vestry I enclose one which belongs to the time when I was writing A Shropshire Lad.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. White (1950), 408, where the addressee is identified as ‘the Rev. Delos O’Brian of Gardener, Mass.’ Maas, 326.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 Nov. 19321 My dear Withers, It is exceedingly kind and thoughtful of you to offer me lodging, but I am not going to my brother’s funeral, as it would be difficult and they do not press me to come. 1 The Frazer Lectures: 1922–1932, by divers hands, ed. Warren R. Dawson (1932). The volume contains (xi–xii) the address AEH gave to mark the foundation of the annual Frazer Lectureship in Social Anthropology in 1921 (Selected Prose, 163–4), and at the front there is a photograph of Frazer working at the British Library. 1 A carte de visite c.1894 by Van der Weyde. 1 AEH mistakenly writes ‘Nov.’ for ‘Dec.’: Basil Housman died on 1 Dec. 1932.

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21 December 1932

He was my favourite among my brothers and sisters, and the most normal member of the family. He suffered so much pain, especially towards the end, that his death is a release. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS I shall be glad to see you again at your beneficent labours,1 but it is unlucky that I shall be dining out and unable to take you to Hall. A. E. H. 7 Dec. ’32 Trin. Coll. Camb. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards | 8 Regent Street | London S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s.

TO I . R . B RU S S E L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 15 Dec. 1932 Dear Mr Brussel, I have received the copy of A Shropshire Lad, written my name in it, and sent it to Messrs Zaehnsdorf. I have also received The Cream of the Jest,1 for which many thanks, and have begun to read it. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.). Envelope addressed ‘Mr I. R. Brussel | Sephra Library Service | 1625 Eastern Parkway | Brooklyn | N. Y. | U. S. A.’

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N Many thanks; but Byzantiacos.1 21 Dec. 1932

Yrs. A. E. H. Trin. Coll. Camb.

St Andrews MS 23599: p.c. addressed ‘Professor D’Arcy W. Thompson | The University | St Andrews’. 1

See AEH to GR, 16 Sept. 1932, and note. The Cream of the Jest: A Comedy of Evasions, by James Branch Cabell (1923). 1 Thompson’s paper on Statius, Silvae, 4. 9, 13 in CR 46. 6 (1932), 246–8, had been entitled ‘Byzantios olent lacertos’. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Dec. 1932 My dear Kate, I send you, in case you have not seen it, the Bromsgrovian with Basil’s obituary notice.1 I do not know who can have written it, and you will notice blunders. It was very good of you to write to me so fully about the funeral and Jeannie’s affairs. I suppose his life was insured to some extent. Jeannie gives me a general invitation to Tardebigge, and possibly I may go there in June. In the course of this year I have grown older, which shows itself in my walking powers. After five or six miles, though I do not get tired, my legs tend to act sluggishly. My heart, according to the doctor, is going on all right. I am staying here as usual through the vacation. I have to eat two Christmas dinners on Christmas Eve and a third on the Day itself. A good many of my friends both inside and outside the college are suffering from various rather serious ailments or from old age: one of them was 85 yesterday.2 A happy Christmas to you and anyone who is with you. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS. Pugh, Appendix F, lxxxiv.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Dec. 1932 My dear Withers, I lose no time in thanking you for your kind letter and returning greeting to you and yours, because if I delay it may be too late; for I have to eat two Christmas dinners on Christmas Eve and a third on the Day itself.

1 The obituary appeared in The Bromsgrovian (the magazine of King Edward VI Grammar School, Bromsgrove),  46. 2 (Dec. 1932), 62. 2 William Emerton Heitland (1847–1935), who turned 85 on 21 Dec. 1932.

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28 December 1932

I may hope to avail myself of your invitation in June, when I expect to be going to my sister-in-law; but try to come to Cambridge before. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO E . H . W. M E Y E R S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Dec. 1932 Dear Sir, I am obliged by your gift and flattered by your request for my comments, but I ought not to give an encouraging response. Your translation,1 however faithful, is prevented from being a ‘poetic counterpart’ of the original by insensitiveness in the choice of words. The verse too has not that accomplishment which would be required for an adequate version of Propertius. But I am notoriously a morose critic, and you should not let this answer spoil your Christmas. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Maas, 326.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1932 My dear Laurence, I am glad to have the report of your comparatively edifying end, which ought to go well on the stage;1 for I suppose by this time you are quite an accomplished actor. I observe that in order to make yourself more precious in the eyes of your redeemer you have blackened yourself with Basil’s diabolism; and the exact phrase was ‘I’m very fond of the devil’. The passage from The Chinese Lantern2 seems to me a judicious selection. Love and a happy new year to both of you.3 Your affectionate Brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 184; Maas, 327. 1 1 3

Four Elegies of Propertius (1932). See AEH to LH, 26 Mar. 1932, and note. LH and sister Clemence.

2

By LH (1908).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Dec. 1932 My dear Kate, The only other mistake in the obituary1 that I remember was calling Jeannie the eldest daughter. I do not want the magazine back, and I do not particularly care to have an offprint. Basil and all the rest of us (except of course Bob,2 who went first to Bath) entered the School3 at 11, the earliest age at which the scholarship could be got. When Basil left school he had a sounder knowledge of Greek and Latin than I had at the same age, only he had no turn for composition. Christmas safely over, I am now making ready for New Year’s Eve and oysters. One of us four boon-companions, I am sorry to say, is so ill with gout or the remedies for gout that he may not be there. This sort of thing is what now begins to trouble me: the Vice-Master of the College4 is seriously ill, and another of the older fellows has had a paralytic stroke. I wish you a new year without any such visitations. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO L I L LY F R A Z E R Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Dec. 1932 Dear Lady Frazer, Many thanks for your kind present of the Scotch cake (made, I suppose, by Sir James), in return for which please accept both of you my best wishes for 1933. I have stayed at your hotel,1 and I know Bath and its neighbourhood well and like it even in winter. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Frazer MS 1893 . 1 2 3 4 1

See AEH to KES, 22 Dec. 1932, and note. Their brother Robert Holden Housman (1860–1905). The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove. Reginald St John Parry. Spa Hotel, Bath (BL Add. MS 55147, fo. 107). See letters of 30 July and 27 Aug. 1924.

1933 TO E . S. P. H AY N E S [Trinity College | Cambridge 1933 Dear Sir,] I had just been reading your book on English Justice1 and your gift2 is very welcome, as are all the letters of yours that I read in the papers. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 337.

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 9 Jan. 1933 Dear Duff, Thanks for Conington’s letter,1 which I return. I think that fastigatur 2 signifies the narrowing (tapering would be too strong) of the island at toe and heel. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 196 6 . Maas, 432.

1 2 1 2

Lycurgus; or, The Future of Law (1925): Richards, 337. A Lawyer’s Notebook, 2nd impression (1932): Richards, 337. Identified by Maas as a letter of 1 Dec. 1864 to H. A. J. Munro about his edn. of Lucretius. In Silius Italicus, 12. 356.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Jan. 1933 My dear Kate, They have sent me these, which had better be in your possession. I am ordering the Catalogue to be sent to you: if it does not arrive in a few days, scream. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. White (1978), 22.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Jan. 1933 My dear Laurence, I have signed no end of copies for the most undeserving people, including a lot of my own students at University College, so I never make any difficulty about it. But your friend has come in for a slump in these fancy goods, I am afraid. I saw from the papers that your death was attracting notice.1 I should like to hear you on the gramophone some day, but do not send me a record, which would be wasting it. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. McGill MS. Memoir, 184–5; Maas, 327.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Jan. 1933 Dear Sirs, Here is another of these infringements of copyright. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 120.

1

See AEH to LH, 26 Mar. 1932, and note.

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29 January 1933

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Jan. 1933 My dear Richards, I am touched by your concern for my health and disapproval of my habits, but your picture is darker than the truth. The fire does not usually go out, nor is the bed to which I retire a cold one, as I keep my bedroom so warm with a gas fire that I do not even need to use my hot-water bottle. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 266; Maas, 327.

TO M AU R I C E P O L L E T 1 I was born in Worcestershire, not Shropshire, where I have never spent much time. My father and mother were respectively Lancashire and Cornish. I had a sentimental feeling for Shropshire because its hills were our western horizon. My topographical details—Hughley, Abdon under Clee, are sometimes quite wrong; but I know /[?something of]/2 Ludlow and Wenlock. I took an interest in astronomy almost as early as I can remember; the cause, I think, was a little book we had in the house. I was brought up in the Church of England and in the High Church party, which is much the best religion I have ever come across. But Lemprière’s Classical Dictionary, read when I was eight, made me prefer paganism to Christianity; I /abandoned Christianity/3 at 13 and /became/4 an atheist at 21. I never had any scientific education. I wrote verse at 8 or earlier, but very little until I was 35. Oxford had not much effect on me, except that I there met my greatest friend. While I was at the Patent Office I read a great deal of Greek and Latin at the British Museum of an evening. 1 BMC MS: draft in ink corrected in ink and pencil, with last paragraph entirely in pencil. For the version sent to Pollet, see next letter. 2 Correction in pencil. Unless otherwise noted, corrections are in ink. 3 4 Correction in pencil. Correction in pencil.

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Letters 1927–1936

While at University College, which is not residential, I lived alone in lodgings in the environs of London. A Shropshire Lad was written in Byron Cottage, 17 North Road, Highgate, where I lived from 1886 to 1905. A Shropshire Lad was offered to Macmillan, and declined by them on the advice, I have been told, of John Morley, who was their reader. Then a friend introduced me to Kegan Paul; but the book was published at my own expense. The Shropshire Lad is an imaginary character, with something of my temper and view of life. Very little in the book is biographical. ‘Reader of the Greek Anthology’ is not a good name for me. Of course I have read it, or most of it, but with /no/5 special heed; and my favourite Greek poet is Aeschylus. No doubt I have unconsciously been influenced by the Greeks and Latins, but I was surprised when critics spoke of my poetry as ‘classical’. Its chief sources of which I am conscious are Shakespeare’s songs, the Scottish Border ballads, and Heine. ‘Oh stay at home’ was written years before the Great War, and /expresses/ no change of opinion, only /a different/6 mood. The Great War cannot have made much change in the /opinions/ of any man of imagination. I have never had any such thing as a ‘crisis of pessimism’. In the first place, I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal /history/. Secondly, I did not begin to write poetry in earnest until the really emotional part of my life was over; and my poetry, so far as I could make out, [←sprang] chiefly /from/ physical causes, such as a relaxed sore throat during my most prolific period, the first 5 months of 1895. I respect the Epicureans more than the Stoics, but my man is Aristippus of Cyrene, who was not afraid of words. Of the writers you mention the only two whom I have read and admired much are Pascal and Leopardi. For Hardy I had great affection, and admiration for some of his novels and a little of his poetry. As some of the questions which you ask in your flattering curiosity may / possibly/ be asked by /some a/ future generations, and as /most/ of them can only be answered by me, I make this reply.

5

Corrections in pencil.

6

Corrections in pencil.

327

5 February 1933

TO M AU R I C E P O L L E T Trinity College, Cambridge 5 Feb. 1933 Dear M. Pollet, As some of the questions which you ask in your flattering curiosity1 may be asked by future generations, and as many of them can only be answered by me, I make this reply. I was born in Worcestershire, not Shropshire, where I have never spent much time. My father’s family was Lancashire and my mother’s Cornish.2 I had a sentimental feeling for Shropshire because its hills were 1 Pollet’s questionnaire (BMC MS; another autograph version, with minor variants, in Lilly; Richards, 267–9) was: ‘I Biographical particulars. Please, 1. In which place were you born? 2. In which place, or places, did you spend your childhood before going to Bromsgrove school? 3. Does your liking for Astronomy dates [sic] as far back as the Shropshire summer nights of your youth? 4. Were you brought up in any religion? 5. Did you feel early the ‘‘craving for knowledge’’? 6. Was your education at Bromsgrove school scientific as well as classical? 7. Did you, at that time, write poetry? 8. Were those years you spent in Oxford decisive for your opinions—say about life, or man’s destiny, as such years at University sometimes are for students? 9. Did you make very wide personal studies when you were employed at H. M. Patent Office? 10. Did your life at University College differ much from what it is now at Cambridge? 11. Did you, more or less regularly, always go back to Shropshire? II 1. Did you meet with any difficulties in having your ‘‘Shropshire Lad’’ published the first time? 2. People have been puzzled by the title ‘‘A Shropshire Lad’’. Can you possibly tell me in what proportion the Shropshire lad is the same as the reader of the Greek anthology? 3. Though the poems have been grouped according to a certain principle of unity, rather than one of chronology, may I however, rely on their general order to infer from it some sort of evolution which I seem to discern in certain themes? 4. to wit: the theme of Soldiers and War; from ‘‘Leave your home behind, lad . . ’’ to ‘‘Ah! [sic] Stay at home, my lad .. ’’ with the intermediate poem ‘‘The Day of Battle’’? 5. Are not the Great War, and perhaps the antinomy between Friendship and Heroism causes, among others, of such a change? 6. In the same way, am I too systematic when I deem the poem ‘‘Be still, my soul, be still . . ’’ to have been written in a moment which immediately followed a particularly sharp crisis of pessimism, and the very next poem ‘‘Think no more, lad . . ’’ already a natural reaction against too much sorrow, as if sorrow itself begot its own antidote out of its very violence? 7. Granted the fact that, in your own words (I apologize for quoting you) ‘‘the light shed on the origin and destiny of man by the pursuit of truth in some directions is not altogether a cheerful light . . ’’ are there not, besides, very precise occasional causes to that deep crisis which I suppose to have taken place at a certain time? 8. Have you ever disclosed the names of some of these friends of yours who are made the subject of some of your poems; and if not, do you think that you would, as it were, give them away, in handing their names to the public? 9. You may well understand that, beside these questions, I would very much like to know your opinion about many people, ancients or moderns, among whom I would bring to the fore: The stoics, the Epicureans; —Villon, Pascal, Verlaine. —Leopardi; Calderon; —Ed. FitzGerald; —the German philosophers of the last century; Kant, Schopenhauer, Hartmann; —Th. Hardy; —and many others. London. 30/1/1933 Maurice Pollet’. 2 ‘KES in a letter to the Sunday Times, 1 Nov. 1936, printed in part in Richards, 272: ‘as to his father, the claim was far-fetched; as to his mother, absolutely incorrect. The main stem of the Housman family was seated at Lancaster for some generations before county inter-migration became easy; and A.E.H.’s great-grandfather, the Rev. Robert Housman, was pure Lancastrian. His wife, however, came from the Midlands and their son, our grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Housman, married a wife born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, of Midland parents on both

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Letters 1927–1936

our western horizon. I know Ludlow and Wenlock, but my topographical details—Hughley, Abdon under Clee,—are sometimes quite wrong.3 Remember that Tyrtaeus was not a Spartan.4 I took an interest in astronomy almost as early as I can remember; the cause, I think, was a little book we had in the house. I was brought up in the Church of England and in the High Church party, which is much the best religion I have ever come across. But Lemprière’s Classical Dictionary, which fell into my hands when I was eight, attached my affections to paganism. I became a deist at 13 and an atheist at 21. I never had any scientific education. I wrote verse at eight or earlier, but very little until I was 35.5 Oxford had not much effect on me, except that I there met my greatest friend.6 While I was at the Patent Office7 I read a great deal of Greek and Latin at the British Museum of an evening.8 While at University College, which is not residential, I lived alone in lodgings in the environs of London.9 A Shropshire Lad was written at Byron Cottage, 17 North Road, Highgate, where I lived from 1886 to 1905.10

sides. Our father was born in the Midlands with an attenuated strain of Lancastrian in him; and A.E.H. was born in Bromsgrove with little but Midland blood in him on his father’s side. Our mother, I am certain, possessed no Cornish ancestry at all. Her father, John Williams, D.D., was pure East Devon on both sides. I have his pedigree going back for generations, one stem in it being the Drakes of Devon. Her mother’s ancestry I have not traced back far, but they belonged to an old family of Cotswold cloth manufacturers—not at all likely to have a Cornish strain in them’. LH, Memoir, 20–1, also corrects AEH. 3 See AEH to unknown correspondent, 11 Feb. 1929, and to Bullett, 22 Apr. 1933. 4 The elegiac poet Tyrtaeus led the Spartans as a general in the second Messenian War, and was probably Spartan by birth. However, legend has it that he was an Athenian schoolmaster who was sent to Sparta as the result of the pronouncement of an oracle. 5 According to KES, the publication of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865) and Lear’s Books of Nonsense (1861, 1862, 1863, 1870) gave a lead to AEH’s natural bent to write comic verses, which he did ‘as far back as I can remember’. His verse before 1894 was predominantly light or comic: only six poems and two surviving fragments of poems are not, and three of the poems are prize poems in metres and on subjects not of his choosing. The date ‘Aug. 1894’ is written on page 191 of Nbk A, and if, as he tells Pollet, he wrote ASL at Byron Cottage, ASL XL, the first poem from it, on page 63 of Nbk A, was written after 11 Dec. 1885, the date at which he was still lodging at Northumberland Place, Bayswater. See AEH to unknown correspondent, 30 Sept. 1930, n. 2. 6 7 Moses Jackson: see List of Recipients. From the end of Nov. 1882 till Oct. 1892. 8 See AEH to the Council of University College, London, 19 Apr. 1892. 9 He followed his landlady Mrs Hunter from Byron Cottage to 1 Yarborough Villas, Woodridings, Pinner, in Nov. 1905. 10 See AEH to unknown correspondent, 30 Sept. 1930.

5 February 1933

329

A Shropshire Lad was offered to Macmillan, and declined by them on the advice, I have been told, of John Morley, who was their reader.11 Then a friend12 introduced me to Kegan Paul; but the book was published at my own expense. The Shropshire Lad is an imaginary figure, with something of my temper and view of life. Very little in the book is biographical. ‘Reader of the Greek Anthology’ is not a good name for me. Of course I have read it, or as much of it as is worth reading, but with no special heed; and my favourite Greek poet is Aeschylus. No doubt I have unconsciously been influenced by the Greeks and Latins, but I was surprised when critics spoke of my poetry as ‘classical’. Its chief sources of which I am conscious are Shakespeare’s songs, the Scottish Border ballads, and Heine.13 ‘Oh stay at home’ was written years before the Great War,14 and expresses no change of opinion, only a different mood. The Great War cannot have made much change in /the/ opinions of any man of imagination. I have never had any such thing as a ‘crisis of pessimism’. In the first place, I am not a pessimist but a pejorist15 (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist);16 and that is owing to my observation of the world, not to personal circumstances. Secondly, I did not begin to write poetry in earnest until the really emotional part of my life was over; and my poetry, so far as I could make out, sprang chiefly from physical conditions, such as a relaxed sore throat during my most prolific period,17 the first five months of 1895. I respect the Epicureans more than the Stoics, but I am myself a Cyrenaic. Pascal and Leopardi I have studied with great admiration; 11 LH, Recollections, 48: ‘a note in my brother’s handwriting tells me that, offered in the first place to Messrs. Macmillan for publication, it was refused by them on the advice of their reader, Mr. John Morley’. On Morley, see AEH to LH, 5 Dec. 1922, n. 3. William White, TLS, 22 Mar. 1947, 127, reveals that Macmillan, whilst admitting to the rejection, have neither a letter to Morley nor a report on AEH’s script in their files. 12 A. W. Pollard. See List of Recipients. 13 These and many other influences are noted in the commentary of Poems (1997). See An Index to Archie Burnett’s Commentary on ‘The Poems of A. E. Housman’ by P. G. Naiditch (1998). 14 The first and second drafts date from the period Dec. 1895–24 Feb. 1900. 15 ‘One who believes that the world is becoming worse’: OED, citing AEH among its examples. 16 The OED defines meliorism as ‘the doctrine that the world, or society, may be improved, and suffering alleviated through rightly directed human effort’, and notes that sometimes it implies ‘the belief that society has on the whole a prevailing tendency towards improvement’. J. W. Cross’s George Eliot’s Life (1885), 3. 301, quotes George Eliot’s remark ‘I don’t know that I ever heard anybody use the word ‘‘meliorist’’ except myself ’, and J. Sully, Pessimism (1877), 399, acknowledges her use of the term. 17 See the note on the letter to Webb, 17 June 1896.

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Letters 1927–1936

Villon and Verlaine very little, Calderon and German philosophers not at all. For Hardy I felt affection, and high admiration for some of his novels and a few of his poems. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. Études Anglaises, 1. 5 (Sept. 1937), 402–4, following Pollet’s study of AEH and his poetry on pp. 385–401. Memoir, 20–1, 56, 71–2 (excerpts); Richards, 269–71; Maas, 328–9.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Feb. 1933 My dear Richards, I thought that for the sake of posterity I might as well answer some of the young man’s questions.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 269 (with ‘Questions’ for ‘questions’).

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Feb. 1933 Dear Sirs, I think that what we have generally done in these cases is to make the criminals apologise in their papers. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 122.

1 This note accompanied AEH’s reply to Pollet’s questionnaire. In his letter of 30 Jan. 1933 to AEH, addressed from the Brighton Hall Hotel, Cartwright Gardens, London W. C. 1 (BMC MS), Pollet described himself as ‘a Frenchman, a student at the University of Paris, a young man of two-and-twenty’, and expressed the hope that his zeal would make good his ‘inexperience and youth’.

331

7 February 1933

TO J O NATH A N CA PE Trinity College | Cambridge 5 Feb. 1933 Dear Sirs, I have heard from my brother that you do me the honour to be interested in my publishing arrangements, so to save you trouble I write to say that I am not thinking of changing my publishers, while thanking you all the same. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Reading MS 2446.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Feb. 1933 Dear Mr Wilson, I am very sorry to hear of your painful illness, which is even worse than the influenza now raging around me. Up to the present I have got nothing worse than a bad cold, so I ought to congratulate myself, especially when I see in the Times the tall columns of deaths of people younger than me. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Virginia MS (McGregor, box 4). Maas, 330.

TO TH E CO U NTE S S CAVE [Trinity College | Cambridge] 7 Feb. 1933 Dear Lady Cave, I have no reason to think that the anonymous author of the verses you mention, if still living, would have any objection to your using them, and I myself, to whom they should not be attributed, have none; but I suppose that the copyright, if there is any, belongs to the editor and editorial committee of The Bromsgrovian.1 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Memoir, 206. 1 AEH’s poem, beginning As I was a-walking (later As I was walking slowly), was published as part of the spoof fairy-tale A Morning with the Royal Family in The Bromsgrovian, The Magazine

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Letters 1927–1936

TO M I LM A N PA RRY Trinity College | Cambridge | England 16 Feb. 1933 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your paper on Metaphor.1 I agree with what you say about the diction of Homer and the 18th century, only I do not admire it so much as you do.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry, ed. Adam Parry (1971), p. liv n. 2, as noted in Naiditch (1995), 163, from G. P. Goold.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Feb. 1933 Dear Sirs, The National Institute for the Blind may publish, as they desire, A Shropshire Lad in Braille type for the use of the blind. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 125.

of King Edward VI Grammar School, Bromsgrove,  1. 2 (15 Feb. 1882), 27–30. See Poems (1997), 211, 515–16, 517. Lines 5–6 of the poem, ‘His heels were in an ant’s nest, | His head was in a tree’ qualified it for inclusion in Ant Antics. Presented and Illustrated by Estella Cave. With accompaniments by Stanley Baldwin, Jack Spratt, Tom, Dick & Harry, Basil Cave, Baden-Powell, Beverly Nicols, Lord Tom-Noddy, Lord Love Us!, Rudyard Kipling, and OTHERS. (1933), and it was printed on p. 96 and illustrated on p. 97, without acknowledgement. LH contributed Ann Estella Cave (p. 75) to the volume. 1 ‘The Traditional Metaphor in Homer’, Classical Philology, 28 (1933), 30–43; repr. in The Making of Homeric Verse, 365–75. 2 Parry (1902–35) argued that in Homer, and in the diction of eighteenth-century poetry, metaphor was traditional and fixed, and that ‘we must judge not the device in itself but the state of mind which found pleasure in the device, and, more largely, the society which set up such a state of mind as the most desirable one.’ In May 1933, in NNP, AEH was to express contempt for the ‘sham poetry’ of the eighteenth century, and in particular for the ‘deadening of language’ and ‘deadened perception’ of poetic diction.

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11 March 1933

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 5 March 1933 Dear Sirs, I see no reason for departing in this case from my ordinary rule. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 127.

TO J. E N O C H P OW E L L [Hotel Continental, Paris c.5 Mar. 1933] Dear Mr Powell, You analyse the difficulties of the passage correctly, and your emendation removes them.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. J. Enoch Powell, ‘A Personal Recollection of A. E. Housman’, HSJ 1 (1974), 28. Address and date as suggested by Powell’s article.

TO T. R. G LOVE R Trinity College | Cambridge 11 March 1933 My dear Glover, Bevan tells me that in the Arabic word for Sophora both syllables are long. But ‘in nomina propria quantum uulgi mobilitati licuerit nemo ignorat’ says Lachmann Lucr. p. 37, and Σωφηνή is S˘ophene in Lucr. II 593: not to speak of cr˘ep˘ıda from κρηπῖδα. As Iaponica is neither Greek nor Latin nor even Japanese I think you can do what you like with it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. St John’s College, Cambridge, MS (Glover Box 8).

1

Powell had proposed aut solitas for solita aut in Aeneid, 9. 214.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO PAU L I N E H E M M E R D E Trinity College | Cambridge 16 March 1933 Dear Miss Hemmerde, I have hitherto generally allowed anthologists to have the Epitaph,1 but I am getting out of patience with this endless procession of anthologies, and I refuse my permission. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman SIU MS VFM 1082. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 274; Maas, 330.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 17 March 1933 My dear Kate, I heard from Laurence the other day that you had changed house and taken up what you mean for a permanent abode; so I shall receive your new address in due course. The even tenour of my life was diversified by having a tooth out the other day. As it is a quarter of a century since I had the last out, I am encouraged to hope that the 18 survivors will keep me company till I am 98. The University authorities have prevailed upon me to give the Leslie Stephen lecture next May.1 As this must be on a literary subject it will give me a great deal of trouble to compose, and I shall not enjoy myself in the vacation, which began yesterday. The Trinity crocuses, which are the chief spring show of Cambridge, are extraordinarily magnificent this year, and now just past their best. Queens’ College is out of the running for the present, as their crocuses grow round a walnut, which has died and been dug up, to the great damage of the bed. I should like to know what exactly you are doing about Claremont.2 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Housman Society MS. 1 Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries (LP XXXVII). Andrew L. Cairncross had sought permission to include the poem in an anthology for the ‘The Scholar’s Library’ edited by Guy Boas (LC-GR t.s., 13 Mar. 1933). 1 ‘I think it was Will Spens, Master of Corpus and Vice-Chancellor at the time, who persuaded him to accept the invitation to deliver the Leslie Stephen Lecture in 1933’: S. C. Roberts, Adventures with Authors (1966), 126. Spens was Vice-Chancellor in 1931–2, and could have approached AEH in the latter year. 2 The address of her house at Exeter had been ‘1 Claremont’: see AEH to KES, 3 Apr. 1929, and note.

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20 March 1933

TO F R A N Z C U M O N T Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Mars 1933 Monsieur, Je vous remercie beaucoup d’avoir bien voulu m’envoyer votre étude, savante comme de coutume, sur Adonis et Sirius.1 Je me permets cependant de vous faire remarquer que dans la note (2) p. 260 vous vous trompez en matière de chronologie. C’est moi qui suis le devancier (1903) et qui ai induit en erreur mes élèves parfois trop dociles Breiter (1908) et van Wagenigen2 (1921), et c’est moi aussi qui ai proposé /(1930)/ la solution que vous répétez p. 261.3 Croyez je vous prie, Monsieur, à l’expression de mes sentiments le plus distingués (ou sympathiques) TCC Add. MS c. 112 46 : a draft. Maas, 432.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 20 March 1933 Dear Scholfield, I send herewith from Gaselee a book which he wishes to present to the Library: Marziale, saggi critici di Giambattista Bellissima.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11225 .

1

2 Adonis et Sirius in Mélanges Gustave Glotz (1932). For ‘Wageningen’. AEH refers to his error in Manilius I, 399, about the rising of Sirius in 1. 401–6 repeated by Breiter and Van Wageningen in their commentaries on Manilius, and corrected by him in Manilius V (1930), 126. 1 Turin, 1931. 3

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Letters 1927–1936

TO W. R. AG A RD Trinity College | Cambridge | England 22 March 1933

Dear Mr Ogard,1 I will not refuse you my permission to reprint my Swinburnian translation from Euripides,2 but if your text is that in A. W. Pollard’s Odes I will ask you to make a correction. In the second line there is a misprint, Far-seeking, which should be Far seeking, as seeking is noun substantive.3 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Colby College MS. Maas, 330.

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 24 March 1933 Dear D’Arcy Thompson, Some benevolent person, whom I supposed to be you, had already sent me the February number of Greece and Rome:1 however, δὶς καὶ τρὶς τὸ καλόν.2 The pedantic cavils which you expect from me are that on p. 73 it should be ψηφοπεριβομβήτρια,3 and that crepitacilleis and puppae come from obsolete editions.4 Yours sincerely and gratefully A. E. Housman. I thought that the Grand Pensioner’s head came off along with his other limbs when he was torn in pieces by a mob; but my history comes from Dumas.5 St Andrews MS 23600. Envelope addressed ‘Professor D’Arcy W. Thompson | The University | St Andrews’. 1

For ‘Agard’. Beginning ‘In heaven-high musings and many’, published in Odes from the Greek Dramatists, ed. Alfred W. Pollard (1890), 111. See Poems (1997), 167–8, 482–3, 485–6. Published by Agard on pp. 119–20 of ‘Fate and Freedom in Greek Tragedy’, CJ 29. 2 (Nov. 1933), 117–26. 3 See AEH to Pollard, 25 Oct. 1890, and n. 5. 1 Thompson’s article ‘Games and Playthings’ appeared in vol. 2 no. 5 (Feb. 1933), 71–9. 2 Proverbial, as in Plato, Philebus 59e (‘[we ought to repeat] not twice but thrice that which is good’), and Gorgias 498e (‘twice and thrice over … [good it is to repeat and review] what is good’. 3 Not ‘ψηφοπεριβομβητρία’. 4 Of Plautus and Lucretius (for crepitacilleis), and Persius (for puppae), cited by Thompson, pp. 73, 74. 5 On page 72 Thompson records that ‘the Stadthouder cut off the Grand Pensioner’s head, as we all know’. In ch. 4 of La Tulipe noire (1850), Alexandre Dumas has it that John de Witt, who 2

337

28 March 1933

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 26 March 1933 Dear Mr Clemens, Thank you very much for sending me your delightful Josh Billings, Yankee Humorist 1 which I found interesting reading. I had heard of, and enjoyed, the inimitable humour of Artemus Ward,2 but Josh Billings was new to me, and I am indebted to you for making such a robust and characteristic Yankee known to me. I have always been interested in American humour. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that printed in Clemens (1936), 22. Reprinted in Clemens’s An Evening with A. E. Housman (1937), 19, and in Maas, 330–1.

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 28 March 1933 Dear Mr Martin, It was kind of you to write to me on my birthday. You are right in supposing that I do not look with favour on the collecting of first editions and autographs, but it is a vice which is sometimes found in otherwise virtuous persons, of whom you doubtless are one. It is many years since I have had a photograph taken, but I have found and enclose an old one, taken about the time when I was writing A Shropshire Lad.1 I could not say that I have a favourite among my poems. Thomas Hardy’s was no. XXVII in A Shropshire Lad,2 and I think it may be the best, though it is not the most perfect. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Martin (1937), 296; Maas, 331.

was made Grand Pensioner of Holland in 1652, was in 1672 murdered along with his brother Cornelius by a mob, which cut the two bodies in pieces. 1 Published in 1932. Josh Billings was the pseudonym of the popular comic writer Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818–85). 2 Pseudonym of American humorist Charles Farrar Browne (1834–67). 1 2 A carte-de-visite by Van der Weyde, c.1894. ‘ ‘‘Is my team ploughing’’ ’.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 March 1933 My dear Richards, Your invitation1 is very kind and pleasant, but I dare not accept it. Until I have broken the back of that infernal lecture2 I have no time for anything else. I have promised our University Press to let them publish it, as they regularly do these lectures. I don’t think the story3 is in Rabelais, whom I have read. Of Balzac I have only read a small fraction; but I don’t think it is in the Contes Drolatiques.4 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 Regent Street | London S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 275; Maas, 331.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS I am told that your story of lover, lady, scent and dogs is in the Heptameron.1 A. E. H. 1 April 1933 Trin. Coll. Camb. PM MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’ LC-GR t.s. Richards, 275.

TO G E R A L D BU L L E T T [Trinity College | Cambridge] 19 April 1933 Dear Sir, It would give me pleasure to grant your request;1 but for twenty years and more I have been refusing the use of my poems, which are few, to anthologists, who are many, and alleging in my defence a general rule 1

‘To come up and stop for a day or two’: Richards, 374. NNP, delivered on 9 May 1933. 3 Of the would-be lover who got even with a scornful lady by sprinkling her dress with a scent that causes dogs to come and urinate on her: Richards, 274–5. The story is in fact in Rabelais, book 2, ch. 22. 4 Balzac wrote three sets of Rabelaisian ‘Droll Stories’, 1832–7. 1 By Marguerite, sister of Francis I and Queen of Navarre (1492–1549). See the previous letter, n. 3. 1 To reprint some of AEH’s poems in The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems (1933), of which Bullett was editor. 2

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20 April 1933

which I cannot now abandon without what would amount to a breach of faith. You seem to be finding a terrible deal of cream, and one cow the fewer should be rather a relief. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Clemens (1947), 261.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 20 April 1933 Dear Roberts, 1. I enclose, signed, the two forms of agreement,1 though of course the index &c referred to in sec. (3) are non-existent things. 2. I have quoted eight lines from a sonnet by Andrew Lang.2 Is that violation of copyright? 3. When do you really want the MS? In any case I should be glad if you would let me have a printed copy to read from on the 9th May. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 27 .

TO G E R A L D BU L L E T T [Trinity College | Cambridge] 20 April 1933 Dear Sir, I find that in writing to you yesterday I said what was not true. The inexorable rule of twenty years and more applies only, and evidently could only apply, to A Shropshire Lad. I have lately been refusing also the use of Last Poems, but that has not yet hardened into precedent, and you are at liberty to include the five poems you mention, numbers V, IX, X, XX and XL. I am glad you have chosen V,1 which I suspect of being the best piece in the book. My publishers have no say in the matter, and I do not exact a fee. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Clemens (1947), 262. 1 1

2 For NNP. The Odyssey: NNP, 22 n.; Ricks (1988), 357. Grenadier (The Queen she sent to look for me).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 20 April 1933 My dear Richards, The lecture1 is at 5 o’clock on May 9 in the Senate-House. So far as I remember, no tickets are required for the Leslie Stephen Lecture, but I will enquire. I shall not be able to offer you any hospitality, as I have to dine with the Vice-Chancellor.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 4 Cranley Place | S. W. 7’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 275; Maas, 332.

TO G E R A L D BU L L E T T [Trinity College | Cambridge] 22 April 1933 Dear Sir, The title Grenadier is needed,1 because if he were not in the Guards, he would not get thirteen pence.2 Fancy’s Knell 3 was chosen with intent, as my Shropshire, like the Cambridge of Lycidas, is not exactly a real place, and the topography and customs of Abdon do not correspond to fact.4 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Clemens (1947), 262.

1

2 NNP. J[ohn] F[orbes] Cameron, Master of Gonville and Caius College. Bullett had mentioned that most poems in The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems would appear without titles: Clemens (1947), 262. 2 ‘Thirteen pence a day’ is mentioned four times in the poem. 3 Title of LP XLI (the last poem in the collection). 4 Though the customs in the poem belong to idealized pastoral, Abdon is ‘under Clee’ (l. 2), and at sunset the difference in height would ensure that ‘Wenlock Edge was umbered | And bright was Abdon Burf ’ (ll. 25–6). See AEH to Pollet, 5 Feb. 1933, n. 3. 1

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26 April 1933

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 22 April 1933 My dear Richards, I strictly enjoin you to tell Miss Shirley Pratt1 nothing. The sham education given at American Universities has resulted in my receiving about half-a-dozen similar enquiries from its victims. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 276; Maas, 332.

? TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 24 April 1933 Professor Housman looks forward to joining the Family in the Old Guest Room at 8 p.m. on May 5. TCC Add. MS c. 11247 .

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 26 April 1933 My dear Richards, There are no tickets, but the enclosed will admit you to places which are reserved down to 4. 55. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. [Enclosure]   |  Please admit Mr Grant Richards to the Senate-House for the Leslie Stephen Lecture on May 9. A. E. Housman Member of the Senate. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 275. 1 A student at the University of Minnesota who had chosen to write a paper on AEH and could find no biographical information except the entry in Who’s Who: PM MSS; Richards, 276.

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TO E . H . B L A K E N E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 28 April 1933 Dear Mr Blakeney, It is most kind of you to spare me a copy of your elegant verse and typography.1 I have only one cavil to make,—that it is rather perverse of you not to translate into the same metre, which is an English metre and, according to Tennyson, one of which the English people are particularly fond,—wherefore he wrote Locksley Hall.2 Yours sincerely [A. E. Housman.] BL Add. MS 48980, fos. 22–3. Signature cut away from MS.

TO J. D. DU F F [Trinity College] At Sil. I 71 I have got in my margin laudem puero patrius furor orsus. A. E. H. 3 May 1933 TCC Add. MS c. 196 7 : p.c. addressed ‘J. D. Duff Esq. | Strathaird | Lady Margaret Road’ and marked ‘Local’ by AEH.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 3 May 1933 My dear Withers, I am going into Worcestershire on Monday June 12, and if it would suit you that I should accept your kind invitation for Friday the 9th , that would fit in well for me. I am sorry we shall not see you here this term. I have known certainly two better springs, 1893 and 1894, with much more sunshine and less rain, and trees and flowers at least as much ahead of their dates. 1 Blakeney’s privately printed Amnis ibat: A Paraphrase in English Verse of a 4th Century Poem attributed to Tiberianus (Winchester, 1933). The original is in trochaic septenarii, or rather incorrect tetrameters. 2 ‘Mr Hallam [Henry Hallam] said to me that the English people liked verse in Trochaics, so I wrote the poem in this metre’: Tennyson quoted in Alfred Lord Tennyson. A Memoir By His Son, 1 (1897), 195; also, with minor differences, in the Eversley edn. of the poems, 2 (1908), 341.

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4 May 1933

My respectful congratulations to Audrey,1 and kind regards to Mrs Withers. I have grown older in the last twelvemonth. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 104 (excerpt); Maas, 332–3.

TO W I L L I A M ROT H E N S T E I N Trinity College | Cambridge 4 May 1933 My dear Rothenstein, I shall be glad to see you again, and though both the two Guest Rooms are engaged, as was to be expected this term, there are sure to be bedrooms vacated by undergraduates on a Saturday, and I have bespoken one for you. The Head Porter will direct you to it if you do not happen to find me on your arrival. Unfortunately I shall be dining in St John’s; but Bertram Thomas1 promises to look after you in Hall and afterwards, and asks you to look him up in his rooms, staircase L Great Court, some time before 8 o’ clock. I hope you will breakfast with me next morning, at 9 or any hour you may prefer. My kind regards to Lady Rothenstein. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Eng 1148 (740) 49. Maas, 333.

1 Withers’s daughter, who married bookseller Jock Steward later in the year. See AEH to Audrey Withers, 10 Aug. 1933. 1 Bertram [Sidney] Thomas (1892–1950). Civil servant, 1908–14. After war service, Assistant Political Officer in Mesopotamia (Iraq), 1918–22; OBE, 1920; Assistant British representative in Trans-Jordan ( Jordan), 1922–4; Finance Minister and Wazir to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman (Oman), 1922–32. First European to cross the Rub’ Al Khali (Empty Quarter) of the desert, 1930–1. Fellow Commoner at TCC, 1932–3.

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TO F. M. CORN F OR D Trinity College 10 May 1933 Dear Cornford, You are very good, and I remember the equally kind letter you wrote me after hearing my inaugural. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 58427, fo. 105.

TO G E O RG E BA R N E S Trinity College 12 May 1933 Dear Mr Barnes, I am obliged by your kind letter about my lecture. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. KCC MS Misc. 23/6.

TO H . E . BU T L E R Trinity College | Cambridge 15 May 1933 Dear Butler, I am not proud of my lecture, which I wrote unwillingly; but I am rather afraid that Platt, as you say, would have liked it, and I will send a copy. I made Mawer’s1 acquaintance the other day at a feast at St John’s, where he was Prior’s2 guest. Would you mind directing and posting the enclosed? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman SJCO MS 305. Maas, 333.

1 Allen Mawer (1879–1942). Professor of English, Liverpool University, 1921–9; Provost, UCL, 1930–42; FBA, 1930. Publications include The Vikings (1913) and Place-Names of Northumberland and Durham (1920). 2 Oliver Herbert Phelps Prior (1871–1934). Fellow of SJCO and Drapers’ Professor of French at Oxford since 1919.

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16 May 1933

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 16 May 1933 My dear Cockerell, Thanks for your letter. This poor old Shakespeare! Mackail came to me after the lecture and said that in his opinion Take O take those lips away1 was Fletcher’s. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Victoria and Albert Museum, National Art Library MS 86.UU.3 (MSL/1957/696/146). Maas, 334.

TO M A X B E E R B O H M Trinity College | Cambridge 16 May 1933 Dear Mr Beerbohm, I am glad you were amused,1 and thank you for writing. On the other subject, though I cannot hope to repeat the stroke and gain the sky,2 I yet cannot refrain from sending you, since the opportunity presents itself, the idea of a pair of cartoons which I have cherished many years. I also have a vision of grandpapa and great-grandpapa reading the works of Mr Aldous Huxley, with the legend: T. H. Huxley Esq., P.C.,3 Is this how Leonard4 bred his brat?5 The Rev. T. Arnold, D.D.6 Good gracious! even worse than Matt.7

1

AEH quoted the song (from Measure for Measure, 4. 1. 1–6) in NNP: Ricks (1988), 366. By the Leslie Stephen lecture, which he attended: Naiditch (2005), 20. 2 Robert Browning, Any Wife to Any Husband, 29–30: ‘What plaudits from the next world after this, | Couldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky!’ 3 Kipling, Study of an Elevation, in Indian Ink (1886), 1, 5, etc.: ‘Potiphar Gubbins, C. E.’; Pagett, M.P. (1886). Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95), English man of science, was elected Privy Councillor in 1892. 4 Leonard Huxley (1860–1933), biographer and poet, son of Thomas. 5 Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), novelist and essayist, third son of Leonard Huxley and Julia Frances Arnold, granddaughter of Thomas Arnold. 6 Thomas Arnold (1795–1842), Headmaster of Rugby School (1828–42), father of the poet. Became bachelor and Doctor of Divinity in 1828. 7 The poet Matthew Arnold (1822–88). 1

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Letters 1927–1936

Rothenstein was here the other day and told me that with advancing years you have grown too benevolent to do caricatures. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. [Enclosure] Gladstone & Disraeli in heaven. They are seated on two clouds back to back. Gladstone is twanging his harp and singing lustily out of Hymns Ancient and Modern. Cherubs, attracted to the spot by the intemperate piety of the novice, hover between mirth and awe. Disraeli, who was very sensitive to cold, is curling up his toes under his night-gown; he has hung his harp on a knob of his cloud, for want of a willow-tree, and the Psalms of David lie open on his knee at Super flumina Babylonis.8 Disraeli & Gladstone in hell. Disraeli and the devil are warming themselves before a furnace full of the damned, and absorbed in mutually agreeable conversation: so much absorbed that the devil has negligently let fall the end of a red-hot poker on Gladstone’s toe, who is dancing and yelling.9 Merton College, Oxford, MS 516. The enclosure is written on (lined) paper different from that of the letter. Maas, 334–5.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 18 May 1933 Dear Mr Wilson, Thanks for your kindly letter and invitation, which, as usual, you must allow me to decline. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. NLS MS 15562, fo. 20.

8 9

‘By the rivers of Babylon’: Ps. 137: 1. Beerbohm did not follow up AEH’s suggestions.

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20 May 1933

TO A M Y BU RK I TT Trinity College 19 May 1933 Dear Mrs Burkitt, In answer to the kind invitation which I have received from Mrs Dimsdale1 and you I write to you personally, because I know you better and have often been rude to you, to say that I do not now go to At Homes. I always disliked them, and am now grown indifferent to public opinion. But I am not blind to the amiability of your intentions. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 20 May 1933 My dear Laurence, I am not proud of this,1 which I wrote against my will, and am not sending copies outside the family. But its success here has taken me aback. The leader of our doctrinaire teachers of youth2 is reported to say that it will take more than twelve years to undo the harm I have done in an hour. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 185; Maas, 335.

1 Elsbeth Dimsdale (c.1872–1949), daughter of the Revd Sir James Erasmus Phillips, 12th Baronet, and Hon. Mary Margaret Bestborn, and widow of Marcus Southwell Dimsdale (1860–1919), author of A History of Latin Literature (1915). 1 NNP. 2 Maas, 335, took this to refer to F. R. Leavis, but in HSJ 2 (1975), 33, rightly accepted L. P. Wilkinson’s identification of I. A. Richards (1893–1979), Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1926. Richards was invited to teach for the new English Tripos in 1929, the year he published Practical Criticism. His other publications include: The Foundation of Aesthetics (1922), with James Wood and C. K. Ogden; The Meaning of Meaning (1923) with Ogden; Principles of Literary Criticism (1925), and Science and Poetry (1926; rev. edn., 1935). Richards was a powerful influence on students and young poets alike.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 20 May 1933 My dear Kate, I have just received advance copies of the Leslie Stephen lecture, which is to be published at the end of the month, so I send you one, which you are not obliged to read. The Senate-House was packed, and I am being paid compliments which the lecture itself does not deserve, so I suppose I must have delivered it well. I am to be at Tardebigge from the 12th to the 26th of June: a few days before I shall spend in Oxfordshire and a few days afterwards in Kent. Then I shall be here until I go to France probably towards the end of August. I am well and I hope you continue so. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO D R GERAL D C. A. JAC KSO N Trinity College | Cambridge 20 May 1933 My dear Gerald, Here is the lecture. I am not going to catechise you on it,1 so you are not obliged to read it. Your affectionate godfather A. E. Housman. Private MS, inspected at Sotheby’s, 4 Nov. 2001. Tipped-in on free end-paper of copy of NNP. Reproduced in reduced photographic facsimile in Sotheby’s catalogue, The Library of Frederick B. Adams, Jr, Part 1: English & American Literature (6 Nov. 2001), 31.

TO B E RT R A M G O U L D I N G B ROW N Trinity College 22 May 1933 Dear Mr Goulding Brown, I think that 83 (effigiem deorum)1 and 84–6 cohere too aptly to be separated; much more aptly than 79 and 84–6 or than 83 and 87–8. 1 c.1902–3 AEH had sent him a comic poem entitled Aids to Answering the First Question of the Catechism: Poems (1997), 271. 1 Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1. 83.

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24 May 1933

93. Certainly uindice might have come from 89, but iudice might have come from iudicis. 544–7. I did not trouble you with the different readings of all the MSS, but the general effect is this: M has qua nimium placui and not quae facit ut laedar, ε has quae facit ut laedar and not qua nimium placui, the rest have both, except that N has neither. The authority for qua nimium placui is therefore stronger, and it seems to me, as to you, intrinsically better; though one could not call the other impossible. I first read Disraeli’s speech in a back number of The Times, which perhaps is where I found ‘angel’. But from Buckle it appears that ‘angels’ is the authorised version.2 At the end of this week my audience, excepting you, will probably disappear into the Tripos; but I will lecture on to the end of the book,3 unless you have had enough. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘B. Goulding Brown Esq. | 16 Brookside’ and marked ‘Local’ in AEH’s hand.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 24 May 1933 My dear Laurence, The painful episode is closed; but I may take this sentence from a paragraph which I cut out.1 ‘Not only is it difficult to know the truth about anything, but to tell the truth when one knows it, to find words which will not obscure it or pervert it, is in my experience an exhausting effort.’ I did not say that poetry was the better for having no meaning, only that it can best be detected so.2 2 Disraeli in a speech at Oxford, 25 Nov. 1864: ‘The question is this—Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels.’ Quoted in William Favell Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli Earl of Beaconsfield, 4. 374. AEH’s heavily annotated copy is at BMC: Naiditch, HSJ 31 (2005), 159. 3 Book 1 of Metamorphoses. 1 From NNP. 2 LH had approved AEH’s ‘separation of poetry from sense’ but had wondered how AEH had managed to write poetry ‘without producing a single line that did not mean something—and mean it in phrases chosen with almost judicial correctness’: to AEH, 22 May 1933 (BMC MS). AEH in NNP had suggested that ‘Blake again and again, as Shakespeare now and then, gives us poetry neat, or adulterated with so little meaning that nothing except poetic emotion is perceived and matters’: Ricks (1988), 366.

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Letters 1927–1936

I hear that Kipling says I am ‘dead right’ about the pit of the stomach.3 I had better tell you before I forget it that the solicitor E. P. S.4 Haynes, who writes letters to the papers about the liberties of the subject, says in A Lawyer’s Notebook 5 that Belloc is the best living poet with the possible exception of you and me.6 Your still affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 185–6; Maas, 335–6.

TO M R RO B E RT S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 27 May 1933 Dear Mr Roberts, I can only imperfectly decipher your amiable letter, but if you are asking me to send you an autograph copy of a poem of mine I must reply that I have left off doing this for many years. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO T H E AC A D E M I C A S S I S TA N C E C O U N C I L Trinity College | Cambridge 29 May 1933 Dear Sirs, I shall not be able to attend the meeting on June 1. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS SPSL 22/4, fo. 65.

3 In NNP, one of the places where the physical sensation caused by poetry may be detected (the other signs being bristling of the skin in the face, a shiver down the spine, or tears in the eyes): Ricks (1988), 370. 4 For ‘E. S. P.’ 5 Edmund Sydney Pollock Haynes (1877–1949), writer on matrimonial and divorce law. He sent AEH a copy of the book in 1933: AEH to Haynes, printed in this edn. as the first letter of 1933. 6 In a BBC address in 1932, repr. in the book: ‘He is, in my opinion and in that of more competent judges than myself, the best living poet with the possible exception of A. E. Housman and Laurence Housman … ’

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2 June 1933

TO E L L I S D. RO B B Trinity College | Cambridge | England 31 May 1933 Dear Mr Robb, The poem which is now XXV in my Last Poems first appeared in The Venture, An Annual of Art and Literature, Edited by Laurence Housman and W. Somerset Maugham, London, At John Baillie’s, 1, Princes Terrace, Hereford Road, W. 1903.1 Where it can now be procured I do not know. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman Columbia MS.

TO W I L L I A M E L L E RY L E O NA R D 1 Trinity College 1 June 1933 Dear Mr Leonard, I think so little of this lecture and wrote it so much against the grain that I am not signing copies for anyone. But I shall be willing to add my signature to one of your copies of my poems, if you like, which I have often done for many. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Robert H. Taylor Collection).

TO W I L L I A M E L L E RY L E O NA R D Trinity College 2 June 1933 Dear Mr Leonard, I return your copy of Last Poems with my signature. I have corrected, as I always do when I get hold of a copy of the first issue, the typographical errors on p. 52.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. MS inspected at Bloomsbury Book Auctions, 9 May 2000. Printed in City Book Auction catalogue, sale no. 532 (8 Sept. 1951), no. 212 1 1 1

The Oracles appeared in The Venture, 1 (1903), 39. Recipient’s full name given by P. G. Naiditch in HSJ 24 (1998), 96. See AEH to GR, 12 Oct. 1922.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 2 June 1933 Dear Scholfield, If I am not punctual at the Great Gate1 at 7. 35, do not wait, as it will mean that I am going on foot. Thanks nevertheless. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 26 .

TO P E T I C A RO B E RT S O N    , |  , | . 5 June 1933 Dear Mrs Robertson, It is most kind of you to have brought me flowers; and although I have not had them put in my bed-room, the matron has joyfully carried them off for hers. Yours sincerely and gratefully A. E. Housman. This handwriting is due to the writing materials, not to my state of health.1 Private MS.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS 7 June 1933    , |  , | . My dear Withers, This place is very comfortable, and your kindly distress on my behalf is excessive. The misbehaviour of my heart, for which the doctor sent me here, was momentary, and I was unconscious of it; and it is now behaving with monotonous correctness. My real trouble, which I have often had before, is nervous depression and causeless apprehensions, aggravated by the fact that I am going to move into new rooms next term; the necessary alterations in the new rooms, and the making of new furniture and so forth, give me perfectly unreasonable worry to look forward to; and I have been disappointed of a companion for France in August. 1 1

Of TCC. It is less well formed than usual.

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10 June 1933

I leave this abode at noon on Saturday. On Monday I expect to motor into Worcestershire: may I lunch with you on the way? But do not produce port, which I am probably better without. Kind regards and thanks to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman SCO MS, in pencil. Maas, 336.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT 7 June 1933

Trinity College | Cambridge Dear Madam, I was born at Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman Yale MS (in pencil).

TO D R G E O F F R E Y K E Y N E S Trinity College | Cambridge 10 June 1933 Dear Mr Keynes, I write hastily and inadequately, lest I should omit writing, as I am just leaving Cambridge for some weeks, to thank you for your valuable gift of the most correct text of Blake.1 But the old eight-line text of the Myrtle,2 however ill authenticated, is one of the most beautiful of all the poems. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 8534/11. Geoffrey Keynes, The Gates of Memory (1981), 255.

1 Geoffrey Keynes, The Gates of Memory (1981), 255: ‘In June 1933, having heard his lecture on ‘‘The Name and Nature of Poetry’’, in which he had quoted Blake’s poem ‘‘In a Myrtle Shade’’, I sent him my latest text of Blake, pointing out that he might be interested to see the manuscript versions of the poem.’ AEH did not in fact quote the poem in the lecture, though he quoted several others by Blake. 2 Keynes, 255: ‘ Evidently he had used the edition edited by W. B. Yeats in 1893, where the lines were correctly given, but rearranged according to the editor’s taste.’

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Letters 1927–1936

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 15 June 1933 My dear Laurence, I should very much enjoy paying you the visit you propose, from Monday the 26th , say till Friday the 30th ; but I suppose I ought to warn you that I am not in rude health. On the pretext that my heart was all over the place, after walking too much, I suppose, in the hot weather, the doctor sent me to bed for a week in a nursing home, where the heart must have disappointed him bitterly, for it behaved with the utmost decorum. The real bother is what I have often had before in the course of my life, depression and causeless anxiety. But I do not require attention, and am not a nuisance to Jeannie. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Memoir, 186.

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 16 June 1933 Dear Mr Clemens, Many thanks for the cutting from The New York Times. But I am not inscribing copies of the book for any one, as it was a piece of task work and I am not proud of it. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Cyril Clemens | President, International Mark Twain Society | Webster Groves | Missouri | U. S. A.’ Clemens (1947), 257 (wrongly dated 19 June).

TO P ROF ES S OR H EN RY H O LLO ND Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove 16 June 1933. Dear Hollond, To my great regret I must deny myself the pleasure of staying with your friend Mrs Gray1 who so kindly invited me. My heart is not yet behaving quite properly and my nervous condition is low, so that from this place I 1

For ‘Grey’. See AEH’s letter to her, c.23 June 1933.

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20 June 1933

shall go on to other relations till I come back to Cambridge on the 30th to stay there. Please to make such apology for me as you can. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO I . R . B RU S S E L at Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove 20 June 1933 Dear Mr Brussel, I am sorry to say that you will not find me in Cambridge on the 24th , as I am away, as I often am in the summer, making visits among my relations. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Colby College MS. Envelope addressed ‘I. R. Brussel Esq | 59 Gower Street | London W. C. 1’.

TO L I L LY F R A Z E R [as from Trinity College | Cambridge] 20 June 1933 Dear Lady Frazer, It is very good of you to write me such a long and full letter, though I wish that your news about Sir James were more cheerful. I hope that Dr Vogt may soon be able to let him go.1 I am sorry that I have no copy of the precious Sallust2 to make my fortune for me. As A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in America, of course I neither can, nor wish to, prevent American anthologies from including poems; but when they want to reprint in Europe, I naturally put my foot down. I did not know about the four blank pages, which ought to act as an advertisement, though that was not my intention. Very kind regards to both of you. I am interested to hear that there is a Festschrift on the way. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Frazer MS 18 94 . The square brackets round the address are AEH’s. 1 2

Prof Dr Alfred Vogt treated Frazer for glaucoma at Zurich (BL Add. MS 55147, fo. 145). Frazer’s edn. of Sallust’s Catilina et Iugurtha, published in 1884.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT [as from Trinity College | Cambridge] 20 June 1933 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by the kindness of your letter. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. MS inspected at Bloomsbury Book Auctions, 13 Nov. 2002. Tipped on to the endpaper of a copy of NNP (1933). The square brackets round the address are AEH’s.

TO M RS G RE Y at Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove [c.23 June 1933] Dear Mrs Grey, I am very sorry to make a melancholy reply to your kind letter. As I told Harry Hollond about a week ago,1 my heart has been out of order, and I recently spent a week in a nursing-home; and, quite apart from that, I am in a low condition of nerves, so that I am not properly equal to paying visits except among my relations. Pray therefore forgive me, and believe me that I am much disappointed at missing a pleasure to which I had been looking forward. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Grey | Hocker Edge | Cranbrook | Kent’.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Longmeadow | Street | Somerset 27 June 1933 My dear Jeannie, We have just come home having spent almost the whole day in motoring and picnicing with fine weather, and I fill up the time before the post goes in sending all our love to you and Grace1 and my thanks for your great kindness which made my stay with you so enjoyable. I hope you are well and will succeed in getting away when July comes. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS. 1 1

See AEH to Hollond, 16 June 1933 (hence the date of the present letter). Identified by Maas (337 n.) as Jeannie Housman’s eldest sister.

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1 July 1933

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D as from Trinity College | Cambridge 28 June 1933 Dear Sirs, I am obliged by your letter, but I did not like the illustrated edition,1 which was an idea of Mr Grant Richards’s, and I do not wish it to be reprinted. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 129. Misquoted and otherwise misrepresented by Cyril Clemens in Poet Lore, 44 (1943), 267.

TO J. G. RO B E RT S as from Trinity College | Cambridge 29 June 1933 Dear Mr Roberts. I shall be pleased to sign your copy of Last Poems, if you will enclose an envelope suitable for returning it. Copies of the lecture I am not signing, as I do not think much of it. I am never interviewed. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. National Library of Wales MS, L. J. Roberts and J. G. Roberts Papers, 54.

TO H A RO L D T. P U L S I F E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 1 July 1933 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your Harvest of Time,1 which I have read with pleasure and admiration. I am yours truly A. E. Housman Colby College MS (tipped-in in Harold T. Pulsifer’s copy of LP). Envelope addressed ‘Mr Harold T. Pulsifer | 82 Federal Street | Brunswick | Maine | U. S. A.’

1 Of 1908. See AEH to GR, 8 Nov. 1908. The Richards Press had been asked for an illustrated edn. of ASL and proposed a reprint: BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 128. 1 A volume of poems (1933).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 1 July 1933 My dear Witter Bynner, I am glad to hear from you, though sorry that apparently I am not to see you. Eden Tree1 and The Sonnets of F. G. Tuckerman2 are not among the many gifts I have received at your hands, so if you are kind enough to send them they will be new. I do not think highly of my lecture,3 which I wrote against the grain and almost under compulsion. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/25. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | 342 Buena Vista Road | Santa Fé | New Mexico | U.S.A.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 30. (AEH writes ‘Fé’ for ‘Fe’.)

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 3 July 1933 Dear Roberts, I congratulate you on your salesmanship.1 I enclose the MS,2 which however lacks 2 pages. Probably I destroyed them as containing things too bad to be read. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7734. S. C. Roberts, Adventures With Authors (1966), 127; Maas, 336.

1

A volume of poems by Bynner (1931). Bynner greatly enhanced Tuckerman’s reputation by reprinting in 1931 under the title The Sonnets of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman the best of Poems (1861). See AEH to Knopf, 20 Aug. 1933. 3 NNP. 1 In acquiring the MS of NNP. ‘Housman agreed that we should publish it and his MS. arrived in good time. It happened that I had leisure to read it straight through and in my acknowledgement I was bold enough to add that, if the author had no special intentions with regard to the MS., I should be proud to have it’: Adventures with Authors, 126. After the lecture had been published, at a celebratory party in Roberts’s rooms AEH turned to him and said, ‘I believe you asked for the manuscript of the lecture. Some parts of it are very bad, but I’ll send it to you’: ibid., 127. 2 It is now CUL Add. MS 7734, bound as a single-sided MS with 55 leaves, and with leaves 1, 2, 5, and 6 missing. 2

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7 July 1933

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 5 July 1933 Dear Duff, Sil. XI 153 sq. enim as in Hor. c. III 16 7 with putant or the like understood; potiorem cum abl. in much the same sense as digniorem. The Romans, it is clear, are of opinion that to have such an incompetent magistrate as Varro is better than admitting a Capuan to curule office. XII 75–79 punctuate: tene heu Cumanus hiantem agger adhuc murusque tenet Gracchusque moueri non ausus portis? paruo in discrimine cerno an uobis gentes, quaecumque labore parastis, casu gesta putent. ‘Do you, who scaled the Alps, still stand gaping at the walls of Cumae and a defender who dares not sally forth? The world is within an ace of thinking that your former achievements were merely due to accident.’ Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 1968 .

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 7 July 1933 My dear Richards, It distresses me that you are again in difficulties, the more so because this time I cannot relieve them. I am finding £450 a year for the education of a godson,1 and this will go on for four years. I am also involved in much expense in changing my rooms, making repairs and buying furniture, and a lift which has to be put in will cost £324. One incidental consequence of the change will be that your labour and kindness in arranging my books will have been to some extent wasted. These various worries may be partly accountable for the bad nervous condition in which

1 Gerald C. A. Jackson: see List of Recipients. Jackson was born in 1900, but did postgraduate degree work, as is evidenced by the qualifications listed on his writing paper: Naiditch (1995), 143 n.

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I now am; and the doctor also says that my heart is out of order, for which this hot weather is not good. We are both of us in trouble. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 337.

TO I . R . B RU S S E L Trinity College | Cambridge 7 July 1933 Dear Mr Brussel, I return the copy of A Shropshire Lad with my signature added; but I have refused all requests to sign copies of the lecture, because I do not think much of it, and wrote it against the grain. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. White (1950), 409.

TO E L L I S D. RO B B Trinity College | Cambridge | England 10 July 1933 Dear Mr Robb, I do not know of any English publication except the Times Literary Supplement which would answer to your description. Thanks for the diverting cutting from the New York Herald Tribune. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. White (1950), 409, where the addressee is identified as ‘Ellis D. Robb of Atlanta, Georgia’.

TO H A R R I S O N S. H I R E S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 10 July 1933 Dear Mr Hires, There is an Essay on English Metrical Law by Coventry Patmore, published in some magazine in 1856, and known to me from being reprinted in a two-volume edition of his poems (George Bell & Son, 1887), which deals with the sort of things you ask about.1 1

AEH’s references are not quite accurate: see the note on the letter of 1 Mar. 1932 to LH.

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11 July 1933

Thank you for sending me your poems,2 which seem to me better than many printed in magazines. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr H. S. Hires | Berwyn | Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO J. D. DU F F 82 154 190 438 sq.

444

480

58 sq.

51

Silius XII quam trahitis, which still attends you from the past; which you trail after you Aetnae fatis, death and calamity dealt by Aetna Neither sperare ualet nor deiectus (without spe) is good or natural, so I suspect spe stare is right I think Heinsius’ se (not se e) is right, but erumpit may be defensible: the water of this gulf issues from the main body of the sea. sed erant adheres to the best MS but does not seem otherwise superior to aderant; and inque, if superior to atque, is not necessary. It is not leather but raw hide fresh from the carcass. adstabat is right. This verb often signifies merely stationariness without juxtaposition, as in Verg. Aen. I 152, II 303, 328, III 123, IX 677, Ouid. her. II 129, XX 106, Prop. IV 10 31 ‘this temple is not adequate to do honour to so great glory (as mine)’. dignus pro is illustrated by Munro at Lucr. V 1 sq. and me at Manil. II 938. nam seems to require male in 50, which it explains. A.E.H. 11. 7. ’33

TCC Add. MS c. 196 7 .

2

Hires would publish Invitation and Other Poems in 1938.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 12 July 1933 Dear Sirs, Messrs Constable may quote the Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries in Martha South’s book1 if they will print it as it stands in my Last Poems and not, as in several anthologies, inaccurately. There is of course no fee. I sanction your printing 2000 copies each of the 3/6 Shropshire Lad and the 2/6 Last Poems, and having stereoplates cast of the latter. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman SIU MS VFM 1082. Clemens (1941), 15 (incomplete).

TO L I L LY F R A Z E R Trinity College | Cambridge 12 July 1933 Dear Lady Frazer, I am sorry to say that I am not well enough to ask Professor Strauman1 to come and see me. In June I spent a week in a nursing home for alleged weakness of the heart: this now appears to be better, but I am in a very low nervous condition; and as I am advised not to walk much in warm weather I miss my usual exercise. I am exceedingly sorry that you have not good news to give me of Sir James. My kind regards to both of you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Frazer MS 18 95 .

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 13 July 1933 My dear Kate, I have just come across this old cutting from a newspaper, which will interest you if these Brettells are our relations. I had pleasant stays at Tardebigge and Street, though Jeannie was taking medicine and Grace was in bed all the while with weakness of the 1 The poem was printed correctly on p. vii of Martha South’s novel Apology for a Mercenary (1933), with acknowledgement of permission on p. viii. 1 For ‘Straumann’. Heinrich Straumann (1902–91) was at the time a teacher in Aarau. (He later taught English at the University of Zurich.)

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heart. Which reminds me that early in June the doctor sent me into a nursing home for a week because he said my heart was all over the place. It seems to have been behaving properly from that very day onward, but he advises me not to walk more than a little in the hot weather; and this deprives me of my usual exercise. But what is troubling me is not my heart but the nervous depression and causeless anxiety and agitation which I have suffered from half-a-dozen times already,—on two occasions, I think, when I was at Bath; and it is made worse by the fact that I have to look forward to a certain amount of real bother in moving into new rooms before Christmas. We ran over to Shrewsbury one Sunday and found Denis and his family well. They are a nice household. I suppose you are beginning to surround yourself with grandchildren. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Maas, 337.

TO J O H N D R I N K WATE R Trinity College | Cambridge 14 July 1933 Dear Drinkwater, I have delayed thanking you for your gift1 till I had read it, which I have now done with pleasure and admiration. I thought it both interesting and sound. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Yale MS.

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 15 July 1933 Dear Duff, In Sil. XIII 106 sq. I think nodis ferroque is ἓν διὰ δυοῖν. In XIII 261 I suppose mussat means much the same as in Verg. Aen. XII 657, and indicates that Virrius lost confidence and nerve. Summers’s 1

Probably the collection of Drinkwater’s papers, This Troubled World (1933).

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coetuque seems good and even necessary: the invitation must have been issued to a limited audience, and turba comitante in 276 must be restricted to it; and a que is needed to get rid of such an asyndeton as mussat, docet. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 1969 .

TO J O H N M A S E F I E L D Trinity College | Cambridge 19 July 1933 Dear Masefield, I thought I had broken you of calling me Professor. The invitation for Aug. 21 I am obliged to decline, as I am at present in a bad condition of nerves, which visits me from time to time; and if I am better at that date I shall be going abroad. I am flattered by my inclusion in your distinguished Committee; but, if my opinion is desired when my presence is lacking, I feel adverse to the annual medal.1 Great as would be the difficulty of making the award, and of feeling sure that they were competent judges, which the adjudicators would encounter, it would be fully equalled by the difficulty or impossibility of becoming acquainted with all the poems published or even of being aware of their existence. I do not forget the Hawthornden2 and other prizes, but there too I wonder how it is done. My best wishes and thanks for yours. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman You see, the award of a Royal Medal stands on record, and posterity will be able to jeer or execrate. Columbia University MS, Masefield Box. Envelope addressed ‘Dr Masefield | Pinbury Park | Cirencester’.

1 The Gold Medal for Poetry, instituted by King George V in 1933 at the suggestion of the Poet Laureate John Masefield. Until 1985 it was given only to British writers. 2 The Hawthornden Prize is the oldest of the British literary prizes, founded in 1919 by Alice Warrender. It is awarded annually to an English writer for ‘the best work of imaginative literature’. Writers do not submit work.

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24 July 1933

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 22 July 1933 Dear Duff, I think that Silius would be very ill pleased with you for wanting to alter XIII 681 Lybici quas fecerat auri, which is possessive, like Liu. 33. 13 8 eas populi Romani factas esse. Barth1 renders ‘mancipauerat eas auro’. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 19610 . Maas, 433.

TO D. K . RO B E RT S Trinity College | Cambridge 22 July 1933 Dear Mr Roberts, As it might seem ungraceful to decline the compliment paid me by your Committee of Management,1 I accept it with thanks, feeling equal to the discharge of purely nominal duties. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Maas, 338, whose text was based upon the MS once in the possession of the Society of Authors and now missing.

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 24 July 1933 Dear Duff, sui exercitus fecerat would I suppose be partitive genitive: this, as I said, is possessive, and the sense is given by Barth: literally ‘had rendered them the property of Punic gold’, ‘the slaves or creatures of his bribery’, so that they had no independence. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 19611 . Maas, 433. 1 1

Caspar von Barth (1587–1658) in Adversaria (1624). Membership of the Council of the Society of Authors.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 24 July 1933 My dear Kate, Although answering a letter by return of post is a thing which generally annoys me when others practise it in the ordinary course of correspondence, I must reply to your very kind letter without delay. In the first place, do not vex yourself at not being able to offer me what you consider proper hospitality, as I was not at all improved by my visits to Tardebigge and Street, and to take a journey and find myself in new surroundings would be an additional trouble. It is kind of you to suggest the notion. I am touched and sorry to hear about your own somewhat similar troubles in the past, of which I had no suspicion; though one of the thoughts on which I dwell is that I am much better off than many of my fellow creatures. The nights are not specially difficult, unless I am lying waiting to be called in the morning, for which I have tried hot milk in a thermos flask without much or any advantage. The occasional trouble about breathing when dozing off has nothing of an asthmatic nature. The intended change of rooms was into a larger and handsomer set in an older and more architectural part of the college; but it was such a bother that I have given it up, especially as the new rooms are in some respects less convenient than my present one. My intention was to go abroad on Aug. 22 for a motoring tour with a French friend; but I can hardly hope to be fit for it by then, as these bouts generally last three months, and this one began with June. Perhaps I may make an attempt in September. This hot weather is bad for me, as the doctor tells me not to walk in it on account of my heart, which /prohibition/ deprives me of my usual exercise and makes me feel rather feeble. I am sending back the lecture1 unsigned, because I am refusing to sign it for anybody, as I think little of it. I have thrown away a large number of press-cuttings which I might have sent to you if I had thought of it, though they were great rubbish. I enclose those which I picked out of the crowd, which you can read at your leisure, though I should like them back sooner or later. Only one is hostile, but the favourable ones in many cases are not intelligent, and tend to make more fuss about it than it deserves. 1

NNP.

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26 July 1933

It is good news that your School History2 is approaching its completion, and you must be satisfied to have seen it through. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Housman Society MS. Lilly MSS 3. 1. 10 (excerpt).

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 26 July 1933 My dear Jeannie, I answer your kind letter immediately, though I think that /is/ an annoying habit in correspondence as a rule, because you say you leave Potter’s Bar on Friday. I hope your stay there has given you pleasure and done you good. It is very vexatious and distressing that Grace should have been made ill by the move to Tutwall, and I am glad that she is mending. I am sorry to say that I am not any better as far as nerves go, in spite of my pleasant stay at Tardebigge; and it usually takes three months to get rid of these turns. My heart seems to be going on quietly, but the doctor advises me not to walk in this hot weather, so that I miss my usual exercise and feel rather feeble. Still, I ought not to complain, as at New York I see the temperature is 92. Whether I shall be able to go abroad a month hence as I intended I do not feel sure. I had a long letter from Kate the other day; she is expecting grandchildren on the 31st . I hope you will have a pleasant journey home. My kind regards to both of your sisters. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

2 The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bath, and its ancient foundation, of which an unfinished narrative, carried to 1823, had been published in 1930.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO P E T I C A RO B E RT S O N Trinity College 26 July 1933 Dear Mrs Robertson, Many thanks for the kindness with which you respond to my shameful attempt to cadge a luncheon. I will gratefully come on Friday, at 1. 15 if I don’t hear to the contrary. Yours very truly A. E. Housman Private MS.

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 28 July 1933 Dear Duff, This ship, even under press of sail, moved so slowly, because of its enormous size, that you would have thought it was only propelled by oars.1 But I think that in XIV 391 the right reading is Withof’s2 quasi, mistaken for qua si and the qua then omitted. Thanks for your kind wish, but the heat has been against me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS. c. 196 12 . Maas, 433–4.

TO J. D. DU F F 4 August 1933 Trinity College Dear Duff, I take resignat /17 425/ as you do and think that periuria Graia is periphrasis for Graios, like Catonis uirtus in Hor. carm. III 21 11 sq. So too Forcellini.1 1 This was the explanation Duff gave of Silius 14. 389–91 in his 1933 edn., which was dedicated to his ‘two powerful allies’ AEH and W. T. Vesey. 2 Johann Hildebrand Withof in Kritische Anmerkungen über Horaz und andere Römische Schriftsteller (Dusseldorf, 1791–1802). 1 The Lexicon totius latinitatis of Italian philologist Egidio Forcellini (1688–1768), of which a 5th edn. in 10 vols. was prepared by Vincenzo de Vit (Padua, 1858–87).

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10 August 1933

500 ferebant ‘boasted’. temerata secreta deum and reserasse negatas gressibus humanis Alpes are the same thing: 2 Ruperti3 refers to III 496–9. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 19613 .

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 4 Aug. 1933 My dear Witter Bynner, I have received this morning with great pleasure Eden Tree1 and your photograph.2 I was in shirt-sleeves myself, for England at this moment of the year is trying to emulate American heat. Many thanks. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/26. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | 342 Buena Vista Road | Santa Fé | New Mexico | U.S.A.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 31; Maas, 338. (AEH writes ‘Fé’ for ‘Fe’.)

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Aug. 1933 My dear Withers, After your lunch I had a most pleasant and tranquil ride into Worcestershire, so much so that I fell asleep before Stratford-on-Avon, and the chauffeur, to my surprise, found his way through without my directions. But I am sorry to say that after my holiday I am worse rather than better. In previous visitations of this nervous trouble I have been physically strong and able to take good long walks; but at present, though my heart appears to be all right again, I am feeble, partly no doubt because of this weather. I am hoping to go to France on the 22nd and make a motor tour of about three weeks, perhaps in Anjou and Touraine, which are almost unknown 2 Johann Christian Gottlieb Ernesti (1756–1802), whose edn. of Silius Italicus was published in 1791–2. 3 Georg Alexander Ruperti (1758–1839) in his edn. of Silius Italicus (Göttingen, 1795–7), repr. by N. E. Lamaire (Paris, 1823). 1 2 See AEH to Bynner, 1 July 1933. A snapshot of Bynner in his Santa Fe study.

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Letters 1927–1936

to me. I expect to have a French companion, though not one of much education, and, though amiable, he may be bored. Your invitation is most kind, indeed to an agitating extent in my present hyperaesthesia; but I think it most likely that I shall not take advantage of it, so do not keep it open. I try to fortify myself by comparisons with people like yourself, who have tangible troubles (and now dental supervening). I must congratulate you on your daughter’s marriage, and I am sending her one of those cheap presents which literary men do send.1 I ought perhaps to apologise to you as a father, as I think I have told you that the person who at first was the head of the Richards Press threw A Shropshire Lad behind the fire as ‘the filthiest book he had ever read’.2 My kind regards and thanks to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 104 (excerpt); Maas, 338–9.

TO AU D R E Y W I T H E R S Trinity College | Cambridge 10 August 1933 Dear Miss Withers, On the occasion of your marriage1 I send you these two books with all wishes for your happiness. If I ought to have put ‘Miss Withers’ on the envelope, forgive me, as I do not know which of you is the elder.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman SCO MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Aug. 1933 My dear Richards, Yes, Please tell them that Mr John Duke’s setting of Loveliest of trees may be published, and that there is no fee. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. 1 2 1 2

Inscribed copies of the two-shilling pocket edns. of ASL and LP (Withers, 80–1). See AEH to LH, 16 Feb. 1929. To bookseller Alan Hay (‘Jock’) Stewart (b. 1906/7) on 2 Sept. 1933. Audrey was in fact younger than her sister Monica.

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18 August 1933

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 17 Aug. 1933 Dear Roberts (though I suppose you are away), The publication of my Leslie Stephen lecture was delayed in order to secure American copyright; yet look at this. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 7735 28 .

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Aug. 1933 My dear Kate, I intend to leave here on Monday afternoon, sleep at the Aerodrome hotel at Croydon, and cross by the aeroplane on Tuesday which leaves Croydon at 9 a.m., so do not concern yourself about the fate of the others. From Paris I shall start immediately on my tour in Touraine &c. and shall have no fixed address for about three weeks, I expect; but letters can be addressed to me care of Mm. Morgan Pope & Co. 6 Rue Caumartin Paris (IX) France where I shall find them on my return to Paris. I shall have with me a French companion, a nice young man, not much educated, who regards me as a benefactor. I dare not say that I am better, though last night was a good one, but I am not worse. I hope that your Shrewsbury guests are with you, in spite of the doubts about their coming, and that they and you are enjoying things. I was glad to hear of the various achievements of your grandchildren. Love to Clemence, if she happens to be already with you. Mrs Hugh Dixon1 was here /at Girton/ for a week early in the month and very kindly left a card, but I told her I did not feel equal to asking her to tea or doing anything properly civil. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 50 43 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Maas, 339. 1

Sister-in-law of Jeannie Housman (née Dixon).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Aug. 1933 My dear Richards, Emphatically no on my part to Mr Wollman. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR MS.

TO A . A . K N O P F Trinity College | Cambridge | England 20 Aug. 1933 Dear Sirs, In accordance with the wish of Mr Witter Bynner, I write to you about the poems of F. G. Tuckerman, which you have been kind enough to send me at his request.1 Although the sonnet is a form of verse for which I do not much care, and although Tuckerman often writes it incorrectly, I find in the book much beauty, originality, and love together with knowledge of external nature, and I am surprised that he should be so little known. I think Mr Bynner has rendered a service to literature by bringing the /poems/ to notice. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman Texas MS. Bynner/Haber, 30 n. 2 (excerpt).

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 24 August 1933   |  |     |  (.—&—.) My dear Kate, I ought to tell you that though I am now better and improving I have been wretchedly ill, worse than I can ever remember having been /in/ all my life. Just when my nervous trouble was so evidently decreasing that I was looking forward with pleasure to going abroad, I was siezed1 1

See AEH to Bynner, 1 July 1933. For ‘seized’, an error, like ‘morself ’, ‘minutes’ without an apostrophe, and ‘shell’, attributable to ill health. 1

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by what my doctor called a catarrh of the throat, which he said might get worse or better. His remedies did not prevent it from getting worse, but I could not disappoint those who were expecting me and depending on me, and I had two days of the most violent and frequent pain I have ever undergone, though /that may/ may only mean that I have been more fortunate hitherto than most people. I could not swallow a morself of food or a drop of drink without such pain as made me fear to repeat the action; and could not get more than ten minutes sleep at a time because the phlegm collected and started a spasm. I have found a doctor here who has given me an inhalation which seems to be acting well, and lunch to-day, which was an exceedingly good one, is the first meal which I have eaten with more pleasure than pain. My companion has been kind and as helpful as can possibly be imagined. I am still ridiculously feeble, and the mistakes in this letter are not all due to the hotel pen. It will be no good writing to me, as tomorrow I leave here for Tours and shell not stay there or anywhere long. I will write from time to time to relieve your anxiety. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman TCC. Add. MS c. 50 44 – 5 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth | Angleterre’.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 26 Aug. 1933   ’ |  My dear Kate, My throat has grown so very much better that I am leaving off the inhalation, as it seemed to cause thirst. Fatigue is still ever-present and annoying. I go through most of my programme, but I hope that the memory of having seen these castles will be more pleasure to me than the seeing of them at present is. My only pleasures are eating drinking and sleeping, which would make me feel much ashamed if I were a loftyminded man, which I am not. The third is the only one which I indulge too much. I am ashamed to write letters which are pretty sure to cause you pain; but do not worry too much about me as I do not worry excessively about myself. To-morrow I am going on to Nantes. Yours affectionate brother A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 50 46 . Maas, 340.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 28 Aug. ’33   |  My dear Kate, My throat now gives me no pain at all, though it is hardly yet all right. I think I forgot to say that I had almost lost my voice, but that is now all right. My strength improves though I can hardly in this hot weather take enough exercise to do me good. To-morrow I may go on to a watering-place called Sables d’Olonne, but if there is no room in the hotels, as may be at this season, I shall go to La Rochelle. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 50 49 – 50 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth | Angleterre’. Maas, 341.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 29 Aug. 1933    |  -’ My dear Kate, I have just come here from Nantes, which is a poor place, as I suspected it was, and the heat here is pleasantly tempered by the sea breeze. I do not expect to stay more than two nights: I may go to Royans,1 another watering place further south, and from thence perhaps turn north to Britanny.2 I am not very definitely improving so far, but the sea ought to be useful. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 47 . Maas, 341.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 31 Aug. 1933   |  My dear Kate, This magnificent hot weather gives so much pleasure to so many that I regard it as part of the general conspiracy against me because it does not happen to suit my health; but it is very mean that the English pound, 1

For ‘Royan’.

2

For ‘Brittany’.

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1 September 1933

which has stood at 84 francs for ever so long, should begin to sink the moment I left England and should have reached 79 when I had to change money yesterday. I am weak and low, but my companion takes all trouble on his shoulders, and really does not seem to be bored. Here we are likely to stay two nights, and then turn towards the centre of France in the direction of Clermont-Ferrand. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 50 48 . Maas, 341.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 1 Sept. 1933   |  My dear Kate, If it would amuse you to write to me at Grand Hotel1 et de la Poste Clermont-Ferrand Puy-de-Dôme France, I might get the letter, as I am leaving here tomorrow and shall probably stay one night at Angoulème,2 one at Limoges, and three at Clermont Ferrand. Only do not write too much, and do not be misled by your beautifully compact handwriting. This is a beastly place, all noise and mosquitos, and the heat continues stifling. But I managed to get a very good lunch to-day with the first oysters of the season; and the first guns popping in the distance. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 51 – 2 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth | Angleterre’. Maas, 342.

1

For ‘Hôtel’.

2

For ‘Angoulême’.

376

Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 6 Sept. 1933   | - |    My dear Kate, I was rejoiced to get your nice letter at breakfast this morning. As my fatigue persisted without abatement I have seen a doctor here, who has given me something which makes me feel rather better, and also advice about food. He does not find anything particularly wrong with my heart. This afternoon we have had rain and thunder, and it looks as if the weather were changing. Though cooler, it is still rather close. I expect to leave here Friday morning, to spend one night at Nevers and one at Bourges, to return to Paris on Sunday, collect my correspondence on Monday, and return to England on Tuesday the 12th by the British aeroplane which leaves le Bourget at 12. 30, reaching Cambridge in the afternoon. Certainly you are quite welcome to keep the press-cutting which has taken your fancy. Love to you and Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 53 – 4 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth | Angleterre’. Maas, 342.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 11 Sept. 1933   |  |    My dear Kate, This morning I have got my 3 weeks’ budget of letters, including your two, which are touchingly kind. I cannot claim merit in the matter of air-mail, as the letters must have chosen that route without my knowledge: perhaps it depends on the hour of posting. I should not wonder if my trouble is the influenza which Cardiff and Phyllis have been suffering from, though the ulcers in the mouth have not yet made their appearance. Your account of the Exmouth hotel, and the advertisement, are both attractive, but I feel as if when I get to Cambridge I should like to sit down and remain in that position. Your offer to take me into your house is too kind. Many thanks for Jerry’s letter, interesting as usual.

377

13 September 1933

This hotel is pleasantly quiet, and so was that in which I slept last night; but for some nights before I was waked up early by the various noises made by this early-rising nation. Best love to you and Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 342–3.

TO G E O F F R E Y W E T H E R E D Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Sept 1933. Dear Mr Wethered, I thank you for your thanks, as I value the good opinion of those young men for whom, as you say, my poems were written. The queen of air and darkness comes from a line of Coventry Patmore’s, ‘the powers of darkness and the air’,1 which in its turn is a reference to ‘the prince of the power of the air’ in Ephesians II 2; and the meaning is Evil. You had much better not come to see me. Some men are better than their books, but my books are better than their man.2 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. LC-GR1 MS: copy in Wethered’s hand. G. V. M. Heap, HSJ 4 (1978), 6.

TO R. W. CH A PM A N Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Sept. 1933 My dear Chapman, Thanks for your variously interesting letter. I like πόση.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1 The Victories of Love (1862), The Wedding Sermon, 10. 71–2: ‘The Powers of Darkness and the Air | Which lure to empty heights man’s hope’. Wethered’s transcription has ‘power’, but this was corrected to ‘powers’ in the printed version. 2 See AEH to GR, 27 Sept. 1921, n. 1. 1 Chapman notes on the MS that the reference is to his emendation of Plato, Republic, 369d: πόση for πῶσ ἡ.

378

Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Sept. 1933 My dear Kate, Whether it is the cooler weather, or whether the disease is running its natural course, I feel stronger and more comfortable. My doctor is satisfied with me, says that my heart is behaving well, and thinks that my tour has probably done me good: all the same, I should not like to go through it again. Since I left, there has been a great deal of the same illness at Cambridge. I came back by air, as I went out, and in both journeys the machine did the distance in 2 hours, which is a quarter of an hour less than the time advertised. I lunched on board, as it was lunch time: naturally one expected little, but one did not expect that little to be spun out almost to the length of the whole journey. I am almost entirely ignorant of the history of England /and Europe/ during the last three weeks, and shall have to tackle the back numbers of the Times. French papers contain no news, and the Continental Daily /Mail/, which I did not see regularly, very little. Love to you and Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 50 55 – 6 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Maas, 343.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Sept 1933 Dear Sirs, Miss Cave may have permission to publish her settings of Loveliest of trees and With rue my heart is laden. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 134.

379

21 September 1933

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Sept. 1933 My dear Laurence, Many thanks for your Victoria and Albert 1 which I shall read when I have got through things which were awaiting my return. Your palace plays are always entertaining, however fabulous some of them may be. My doctor inclines to think that my disagreeable tour in France has done me good, so I hope I shall soon find it out. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 186; Maas, 344.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Sept. 1933 Dear Sirs, I refuse my consent to the use which Mr Foss desires to make of the two extracts from my poems.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman You are at liberty to print 5000 more copies of the small edition of A Shropshire Lad. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 138.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Sept. 1933 Dear Mr Wilson, Thanks for your letter and renewed invitation, which is kind though fruitless. I have been much out of health, and the hot weather has been bad for me. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. 1

The third series of Palace Plays, published in 1933. On 18 Sept. 1933 The Richards Press Ltd. passed on letters to AEH from Oxford University Press requesting permission to quote three verses from The Merry Guide and the last verse of Fancy’s Knell in a book. They remark that ‘they appear to be unable to quote the poems correctly’: BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 137. The book was The Heritage of Music, second series (1934), ed. Hubert J. Foss (who had done a setting of The New Mistress in 1925). 1

380

Letters 1927–1936

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 22 Sept. 1933 Dear Duff, ac is postponed: it is ‘ensem atque hastam unam multis milibus fatalem’.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 19614 .

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Sept. 1933 My dear Richards, M Tollet’s1 essay, which I return, is certainly complimentary, and is not silly, and I should not raise objections, ‘momentous’ or otherwise, to its publication in an English paper, though I imagine he would find this difficult, and have no wish that he should succeed.2 I am still in very poor health. Just when I went to France I was siezed3 by a form of influenza which has been prevalent here, starting with a violently painful inflammation of the throat and leaving the victim in a state of feebleness and fatigue in which I still continue, with very low spirits. You would therefore find me wretched company, and I cannot honestly recommend you to come. On the other hand if I were selfish I should be glad to see you, because your company might do me good; and I should be at liberty any day next week except the Saturday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 273–4; Maas, 344.

1

Silius Italicus, 2. 400: ‘ensem, unam ac multis fatalem milibus hastam’. For ‘Pollet’s’. 2 Maurice Pollet’s essay, ‘A. E. Housman. Étude suivie d’une importante lettre inédite de A. E. Housman avec un fac-similé’, appeared in Études Anglaises, 1. 5 (Septembre 1937), 385–401, with a facsimile of part of AEH’s letter of 5 Feb. 1933 on p. 402 and the text of the letter on pp. 403–4. Pollet to GR, 23 Sept. 1933: ‘Perhaps you will deem it advisable to show this essay to Mr. Housman himself. I hope he will not raise too momentous objections to it!’ (Richards, 273). GR had suggested to Pollet that he should translate his essay into English and offer it to the London Mercury (Richards, 274). It was translated into English by Tom Burns Haber in Arizona Quarterly, 25 (Spring 1969), 57–67. 3 For ‘seized’. 1

381

14 October 1933

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 29 Sept. 1933 My dear Witter Bynner, You are at liberty to use as you please what I wrote about Tuckerman.1 Yours sincerely, A. E. Housman Harvard MS Eng 1071/27. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | 342 Buena Vista Road | Santa Fé | New Mexico | U.S.A.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 32. (AEH writes ‘Fé’ for ‘Fe’.)

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 2 Oct. 1933 Dear Duff, I should think that in cornua IV 318 means that they are trying to outflank one another, and that glomerata uolumina means massed ranks in motion; but I am not at all sure. I am sorry for the cause of your regretted absence. All sorts of colds are hateful things. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 19615 . Maas, 434.

TO O L I V E B E N S O N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 14 Oct. 1933 Dear Miss Benson, I am much obliged by your kindness in copying out your settings, and also rather distressed that you should have taken an amount of trouble of which I am not worthy, as my knowledge of music is slight. Sir William Watson’s address is given in Who’s Who as The Cliff, Peacehaven, Sussex. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman Lilly MSS 1. 1. 1

See AEH to Knopf, 20 Aug. 1933.

382

Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Oct. 1933 My dear Richards, I am very sorry you have been having the same sort of trouble as I. Come by all means when you are well enough.1 I am rather better now. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 4 Cranley Place | S. W. 7’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 276.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Oct. 1933 My dear Kate, Thanks for your letter and the press cuttings. I enclose another one, which is amusing, because its author, T. S. Eliot, is worshipped as a god by the writers in the paper which had the only hostile review.1 I am glad that you are so well. I am much better than I have been. The doctor has given me a tonic which took away the horrid inward feeling of fatigue, and I am getting to walk more strongly, though very gradually and with ups and downs. But for the first fortnight after my return he left me alone, and I made no progress at all; and the monotonous misery gave the nervous trouble a chance to steal back again to some extent. I wake up too soon and have a /rather/ disagreeable time till I get into my bath. I find too that I cannot turn with interest to work. My lectures however give me no trouble. My appetite is quite normal. Jeannie wrote to me a little while ago, and evidently Grace’s illness was serious and she has not got rid of it. Your affectionate brother [A. E. Housman.] Lilly MSS 2. Signature cut off: ‘Autograph sent to Bromsgrove School 10 June 1936’ (note written on the MS in KES’s hand). Maas, 344–5. 1

GR went to Cambridge on 27 Oct. to see AEH: Richards, 276. T. S. Eliot’s favourable review of the Leslie Stephen lecture appeared in The Criterion, 13. 50 (Oct. 1933), 151–4. An unfavourable review by Gorley Putt appeared in Scrutiny, ed. by F. R. Leavis and others, 2. 2 (Sept. 1933), 206–8: ‘Many who enjoyed the charm of Professor Housman when he delivered his Leslie Stephen lecture will be sorry to see its appearance in cold print’ (207). 1

383

31 October 1933

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Oct. 1933]

Yes Housman PM MS: Post Office telegram. LC-GR t.s.

TO S. G. M O RLE Y Trinity College | Cambridge | England 28 Oct. 1933

Dear Mr Morley, I am much obliged by your kindness in presenting me with your translations from Anthero1 de Quental,2 which I am reading with interest, and appreciation. Modern Portuguese poetry is almost unknown to me, though I find that without having learnt Portuguese I can read Camoëns3 to some extent with the aid of Latin and French. Most of the subjects which I mentioned in connexion with the Art of Versification are touched on by Coventry Patmore in an essay first published, I do not know where, in 1856, and printed as an appendix to his ‘third collective edition’ of poems, 1887, 2 vols, George Bell & Son. Its title is Essay on English Metrical Law.4 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bancroft MS 77/85 c. Envelope addressed ‘Mr S. G. Morley | Dept. of Spanish & Portuguese | University of California | Berkeley | California | U. S. A.’. Maas, 345 (marginally inaccurate).

TO TH E CO U NTE S S CAVE [Trinity College | Cambridge] 31 Oct. 1933

Dear Lady Cave, Many thanks for your letter. I am pleased to hear of your decision in preserving the anonymity of the poem,1 and I do not grudge Lord Darling2 any credit or discredit which may wrongly attach itself to him. [I am yours sincerely] A. E. Housman. Memoir, 206. 1 2

For ‘Antero’. Portuguese poet Antero Tarquínio de Quental (1842–91). Morley’s translation was published in 1922. 3 Luís Vaz de Camo˜es (c.1524–80), Portuguese poet and dramatist. 4 See the note on the letter of 1 Mar. 1932 to LH. 1 See AEH to Lady Cave, 7 Feb. 1933. 2 Charles John Darling (1849–1936), first Baron Darling; a judge.

384

Letters 1927–1936

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Nov. 1933 Dear Mr Wilson, I am much obliged to you by your gift of Mace’s Sibylla,1 which is very readable and clever. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2.

TO J O H N D R I N K WATE R Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Nov. 1933 Dear Drinkwater, I shall be pleased and honoured if you choose to dedicate your pageant to me,1 and also grateful for the gift of your new poems when they appear.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 1 Nov. 1933 My dear Richards, Your talent for practical affairs is only equalled by your amiability and readiness to help; but at present at any rate I do not look forward to changing my rooms as a likely event. If it ever occurs, I will certainly remember and take advantage of your noble offer.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards | 4 Cranley Place | S. W. 7’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 277; Maas, 345.

1 1 2 1

Sibylla; or, The Revival of Prophecy, by Cecil Alec Mace (1926). See AEH to Drinkwater. 18 Aug. 1934, and n. 1 See AEH to Drinkwater, 14 Nov. 1933. To help with any move to more comfortable rooms.

385

10 November 1933

TO J. D. DU F F Trinity College 6 Nov. 1933 Dear Duff, Considering the context which immediately precedes and follows I think that lato is probably what Silius wrote in I 499. Hannibal seemed to Murrus like a whole army. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 19616 .

TO J O H N C A RT E R Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Nov. 1933 Dear Mr Carter, Although I was not a willing party to the original publication of my introductory lecture at University College, published it is, and your flattering proposal,1 if carried out, will not make matters perceptibly worse; so I offer no objection, and indeed I should be glad of a few additional copies, which you kindly offer, to lend to people who ask for it. I hope the proof-reading will be careful: the Cambridge Press cannot be trusted implicitly. I am your very truly A. E. Housman Lilly MS PR 4809 .H15 I 6 1033, f. 1.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 10 Nov. 1933 My dear Withers, In the first place I am very sorry that you have been suffering so much this summer, in which the hot weather was hostile also to me. Towards the end of August, when the nervous trouble had begun to relax its hold, I went to France; but just at starting I was attacked by a form of influenza which has been prevalent in Cambridge and arises in hot dry weather: it begins with an excruciating sore throat, which prevented eating, drinking, or sleeping for more than ten minutes at a time, during 1 To have Cambridge University Press reprint it privately. 100 copies were printed for John Carter and John Sparrow. 25 were reserved for AEH. Excerpt printed in A. E. Housman, An Annotated Check-List by John Carter and John Sparrow (1940), 169.

386

Letters 1927–1936

two days and nights, and then leaves one as weak as water. Consequently, when the throat was cured, I had a miserable time in France, dragging myself about sightseeing and ready to drop with fatigue. My companion however was all that could be imagined in kindness and helpfulness. When I came back my doctor left me to nature for a fortnight, because he was satisfied with the condition of my heart, and I did not improve a bit in strength all the while, so that the nervous trouble took the opportunity of stealing back to some extent. He then gave me a strong tonic (known among doctors as ‘honeymoon mixture’) which soon made me stronger but then had no progressive effect. I have now left it off without experiencing relapse; but I walk sluggishly and am low in spirits. My chief remaining trouble is excessive sensitiveness to noises, which prevents me from getting to sleep again if I wake when life has begun to stir in the morning. Well! woe has made me eloquent, and you ought to be satisfied at least with the length of this egotistic letter. Your invitation is exceedingly kind, but I feel sure I had best stay at home. My lectures are no trouble to me, but I find I cannot get up a real interest in work and study. I read chiefly novels and Lecky’s history of England in the eighteenth century,1 from which I learn much which I did not know. My kind regards to Mrs Withers and my best wishes and hopes for your health. Bevan2 had a most enviable death. At luncheon that afternoon he was talking vigorously. He had advanced heart-disease of a kind which gives no warning of its existence. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 98 (excerpt); Maas, 346.

TO H . J. M O RTO N Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Nov. 1933 My dear Morton, Your secretary spelt your name two ways, and I had the idea that your second initial was V. (confusing you I suppose with a literary man whom I sometimes see mentioned),1 so that I did not recognise your identity. I am sorry if my reply seemed brusque. 1 William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838–1903), A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 8 vols. (1878–90). 2 Anthony Ashley Bevan (1859–1933). Fellow of TCC, 1890; Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, 1895–1933. 1 Henry V[ollam] Morton (1890–1959), prolific travel writer.

387

14 November 1933

When last I heard from you, some years ago, you wrote me a desponding and not altogether clear letter, and when I sent a reply to the address you gave it was returned marked ‘gone away’. Despondency is still to be observed in your style; but after all I often despond myself. I should be pleased to see you again (‘before I die’ let us say), and if you gave me enough notice I could probably be in my rooms any time before 1 or after 4, except that the mornings of Wednesday and Friday are always occupied. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO J. T. S H E PPA RD Trinity College 13 Nov. 1933 My dear Provost, Let me congratulate you heartily on your election to this uniquely distinguished office,1 and extend my congratulation to your College, which, as we of the Classical Board know, has chosen an excellent man of affairs to preside over it. I hope you will long enjoy and lightly support your dignity. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. KCC MS JTS 2/103.

TO J O H N D R I N K WATE R Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Nov. 1933 Dear Drinkwater, I write immediately to return you thanks for the kind gift of your book of poems.1 Reading the first ones reminds me that I have probably never told /you/ how much I was interested and pleased by the first volume of your autobiography.2 Yours sincerely A. E Housman Yale MS. 1

Provost of KCC. The Summer Harvest, Poems 1924–1933 (1933). 2 Inheritance: being the first book of an autobiography (1931). Vol. 2, Discovery: being the second book of an autobiography, had appeared in 1932. 1

388

Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Nov. 1933 My dear Richards, I have no objection to the performance of a musical setting of When I would muse in boyhood. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. LC-GR t.s.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Nov. 1933 My dear Richards, No, you certainly may not reproduce the photograph. Your account of the Food and Wine luncheon was discouraging,1 and I was not much impressed by the menu, which I saw in the Times. I congratulate Gioia.2 I remember that she wrote novels, or a novel, when she was at school. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. PM MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 277 (nearly complete).

TO M AU RI CE B OW RA Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Nov. 1933 Dear Mr Bowra, Thanks for your note: you are probably right. I see from Weir Smyth1 that Ilgen2 had the idea of pot and kettle. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 434, which was based on the autograph MS once in the possession of the recipient and now missing. 1 GR to AEH, 15 Nov. 1933: ‘I went to the first luncheon of the Wine and Food Society yesterday. It was very crowded. Hardly anybody looked as if he cared what he ate or drank—and there were women! … From the gastronomic or wine point of view I do not think it would have interested you … ’ (Richards, 277). 2 GR’s daughter, Gioia Vivian Owtram, whose novel, Camilla (1934), had just been accepted by Faber & Faber. 1 2 In Greek Melic Poets (1900). In his Opuscula (1797).

389

23 November 1933

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 20 Nov. 1933 Dear Mr Martin, Apparently you have been searching the Scriptures and have lighted on the 18th chapter of St Luke.1 I am ashamed of myself for showing no more firmness of mind than the unjust judge; but such infatuation as yours is quite intimidating.2 I observe that your photograph wears a grin of assured success. I gave the manuscript of A Shropshire Lad to the library of this college, and that of Last Poems to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. I was not born in Shropshire at all, but near the town of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. The Shropshire hills were our western horizon, and hence my sentiment for the county, I suppose. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Martin (1937), 298; Maas, 347.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College 23 Nov. 1933 Dear Sir, I thank your Society for its invitation, and I am flattered by the esteem which I seem to enjoy in your College, for only last week I received a similar request from another Society there. But you will not feel aggrieved if you in your turn receive the same reply: that I never do read papers. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

1 Luke 18: 5 (the unjust judge): ‘Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ 2 Accompanying the letter was a fair copy of ASL II (Loveliest of trees), now at BMC.

390

Letters 1927–1936

TO M R S A . F. W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Nov. 1933 Dear Mrs Wilson, The poem entitled The First of May is no. XXXIV in Last Poems. It was published in The Cambridge Review some years before.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs A. F. Wilson | Newtown | Ohio | U. S. A.’

TO E L L I S D. RO B B Trinity College | Cambridge | England 24 Nov. 1933 Dear Mr Robb, I am much obliged to your kindness in sending me the review of Sara Teasdale’s1 poems. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Ellis D. Robb | 717 First National Bank Building | Atlanta | Georgia | U. S. A.’ White (1950), 409.

TO O L I V E R RO B I N S O N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 25 Nov. 1933 Dear Mr Robinson, You are at liberty to publish your setting of the poem White in the moon; though I am sorry that my knowledge of music does not permit me to express or form a competent judgment of it. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman Facsimile opposite p. 11 in Robinson’s Angry Dust: The Poetry of A. E. Housman, A Critical Essay (1950).

1 1

Vol. 35 (29 Apr. 1914), 386. American poet (1884–1933).

391

5 December 1933

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Nov. 1933 My dear Laurence, There was no enclosure in your letter, but I know what it was, and have already had an invitation from the people at University College, which, so far as I remember, I pretty explicitly declined. No doubt I should enjoy seeing you wrestle with the King of Terrors,1 but though I am much better than I have been and no longer actually feeble, my spirits are rather low and the visit to London would worry me in prospect if not in act. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Memoir, 187; Maas, 347.

TO J O H N C A RT E R Trintity College | Cambridge 5 Dec. 1933 Dear Mr Carter, Thanks for the proof, which I return. On p. 16 I have corrected a misquotation from King George III,1 which may entail an alteration in the prefatory note. I should like to have it stated that the Council of University College, not I, had the lecture printed. I consented, because it seemed churlish to refuse. This is the purport of nescit vox missa reverti.2 The letterpress on the ‘false title’ is either too much or too little: ‘Faculties’ without ‘University College’ is too indefinite[.]3 On questions of typography I cannot offer any opinion. 25 copies is much more than I am likely to need. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MS. PR 4809 .H15 I6 1933. Excerpt printed in the prefatory note to the 1937 reprint, in A. E. Housman, An Annotated Check-List by John Carter and John Sparrow (1940), 169, etc. 1 In LH’s play Nunc Dimittis, an epilogue to his Little Plays of St Francis, published by the Dramatic Society of UCL (1933). 1 On p. 24 of the reprint, ‘ ‘‘Was there ever such stuff as great part of Shakespeare?’’ ’ Otherwise, the original text was reproduced without alteration. 2 On the title-page, meaning ‘the voice sent forth can never be recalled’. 3 The title-page of the reprint specified ‘INTRODUCTORY LECTURE |   |       |    |  |   | ’.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO H . E . BU T L E R Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Dec. 1933 Dear Butler, Many thanks for your half of the gift of The Elegies of Propertius1 which I received this morning. As yet I have only glanced through it, but I make one remark before I forget. I am tired of saying that Craugidos in IV 3 55 is not Buecheler’s.2 I told Postgate whose it was, and he told the world; and I have at last dinned the truth into Hosius.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 305. Maas, 434.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Dec. 1933 My dear Richards, If I did what you ask,1 because it is painful to refuse, it would be cowardice, and I should be angry with myself afterwards, and ashamed; and you yourself would be obliged to think me weak. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 348.

1 The Elegies of Propertius, ed. with an introduction and commentary by H. E. Butler and E. A. Barber (1933). 2 ‘I have said this before, and as scholars educated at Bonn are loth to believe it I now give chapter and verse. Buecheler proposed Craugidos in 1888 (Rhein. Mus. XLIII p. 297): Bergk had already proposed it, not for the first time, in 1873 (Augusti rer. a se gest. ind. p. 124)’: AEH in his review of the second edn. of C. Hosius’ Propertius (1922): CR 37 (Aug.–Sept. 1923), 120–1; Classical Papers, 1089. 3 The conjecture was correctly attributed in vol. 1 of J. P. Postgate’s Corpus Poetarum Lationorum (1894). Butler and Barber, and Hosius in his 2nd edn., attribute it to Buecheler. The attribution is correct in Hosius’ 3rd edn. (1932). 1 Maas, 348 n., conjectures plausibly that GR had asked AEH to lend him money.

393

7 December 1933

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Dec 1933 My dear Laurence, Thanks for your Pre-Raphaelitism,1 which I am glad to have, though some of the other contents of the volume seem pretty poor. What a wretched writer is Macan! and speller too.2 I think that you make too much of Morris, and that the manner of The Defence of Guenevere is just one of his falsettos.3 He dropped it like a hot copper4 when he found it did not pay. I should have liked to be told what to think of Burne Jones.5 Love to Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 187; Maas, 347–8 (both nearly complete).

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Dec. 1933 Dear Sir, My Fragment of a Greek Tragedy is an affair of only two or three pages, published long ago in a school magazine and reprinted in the Cornhill of 1901 or thereabouts.1 I am obliged by the kindness of your letter. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. 1 ‘Pre-Raphaelitism in Art and Poetry’, in Essays by Divers Hands ( Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature,  12), ed. R. W. Macan, 1–29. 2 Macan misspelled LH’s first name in the introduction to the book. 3 William Morris (1834–96) published The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems in 1858. LH (pp. 19–20): ‘Morris’s value as an exponent of the Pre-Raphaelite spirit consisted largely in the fact that he was virgin soil. He had a great simple nature, hugely receptive and abounding in vitality; he was at once extraordinarily alive and extraordinarily susceptible to the influence of a bigger and subtler intellect; and when the spirit of the thing was instilled into him by Rossetti, he tumbled to it like a ripe plum, and found it, as he naively confessed, astonishingly easy.’ LH (p. 19): ‘in no book of verse is the poetry of Pre-Raphaelitism so completely illustrated as in William Morris’s first early book of poems, ‘‘The Defence of Guenevere’’, written before he also indulged in second thoughts, which turned him into a different sort of poet altogether.’ 4 Penny (colloquial). 5 Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833–98), painter and designer. LH’s essay makes no mention of him. AEH writes ‘Burne Jones’ for Burne-Jones’. 1 See AEH to Cross, 25 May 1927, and notes.

394

Letters 1927–1936

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Dec. 1933 Dear Mr Wilson, I have to thank you again for the present of a nice book. I am sorry that you are not well, and I wish I were better myself. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO G E O F F R E Y W E T H E R E D Trinity College | Cambridge 9 Dec. 1933 Dear Mr Wethered, I have been ill all this summer and am not yet properly well, which affords me an excuse for declining to see you. That this will be better for you I have already said.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. G. V. M. Heap, HSJ 4 (1978), 6.

TO J. W. M ACK A I L Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Dec. 1933 Dear Mackail, Verg. g. I 513 is a verse on which I have thought much and vainly; but MSS and scholia and testimonia are together in favour of in spatio, so I am afraid of your conjecture.1 I am so much better than I have been in the course of this year that I do not like to boast myself ‘very poorly’, but I am uncomfortable, and depressed by slow progress. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC MS R.1.92.13. Hawkins (1958), 189 (excerpt); Maas, 435. 1 1

See AEH to Wethered, 13 Sept. 1933. Not published.

395

14 December 1933

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Dec. 1933 Dear Sirs, No, the words must not be printed in a concert programme. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 136.

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 14 Dec. 1933 Dear Mr Martin, You are an engaging madman, and write more agreeably than many sane persons; but if I write anything of an autobiographical nature, as I have sometimes idly thought of doing, I shall send it to the British Museum to be kept under lock and key for 50 years.1 There is no biography of Matthew Arnold (whom I am glad to see that you read), in accordance with his own advice2 so there certainly need be none of me. Your last enquiry, though frivolous, is harmless, and I may reply that I never do sign my name in full except in documents where I am directed to do so. Accept my best thanks for your kind Christmas gift. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Houston Martin | 6488 Woodcrest Avenue | Overbrook | Philadelphia | U. S. A.’ Martin (1937), 298–9; Maas, 348.

1

AEH never did this. ‘It was Matthew Arnold’s express wish that he might not be made the subject of a Biography’: George W. E. Russell in the prefatory note to his edn. of Letters of Matthew Arnold 1848–1888 (1895), 1. vii. 2

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Letters 1927–1936

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N [Trinity College | Cambridge | England 20 Dec. 1933] This may give you a certain amount of unwholesome pleasure. Do not ask me to autograph it, for it is rhetorical and not wholly sincere. A. E. Housman. BMC MS: written in a copy of the 1933 reprint of Introductory Lecture. Date as postmark on envelope addressed ‘Mr Houston Martin | 6488 Woodcrest Avenue | Overbrook | Philadelphia | U. S. A.’ I have included this inscription as having the force of a letter: the envelope is large enough to have contained the copy of the book, and no separate letter addressed to Martin is known to have accompanied it.

TO J O H N C A RT E R Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Dec. 1933 Dear Mr Carter, Let me thank you and your fellow fanatic1 for the copies of the lecture which I have received this morning. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MS PR 4809 .H15 I6 1933.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Dec. 1933 My dear Withers, I think that most likely you have never seen the enclosed lecture, which has just been reprinted by a couple of besotted admirers.1 It is no use asking me to autograph it.2 It is one of my grievances against the Creator that I always look better than I am (as Emerson said of the Scotch ‘Many of them look drunk when they are sober’)3 and consequently receive fewer tears of sympathy than I 1

John Sparrow. The Introductory Lecture of 1892, privately printed at Cambridge University Press for John Carter and John Sparrow. 2 Naiditch (2005), 29, records that, reluctant though AEH was to inscribe copies, he did in fact inscribe one to the aged W. E. Heitland of Newnham College, Cambridge. 3 AEH wrote this saying of ‘Emerson (on the Scotch)’ in Notebook X, 108, now at BMC. He seems to be in error, however. 1

397

20 December 1933

deserve; but I am really so much better than I have been that I ought not to grumble much at not being really myself again. You do not say anything about your own health, but I hope no news is good news. Canon Watson of Christ Church,4 who was with me at Oxford, on resigning his Professorship of Ecclesiastical History, has bought a house ‘13 miles north of Oxford’, therefore somewhere in the Bicester neighbourhood,5 I suppose. Thanks for your Christmas good wishes, which I reciprocate, and remember me kindly to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 45 (excerpts); Maas, 349–50.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Dec. 1933 My dear Jeannie, Many thanks for your kind Christmas letter, which puts me two letters in your debt. I am glad to have fairly good news of Grace and Bess,1 and though you say nothing much about your own health I hope it is satisfactory. I am so much better than I have been that I ought not to grumble at not being really myself again: I am told that I look extremely well, which naturally rather annoys me. The enclosed is a reprint by two infatuated admirers of a lecture which I probably sent to Basil, when it was in manuscript, to read; but if you have no printed copy you may care to have this. I don’t autograph it, as it is not good enough. The Cambridge Press has managed to sell 12,000 copies of my Leslie Stephen lecture in England, not counting America. The Broadcasting people, no doubt at your request, have offered me £100 to deliver a discourse over the wireless next year; but you will have to do

4 The Revd Edward William Watson (1859–1936). Professor of Ecclesiastical History at King’s College, London, 1904–8, and at Oxford, 1908–34. 5 Near Withers, therefore 1 ‘Jeannie Housman’s sister, Mrs Thompson’: Maas, 349 n.

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Letters 1927–1936

without it. However, do not let this sadden your Christmas. Kind regards to Grace, and Bess if she is arrived. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. Laurence’s idea sounds pleasant, but he is such a busy man that it might be difficult to make things fit. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 349.

TO T H A D D E U S G O R E C K I Trinity College | Cambridge | England 25 Dec. 1933 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me the music to which you have done me the honour to set my poems.1 I only regret that my knowledge of music is not sufficient to enable me to appreciate it adequately. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Colby College MS. Maas, 350. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Thaddeus Gorecki | 1426 Poplar Street | Philadelphia | Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO M A RT I N S E C K E R Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Dec. 1933 Dear Mr Secker, I am refusing to autograph copies of this lecture, and also of a more recent one which you may have heard of, because I do not think well enough of them.1 I am afraid you will think this a sorry return for your many benefactions to me, for one of which, lately received, I still owe you many thanks. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1 American composer Thaddeus Gorecki (b. 1884) did settings of five poems from ASL (II, XI, XV, XVII, XX). 1 Introductory Lecture (1892) or the private reprint of 1933, and NNP.

399

30 December 1933

TO J O S E P H I S H I L L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 26 Dec. 1933 Dear Mr Ishill, Accept my best thanks for the very pretty and interesting little book which you have sent me for Christmas.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard bMS Am 1614/73. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Joseph Ishill | Oriole Press | Berkeley Heights | New Jersey | U. S. A.’

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS With the usual restrictions,1 Mr C. W. Orr may have permission to publish his settings of the seven poems which he has selected from A Shropshire Lad.2 A. E. Housman 28 Dec. 1933 Trinity College, Cambridge LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed in t.s. ‘Grant Richards, Esq., | 8 Regent Street | London, S. W. 1’.

TO S E Y M O U R A D E L M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 30 Dec. 1933 Dear Mr Adelman, The paragraph in the catalogue, as you surmise, contains a great deal of error. It was only one publisher who was offered A Shropshire Lad and declined it.1 The firm which published it at my expense was the joint firm of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., which had published a good deal of belles lettres. The number of copies printed was 500, and the time it took to sell then (at 2/6 each) was rather more than two years. There was 1 The Great Kinship by Elisée Reclus, translated by Edward Carpenter, with an introduction by Anne Cobden-Sanderson (Oriole Press, 1933), pp. vii + 16: White (1959), 11. 1 Of not printing the text of poems in concert programmes. 2 ASL XXVI, XII, XXIX, VIII, XX, LXI, and VII. The settings were published in 1934 as Cycle of Songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’. 1 Similarly, AEH to Pollet, 5 Feb. 1933. However, Percy Withers reports: ‘He [AEH] told me explicitly that four publishers refused the MS. … and among them I was troubled to hear that of my old friend A. H. Bullen’ (Withers, 68). He adds a footnote: ‘Many years later Housman casually referred to ‘‘two or three’’ rejections, but certainly he told me four when the subject was first mentioned, and added the publishers’ names.’

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Letters 1927–1936

no contract about republishing: I kept Mr Grant Richards waiting until Kegan Paul & Co. signified that a 2nd edition would have to be again at my own expense. It is a great exaggeration to talk of a boom in connexion with the 2nd edition: such boom as there was began with the war of 1914. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 202–3; Maas, 350.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Dec. 1933 Dear Mr Wilson, In reply to your kind Christmas letter I send you my best wishes for a happy new year. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1934 TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 1 Jan. 1934 Dear Cockerell, It delights me to see in the paper the King’s recognition of your services and achievements;1 and let me wish you a happy new year in which to enjoy your honour. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.). Maas, 350–1.

TO LA DY M AU D DA RW I N Trinity College 1 Jan. 1934 Dear Lady Darwin, I shall have great pleasure in dining with you at 7. 45 on Saturday.1 With best wishes for the New Year I am Yours very truly A. E. Housman. CUL Add. MS 8534/12.

1

By a knighthood in the New Year honours list. The dinner invitation was issued at the behest of Geoffrey Keynes and his wife Margaret, who knew that AEH ‘always accepted invitations from Margaret’s mother, Lady Maud Darwin, because he enjoyed the food provided by her kitchen’: Keynes, The Gates of Memory (1981), 255. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

TO P RO F E S S O R W. M AC N E I L E D I XO N Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Jan. 1934

Dear Professor Macneile Dixon, Accept my best thanks for your kindness in sending me your In Arcadia,1 in which I am finding various pleasure. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS 341 (a handwritten copy sent by Gilbert Mather to R. P. Graves). The envelope containing the original letter was addressed ‘Professor W. Macneile Dixon | The University | Glasgow’, and redirected to 2 Southpark Avenue.

TO P H I L L I P S H O L M E S Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Jan. 1934

Dear Mr Holmes, I have written my name in these two books,1 but I never inscribe books to people unless I have presented them. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Phillips Holmes Esq. Florida State University MS (Shaw Collection). N & Q 213 (1968), 59.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Jan. 1934

My dear Richards, Thanks for the undertaking about the debt. I am very much obliged for the great trouble you must have taken about Algiers; but at present at any rate I do not possess the spirits and patience required for so long a journey, and cannot nerve myself for the distant absence and the return. So I shall not claim your devoted services in escorting me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. 1 1

A volume of poems (1933). First edns. of ASL and LP.

403

15 January 1934

TO JA M E S P. J. M U RPH Y Trinity College | Cambridge | England 8 Jan. 1934 Dear Sir, I will write my name in your copies of A Shropshire Lad (if it is not a pirated edition) and Last Poems, if you will be kind enough to enclose with them an envelope in which I can conveniently return them. But I am refusing to sign copies of the lecture,1 because I do not think much of it. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. N & Q  34. 1 (March 1987), 55. Envelope addressed ‘Mr James P. J. Murphy | 891 Perkiomen Street | Philadelphia Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 13 Jan. 1934 Dear Mr Clemens, I thank you very much for your most friendly invitation, but Rumour is a lying jade and I am not thinking of visiting America. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. LC MS (Cyril Clemens Collection, folder H). Envelope addressed ‘Mr Cyril Clemens | Mark Twain Society | Webster Groves | Missouri | U. S. A.’

TO J. R. M . BU TLE R Trinity College 15 Jan. 1934 Dear Butler, Your letter is very civil; but the University has given me a holiday for this term, and I am not inclined to raise clouds of my own on the clear sky. The natural functionary to take the Master’s place is the Senior Tutor; and in his present incarnation he would do very well. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS a. 19010(1) . Envelope addressed ‘J. R. M. Butler Esq. | Trinity College’. 1 Not the Introductory Lecture but NNP, as G. R. Woodward, N & Q  35 (1988), 341–2, rightly maintains.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 18 Jan. 1934 Dear Witter Bynner, Many thanks for the pretty book containing your five attractive sonnets;1 and best wishes for this new year. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/28. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | 50 W 45 | New York City | U. S. A.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 32.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Feb. 1934 My dear Richards, Curwen & Sons are at liberty to sanction mechanical recording and broadcasting of Dr Armstrong’s setting of ’Tis time I think by Wenlock Town.1 It will mean about 11/6 per ann.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS.

1 A brochure published by Knopf containing five of the twenty sonnets that would be printed at the end of Bynner’s Against the Cold (1940). 1 They had sought permission to publish, and to sanction mechanical recording and broadcasting of, a three-part song setting by Dr. T. Armstrong of Oxford. 2 The publishers had stated that royalties would be divided equally between the composer, AEH, and themselves.

405

8 February 1934

TO M A RY G. F. B E E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 8 Feb. 1934 My dear Madam, The poem to which I referred is Ralph Hodgson’s Song of Honour 1 (Poems, Macmillan & Co., 1917). Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Miss Mary G. F. Beer | 306 Southern Avenue | Bucyrus | Ohio | U. S. A.’

TO D R F R A N K E . RO B B I N S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 8 Feb. 1934 My dear Dr Robbins, I am very grateful to you for sending me your improved text of the papyrus,1 and I congratulate you on the progress which has been made. If, as you kindly offer, you also send me your commentary and translation, that will increase my gratitude. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Michigan MS. Maas, 435.

TO J O H N CO G H LA N Trinity College | Cambridge 8 Feb. 1934 Dear Sir, I am obliged by the kindness of your letter, though you over-estimate the lecture,1 which I wrote against the grain, and only because I was importuned.

1 In NNP AEH referred to it as ‘one of the best poems of the twentieth [century]’ and noted Smart’s Song to David as its inspiration: Ricks (1988), 365. Withers, 59: ‘He spoke in warm praise of Ralph Hodgson’s ‘‘Song of Honour’’, adding, ‘‘Yes, but what a debt it owes to Smart’s ‘‘Song to David’’!’ 1 See AEH to Robbins, 7 Nov. 1929. 1 NNP.

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Letters 1927–1936

A Shropshire Lad has never been out of print since its publication in 1896, and for the last thirty years or more it has been procurable for eighteenpence. (The Richards Press, 90 Newman Street, London W. 1.) I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Berg MS. Envelope addressed ‘John Coghlan Esq. | 7 Vincent Street | Berkeley Road | Dublin | Ireland’.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 12 Feb. 1934 Dear Gow, As the meaning of a poem is what it conveys, not anything else which its author may or may not have wished it to convey, I don’t think that this poem,1 considered as a whole, has a meaning. It seems to be a rather random assemblage of pretty words, or words which he thinks pretty, without much to express but a vague agitation of mind. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 48 . Maas, 351.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Feb. 1934 Dear Sir, I suppose that the poem meant is Bredon Hill, no. XXI in my book A Shropshire Lad; but it does not refer to Bredon church in particular. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 63086, fo. 114: a handwritten copy of a letter owned by, but apparently not written to, E. H. Blakeney. Another copy is in BL Add. MS 48980, fo. 1v , which has uncharacteristic punctuation in the address and date and after ‘truly’.

1

Submitted for the Chancellor’s English Verse Prize. Gow was one of the awarders.

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7 March 1934

TO JA M E S P. J. M U RPH Y Trinity College | Cambridge | England 24 Feb. 1934 Dear Sir, I return the three books, and I have written my name in Last Poems but not in the Shropshire Lad, which is a pirated edition, and not in the lecture,1 because I do not think well enough of it. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. N & Q  34. 1 (March 1987), 55. Envelope addressed ‘Mr James P. J. Murphy | 891 Perkiomen Street | Philadelphia Pa. | U. S. A.’

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 2 March 1934 My dear Richards, No, do not protest: I think this sort of quotation is unobjectionable; and besides there is no American copyright. As to ‘Housman’, it is for Laurence to object, if he likes.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Maas, 351.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 7 March 1934 My dear Jeannie, It is very good of you to tell me of Laurence’s arrangements and to invite me to meet him. So far as I can see, the middle of July would suit me. He seems to contemplate less than a fortnight, so I should like, if I may, to come a few days earlier or stay a few days later, so as to enjoy my usual time. I am glad that you and Grace are going on fairly. I still am not strong nor comfortable, but I hope to go with some friends for a short stay in 1

NNP. ‘An advertisement in The New Yorker, 7 November 1931, printed two lines from A Shropshire Lad XLII, attributing them to ‘‘Housman’’ tout court’: Maas, 351 n. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

Cornwall for Easter, which may be good for me. I did give up the idea of changing my rooms, and I am sure I was wise, for the noisiness of the new ones would have been too much for me at present. This sunny spring has been pleasant, and the winter aconites, which grow here in great abundance, have made an unprecedentedly splendid show. Love to you and all[.] Yours affectionately A. E. Housman BMC MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 14 March 1934 Dear Sirs, Please tell Miss Hogrefe1 that in accordance with my invariable practice I refuse permission to reprint poems from A Shropshire Lad in a book which is to be used in Canada. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 141.

TO ALLEN LANE Trinity College | Cambridge 16 March 1934 Dear Sir, I am obliged by your letter, but other publishers have made similar enquiries of me, and if the Richards Press ceased to sell my books I should probably resort to one of them. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Reading MS 2606.

1 Academic author and poet Pearl Hogrefe (1889–1977). In 1935, with W. Paul Jones, she published Interpreting Experience: Narrative and Descriptive Types for College Use.

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21 March 1934

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 18 March 1934 My dear Kate, I am glad to have news of you, and good news, and to hear that your history1 is nearing harbour. I have no photograph later than one taken when I was 35, which you probably have already.2 The one you have seen in print I sat for to oblige the artist,3 as he called himself and perhaps was, and I never had any copies. It is no good pretending that I am well, for I have made no progress at any rate since the beginning of the year, and am neither strong nor comfortable. However, life is endurable, and my heart seems to be steady enough. The spring has been pleasant so far, and wonderful for flowers: last year’s heat seems to have suited the bulbs. The Librarian shows no wish to have a portrait of A. J. Macleane, but I will also enquire of the Memorials Committee. I meant to tell you, in case you had not seen it yourself, that Bertie Millington died last September, and Dr George Fletcher in December. The latter you may just remember as a ginger young man sitting a few pews in front of us in church. I found him in practice at Highgate when I went there; and he was the old Bromsgrovian. I probably stay here for Easter. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 57 – 8 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Maas, 351–2.

TO D R F R A N K E . RO B B I N S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 21 March 1934 Dear Mr Robbins, I congratulate you on the production of a most instructive commentary, and on the progress made in deciphering the papyrus, and I am much in your debt for sending me the documents and allowing me to keep them. I enclose a few notes which have occurred to me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. 1 The Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bath, and its ancient foundation. A research narrative by Katharine E. Symons carried to the year 1921. (1934). 2 3 A carte-de-visite by Van der Weyde. E. O. Hoppé, 1911.

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[Enclosure] Pap. Mich. E. H V 17 μηρούς is not ‘hams’, for these are the fore-parts. VI 10 τραχήλου not ‘throat’ but ‘neck’: these are the hind-parts. 10–11 απεδουμεν and αποδουνται, 1 if right, must be parts of ἀποδεῖν, and are obscure; and the imperfect is an absurd tense to use. 15–18 I think the sense is that when we see a strikingly handsome face we walk round and take a look at the calf, induced to do so by &c. The calf is generally bare and so gratifies our curiosity as far as is practicable. Perhaps πάν[τα]ς would be better than πάν[τε]ς. 20–40 in their present form exhibit disorder and duplication, caused by the supplements in 21 and 36, but for which we should proceed regularly upward from the Moon’s portion through Saturn’s and Jove’s and Mercury’s to Mars’s, which is in contact with the Sun’s (37 f.). Therefore κοτ]ύλαι in 21 should be *ἀγκ]ύλαι; [← glossed as poplites and suffragines] and in 36, where you translate μέχρι though it is not longer in your text, and where grammar requires a word of that sense, and where τένοντος μηροῦ should at least be plural, I should write ῎Αρεως τένοντος μ᾿ έσο]υ. τένων, which is defined as τὸ ὄπισθεν τοῦ τραχήλου by medical writers cited by Stephanus, is the subject of ἀφώρισται: and it is divided, and the upper part belongs to the head and the portion of the Sun. VIII 21–22. No matter what the papyrus may now give, the sense requires ὁ μὲν ἡμερινὸς ἀστὴρ ἔσω τῶν ις εὑρισκέσθω ἔξω. X 28 ἄγαν printed, ἀεί translated. 29–30 I suggest ἕως ἂν | διαπεφευγὼς ᾖ τὸ | ἐχθρὸν πῦρ τὸ ἡλιου[.] XI 4 I should think that διαδρανεῖς here and in 17 f. must mean ‘divergent from’, neither συνῳδοί nor ἐναντίοι. 40 διαφόρων should probably be διαφοράν: otherwise I do not understand the genitive (with κυτά). XII

13 τ’ should be τὰ. 1 AEH neglects to add lenis to the initial alphas and circumflex to the upsilons in the two words.

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21 March 1934

ἰσημερινῶν is not equinoxes but equinoctial signs. 16–19 in their present form, Greek and English, seem to yield no coherent sense. The ἐπεί clause cannot give the reason for ἀκούει ἴσης ἡμέρας ἴση νύξ, and the ὅταν clause must belong to what follows it; and indeed on p. 30 of the commentary you take it so. In my reading as well as yours νύκτα οὐχ ὁρᾶ, in order to be relevant, should be νυκτὸς οὐκ ἀκούει, and may be a slip of the pen. 26 I did not propose ἐξαποθοῦνται[.] 29 τροπικῶν is not tropics but tropical signs[.] 31–33 What the sense demands is ἐν λέοντι [γὰρ ὄντος ἡλίου καὶ ὁμοίως] ἐν διδύμοις ἡ μὲν ἡμέρα ἐστὶν ιδ [ὡρῶν ἡ δὲ] νὺξ ¯ι, though the papyrus does not seem to admit the last supplement.

35–38 τὸν μὲν ὁρατικὸν … ἀπωθοῦνται ought to have been said not of Capricorn and Cancer but of Libra and Aries, as is clear if we compare 24–26. Capricorn and Cancer do not see one another at all, just as Libra and Aries do not hear one another. There is a similar piece of carelessness in Manilius, who in IV 359 f. names Aries and Taurus instead of Capricorn and Aquarius. XIII 36 ‘in the midmost of the seven planets’ would be a better rendering. XVI 9–10 I think the sense is ‘the signs which they inhabit are the vitals of the universe’. 22 Not καὶ] but ἐπὶ]. XVII 14 ζ (like ζ in XII 19) must be ζῳδίων, partitive genitive depending on what follows. We are not talking about seven planets. XVIII 11 λοιπουνται, as I said in Class. Phil. XXII p. 257, is only a way of spelling λυποῦνται. 19 Your first edition showed room enough forτρίγωνοι in full, but I suppose the later measurement is right. Commentary p. 16 ‘neck’ would be better than ‘throat’ in all three places, and in two it is alone correct. p. 24 There is no octotropos in Manilius: the scheme in II 856–967 is the dodecatropos (your ‘810 ff.’ is neither). All the three editors follow me in expelling 968–970 as spurious for more reasons than one. p. 29 ‘Our author’, in pairing Taurus and Pisces &c., follows the same system as Hephaestion in C.C.A.G. VIII ii p. 89, not any ‘more primitive system’.

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‘Aries and Libra … are not mentioned in the list; our author says nothing of them here’. But they are mentioned in XII 27. A. E. Housman. 21 March 1934. Michigan MS. The enclosure consists of four sheets of foolscap bearing AEH’s handwritten notes. Envelope addressed ‘Dr F. E. Robbins | 1015 Church Street | Ann Arbor | Mich. | U. S. A.’ Maas, 435–6 (without the enclosure). Throughout, angle and square brackets are AEH’s, with the exception of square brackets enclosing missing full stops at the ends of notes.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 21 March 1934 Dear Sirs, Please tell Mr Megaw that I have a rule of many years’ standing not to allow poems to be reprinted from A Shropshire Lad.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 145.

TO J O S E P H I N E J O H N S O N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 23 March 1934 Dear Miss Johnson, I am much obliged by the kindness of your letter. One of your four guesses is right:1 I do not say which, because if I allowed the truth to be known, critics would start up and say that they had known it all along.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Miss Josephine Johnson | 1000 Gates Ave | Norfolk | Va | U. S. A.’ 1 Arthur Stanley Megaw (b. 1872) of Belfast had asked permission to reprint On moonlit heath and lonesome bank (ASL IX) in an anthology, The Fireside Book: A Miscellany for You and Me (1934). He wrote under the name ‘Arthur Stanley’. 1 As to the order of composition of the stanzas of ASL LXIII. AEH himself set the puzzle: ‘Two of the stanzas, I do not say which, came into my head, just as they are printed, while I was crossing the corner of Hampstead Heath between the Spaniard’s Inn and the footpath to Temple Fortune. A third stanza came with a little coaxing after tea. One more was needed, but it did not come: I had to turn to and compose it myself, and that was a laborious business. I wrote it thirteen times, and it was more than a twelvemonth before I got it right’: NNP; Ricks (1988), 371. LH suspects that a page torn from AEH’s notebook bore the evidence of the order of composition: Memoir, 255. See also the letter of 12 Apr. 1935. 2 A characteristic reservation, as Naiditch (2005), 148–52, shows.

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27 March 1934

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 23 March 1934 Dear Mr Martin, You are always kind and friendly, and your anthology of opinions ought to foster my self-esteem and smooth my descent to the grave. I translated three lyrics from Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides respectively, in A. W. Pollard’s Odes from the Greek Dramatists (Stott, 1890). The parody called Fragment of a Greek Tragedy was first printed in 18841 in the school Magazine of Bromsgrove: they still have half-a-dozen copies, which on my advice they are not selling till I am dead, when you may be able to get one for your great collection. But it has often been reprinted, as in the Cornhill Magazine for 1901 (I think),2 and the Yale Review for Jan. 1928.3 I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Houston Martin | 6488 Woodcrest Avenue | Overbrook | Philadelphia | Pa. | U. S. A.’ Martin (1937), 299.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 27 March 1934 Dear Sirs, Miss Leitch1 is at liberty to publish her setting of No. XIII in A Shropshire Lad and Mr Megaw to include in his anthology Fancy’s Knell from Last Poems.2 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 149.

It was in fact in The Bromsgrovian,  2. 5 (8 June 1883), 107–9. 3  10 (Apr. 1901), 443–5. Vol. 17, pp. 414–16. 1 Jeane K. Leitch of Glasgow, who described herself as ‘a student of musical composition’ when seeking permission. 2 Arthur Stanley Megaw wished to include the poem in The Fireside Book: see AEH to the Richards Press Ltd., 21 Mar. 1934, and note. He subsequently thought LP XXXIX (When summer’s end is nighing) more suitable, and AEH again gave permission. 1 2

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TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 30 March 1934 Dear Sirs, I beg to acknowledge receipt of £1. 14. 2 in cheque and postal order from Messrs Boosey & Hawkes. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Richards Press Ltd BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 154.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Trinity College | Cambridge 4 April 1934] Dear Sirs, Mr Procter-Gregg is at liberty to publish his setting of No. XL in A Shropshire Lad and to give as its title The Land of Lost Content.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Clemens (1941), 15, but with ‘Proctor’ corrected to ‘Procter’ and ‘it as’ corrected to ‘as its’.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College| Cambridge 8 April 1934 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kind letter and your pleasant gift. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. National Library of Wales MS, L. J. and J. G. Roberts Papers, 4.

1 A setting of the poem, with this title, by Humphrey Procter-Gregg (1895–1980) was published in 1934.

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14 April 1934

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 10 April 1934 Dear Mr Wilson, Many thanks for your present of Poems of Cheer, which interests me the more as I have never hitherto seen any of the verses of this celebrated lady.1 You are well aware that not even your account of your variegated weather will tempt me north; but I thank you all the same for your repeated invitation. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | Watling Villa | Willington | Co. Durham’.

TO D R F R A N K E . RO B B I N S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 14 Apr. 1934 Dear Dr Robbins, Again I have to thank you for great and laborious kindness in copying out and sending me your latest results. In XIV 34–5 I should think ἀγόνους καὶ στεί[ρους]1 is indicated. Whatever way you may choose of making acknowledgement to me I shall be well content. I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Michigan MS. Envelope addressed ‘Dr F. E. Robbins | 1015 Church Street | Ann Arbor | Mich. | U. S. A.’ Maas, 436.

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 14 April 1934 Dear Mr Martin, I have never seen the misprint ‘tramping’1 in no. VII of A Shropshire Lad. Perhaps you have come across it in some of the pirated American editions. Even in the authorised edition by Holt there are disgraceful misprints. 1

American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919). The square brackets are AEH’s 1 For ‘trampling’. The misprint appears in the various imprints copyright ‘Illustrated Editions Co. Inc.’, beginning in 1932. 1

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I know nothing of Mr Edmund Wilson’s translation of my Latin poem.2 The stanza prefixed to no. L of A Shropshire Lad is traditional.3 One version is ‘drunkenest’. At Buildwas4 there is the ruin of an abbey church, not large but fairly complete, of Norman date. I am Worcestershire by birth: Shropshire was our western horizon, which made me feel romantic about it. I do not know the county well, except in parts, and some of my topographical details are wrong5 and imaginary. The Wrekin is wooded, and Wenlock Edge along the western side,6 but /the/ Clees7 and most of the other hills are grass or heather. In the southern half of the county, to which I have confined myself, the hills are generally long ridges running from north to south, with valleys, broad or narrow, between. The northern half is part of the great Cheshire plain. The Wrekin is isolated. I gave the MS of my lecture8 to the Secretary of our University Press, who asked for it. As you know Mr Basil Davenport,9 perhaps, if you meet him, you will give him my thanks for sending me a telegram on my birthday. I could not respond because I had not his address. You will not expect me to approve your project. I am appalled to hear of your copying my articles in The Classical Quarterly. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Martin (1937), 300 (incomplete); Maas, 352–3.

2 Translation into English verse of the dedicatory poem in Manilius I , published in The Bookman, 66 (Oct. 1927), 160. 3 ‘Clunton and Clunbury, | Clungunford and Clun, | Are the quietest places | Under the sun.’ 4 ASL XXVIII 13: ‘When Severn down to Buildwas ran’. 5 AEH’s mistake about Hughley steeple and about suicides buried on the N. side of the churchyard are the only ones he made, however. 6 ASL XXXI 1–2: ‘On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble; | His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves’. Wenlock Edge is a wooded escarpment running from Much Wenlock 15 mls. SW to Craven Arms. The Wrekin, a hill 1335 ft. high, dominates the surrounding landscape N. of Much Wenlock and the R. Severn and SE of Shrewsbury. 7 Brown Clee Hill, 1790 ft. high, and Titterstone Clee Hill, 1750 ft. high, NE of Ludlow. 8 NNP. 9 1905–66. American anthologist and editor, and translator of Rostand’s L’Aiglon, 1927. He wrote the introduction to Tom Burns Haber’s ‘Centennial Edition’ of AEH’s poems (1959).

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20 April 1934

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 16 April 1934 Dear Gow, With much pleasure: 8 p.m. Saturday the 21st . Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 49 .

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 18 April 1934 My dear Withers, You sometimes honour Cambridge with a visit in May, and perhaps you might be inclined to make it coincide with our Ascension Feast on Thursday the 10th , though that is rather early in the season and would involve the bother of bringing a dress suit. I hope that you and yours are well. I am better than I was last year, but neither strong nor comfortable, and I do not progress. This last term I have had as a holiday,—not on account of my health, but in view of my length of service. I had intended to spend part of it in Africa,1 but did not feel brave enough. This spring, not a model in most respects, has made a wonderfully rich display of flowers here: I suppose last year’s heat penetrated to the bulbs and other roots. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 353.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 20 April 1934 My dear Withers, That is right. As this is a regular Feast, most people will be wearing tail-coat, white waistcoat and white tie. The hour is 8 o’ clock. If you would like to sleep in college I could probably secure you a room; but I thought 1

See AEH to GR, 7 Jan. 1934.

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probably you would prefer an hotel, as if you should be ill in the night, as you once were after dining with me, attendance and assistance are hard to obtain in a college. I should be delighted to come and see you in June, which I know is the month in which you like to show your garden, and I could stay the inside of a week, if that would not try you too much. What of Monday the 11th to Saturday the 16th ? But be sure to tell me if this would cut into other guests’ week-ends. Your account of your own health is vague but does not seem to be good, I regret to infer. I am distressed at the plague among Michael’s dogs. I expect to go into Worcestershire in July and to France near the end of August,—probably Lorraine and that region, which is unknown to me. I hope to take a French friend with me. Thanks and kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 353–4.

TO A . B. RA M S AY [c.23 Apr. 1934] To write duellum for uellum is a change, whereas bellum and uellum are merely correct and incorrect spelling of the same word. Even the Palatine of Virgil has uelua at Aen. VI. 287. Moreover Lucr. does not use duellica, only duellia. initial b and u are interchanged in inscriptions of the 2nd cent. A.D. II 574 contractum … bellum. MSS uellum also V 1245 and 12891 TCC MS, with Adv. c. 20.15. Ramsay had asked about the correct reading of De Rerum Natura, 4. 968. AEH’s reply is drafted on the verso.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 25 April 1934 Dear Mr Wilson, Many thanks for the pretty book on Rossetti1 which you have been kind enough to send me.

1 1

Of Lucretius. Dante Gabriel Rossetti by Lucien Wolff (Paris: H. Didier, 1934).

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26 April 1934

A. C. Benson the late Master of Magdalene is buried here in the Huntingdon Road Cemetery. I believe that an ornamental tombstone was erected by a rich Swiss lady who was an admirer of his.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 354.

TO V I S C O U N T H A L I FA X [Trinity College | Cambridge c.26 Apr. 1934] My Lord The /generous/ intention of the Hebdomadal Council to propose that the degree of Doctor of Letters should be conferred upon me 1 is one which they formed and /communicated/ to me in the year 1928;2 and /I then/ with due expressions of gratitude and appreciation, begged /that it/ might not be fulfilled. Their renewed proffer of the honour, /in/ increaseing my obligation to them also /increases/ my embarrassment; /but/ my reluctance to accept such // /distinctions/, even from my own University, persists, and I trust /that neither she nor her Chancellor/ /will think me/ ungrateful or ungracious if I still adhere to a resolution which was taken long ago for reasons which, though they are not easy to formulate, still seem to me sufficient. I am your Lordship’s loyal and obedient servant [A. E. Housman.] Lilly MSS 1.1: draft in pencil, corrected in pencil and, in the phrase ‘that neither she nor her Chancellor’, in ink. Maas, 354–5, where it is noted that AEH’s ‘draft reply’ is written on the back of Viscount Halifax’s letter, but where all evidence of drafting is suppressed.

2 Madame de Nottbeck, a wealthy American admirer who corresponded with Benson throughout his career, and from whom he accepted $20,000 in 1915 to help with his work, almost certainly paid for the tombstone. 1 Encaenia (‘festival of renewal’) is the annual ceremony at Oxford University at which honorary degrees are conferred and the university’s benefactors are commemorated. 2 See AEH to the Registrar to the University of Oxford, 10 May 1928.

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TO D R F R A N K E . RO B B I N S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 28 Apr. 1934 Dear Dr Robbins, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me the new corrections of the papyrus, and I enclose some remarks on the questions which you raise in your letter. Many thanks also for your chronology of Trollope,1 the ingenuity of which reminds me of Ronald Knox’s2 and Michael Sadleir’s3 researches into the topography of Barsetshire. I read Trollope chiefly when I am suffering from sleeplessness; but he certainly makes some very warm friends. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. [Enclosure] Papyr. Mich. XII 16–19. Your reading and rendering ‘since day does not see night, equal day hears equal night’ is a non sequitur, which my reading avoids by making ἀκούει … ἴσή νύξ a part, and the main part, of the ἐπεί clause and reducing ἡμέρα νύκτα ούχ ὁρᾷ to a mere preliminary (parataxis for syntaxis): ‘since while day does not see night, equal night hears equal day, the signs when day and night in them are equal, hear one another in virtue of that temporal equality, if for no other reason (καί) ’[.] 35–37. I do hold the opinion that the author in these lines is saying of Capricorn and Cancer what he should have said of Libra and Aries. I think it more likely that he made the slip than that the theoretical scheme was so lop-sided and irrational; and I quoted a parallel slip from Manilius. I now quote another from Geminus VII 15–16, where he says Κριοῦ and Παρθενοῦ for Αἰγόκερω and ∆ιδύμων, and Ζυγοῦ and ᾿Ιχθύων for Καρκίνου and Τοζότου (see my note on Man. III 228); and another yet from 1 Robbins eventually published ‘Chronology and History in Trollope’s Barset and Parliamentary Novels’ in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 5 (1951), 303–16. 2 ‘A Ramble in Barsetshire’, The London Mercury, 5 (Feb. 1922), 378–85, repr. in Essays in Satire (1928), 179–98, with a map on 182. 3 His Anthony Trollope: A Commentary (1927), prints three maps of Barsetshire: Knox’s, first published in Feb. 1922 (see above), Mr Nichol’s (published as frontispiece to The Significance of Anthony Trollope, 1925), and Trollope’s own (drawn during the writing of Framley Parsonage).

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30 April 1934

Sir Norman Lockyer’s Primer of Astronomy p. 61,4 where he gives the sidereal period of the moon (27 13 days) when he means to give the synodic (29 12 ). But in XII 38 ff. The author is saying of Capricorn and Cancer just what he theoretically should say, and just what the ἀρχαῖοι did say, as Geminus tells us in II 27–32: he is giving the reason why they do not see one another at all, even as Libra and Aries do not hear one another. XVII 13. I think the subject of ἐτήρησεν must be some astronomer, historical or legendary, and I proposed ῾Ερμῆς only because it was the right length. The passage which follows is beyond me, because I do not know and cannot imagine any astronomical facts justifying the description of alternate quadrants of the zodiac as ἀφαιρετικά (or προσθετικά) in regard to the planets. It looks as if your insertion of were needed; but then apparently συ[ … ]ικούς5 must be a synonym of προσθετικούς . A. E. H. 28 April 1934 Michigan MS. The enclosure consists of two pages of foolscap bearing AEH’s handwritten notes. Envelope addressed ‘Dr F. E. Robbins | 1015 Church Street | Ann Arbor | Mich. | U. S. A.’

TO B LA NCH E TRO LLO PE Trinity College | Cambridge 30 April 1934 Dear Blanche, I thought that very likely you would be kind enough to write and tell me more about Ted than I could learn from the Times.1 I saw him last in last July, when he looked well and strong; and he wrote to me at Christmas. His has been a most valuable life, and I don’t know what the village will do without him. I hope that you are keeping well. I had a sort of influenza last summer and have not got properly well yet. Yours very truly and with thanks A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. Maas, 355. 4

5 Astronomy (1874; new edn., 1888). The square brackets are AEH’s. The issue of 26 Apr. 1934 noted on p. 1: ‘On April 24, 1934, suddenly, at Woodchester, Glos., Edward Tuppen Wise, in his 84th year.’ 1

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TO P RO F E S S O R F. M . C O R N F O R D Trinity College 1 May 1934 Dear Cornford, I told Lady Frazer that I knew precious little of Pausanias1 and was not in any way an appropriate sponsor; and Robertson2 would be much more suitable. Your labours on the Ovid,3 and your kindness in undertaking them, appear to be much appreciated. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 58427, fo. 106.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 2 May 1934 Dear Sirs, Mr C. Wortley may publish his settings of Loveliest of Trees and When I was one-and-twenty. No fee of course. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 163.

TO T H E G E N E R A L S E C R E TA RY, ACA D E M I C A S S I S TA N C E C O U N C I L Trinity College | Cambridge 7 May 1934 Dear Sir, I have just received the Annual Report of the Academic Assistance Council, and am annoyed to find myself falsely described as F.B.A.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The General Secretary Academic Assistance Council Bodleian MS SPSL 22/4, fos. 62–3.

1 James Frazer produced a translation with commentary edn. of Pausanias’ Description of Greece (1898). 2 3 See List of Recipients. Sir James Frazer’s edn. of the Fasti (1929). 1 Fellow of the British Academy.

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22 May 1934

TO ALLEN LANE Trinity College | Cambridge 8 May 1934 Dear Sir, I am afraid that the ‘previous letter’1 you mention in your letter of yesterday has escaped my memory. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Reading MS 2606.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 9 May 1934 Dear Sirs, I see no reason at all why I should give Messrs Harrap the permission they ask.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 166.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S Trinity College 22 May 1934 Dear Roberts, Can I induce you to come as my guest to the dinner at 8 o’ clock on Thursday June 7, when we entertain the Recipients of Honorary Degrees? Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

1

See AEH’s reply, 16 Mar. 1934. Publishers George C. Harrap & Co had sought permission to print an entire four-verse poem. 1

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TO I . R . B RU S S E L Trinity College | Cambridge 3 June 1934 Dear Mr Brussel, I shall be pleased to sign your copies, but if you let the 1898 edition get into my hands I shall correct the misprints,1 which you may not like. If you pay a visit to Cambridge I hope you will call on me; but I shall not be here on Saturday the 16th . Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. Envelope addressed ‘I. R. Brussel Esq. | 59 Gower Street | London W. C.’

1 There survive three copies of the edn. bearing corrections in AEH’s hand. See Poems (1997), Introduction, xxv–xxx.

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5 June 1934

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 3 June 1934 My dear Withers, I will come then on Monday the 11th , and ought to arrive by 4. 45. I shall not be travelling onward, so the Bletchley car which brings me can take me back on the Saturday. I shall be pleased to meet Gordon1 again, the more so as I was disappointed of seeing him when he was lecturing here. One of the places I should like to go to is Brill, which will be within easy reach by your car. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Our Vice-Master2 is dangerously ill. Three of the younger fellows are getting married in a lump. SCO MS. Maas, 355.

TO OTTO S K U TS CH Ottoni Skutsch iuueni doctissimo A. E. Housman s.1 Non subito nec compecto poetae Latini Achilles et Vlixes nomina a quinta declinatione (nam Achilli sic dicitur ut dii facii fami cetera Gell. IX 14) ad tertiam traduxerunt, multisque post annis quam Horatius serm. II. 3 193 Achill˘e ablatiuum protulit Ouidius ex Pont. III 3 43 Achill e retinuit, etsi ipse ib. I 3 74 Achillis scripsisse pariter numeris conuincitur; eundem her. I 84 Vlixis posuisse metrum, at met. XIV 159 Vlixei Priscianus G. L. K. II p. 277 testatur, qui etiam Horatii libris epist. I 6 63 in eadem forma adstipulatur. uetustioris figurae uestigia, quae plura quam commemoras apud Vergilium et posteriores supersunt, eo magis seruanda iudico quod librarios ad -is substituendum proniores fuisse et ex Prop. II 9 13 et ex pluribus Vergilii locis apparet. praeterea in utroque Propertii uersu antecedit, quod etiam Vergilio (georg. III 91, Aen. I 30, II 275, III 87, 1 George Stuart Gordon (1881–1942). Professor of English Literature at Leeds University, 1913–22; Merton Professor of English Literature, Oxford, 1922–8; President of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1928–42; Professor of Poetry at Oxford, 1933–8. 2 Reginald St John Parry, who died in 1935. 1 AEH writes to reject Skutsch’s suggestion that in the phrase tanti corpus Achilli (Propertius 2. 9. 13), Achilli is a third-declension dative rather than a fifth-declension genitive and tanti is a genitive of value.

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VI 839, II 7, 90, 436, III 613, 691) Horatio (epist. I 6 63, 7 40) Ouidio (met. XIV 159, 671) suasisse uidetur ut has formas eligerent, uocabulum s littera terminatum. Ouidium certe eodem quo adhuc soliti sumus modo illa tanti … Achilli accepisse colligitur ex met. XII 615 sq[.] ‘de tam magno restat Achille | nescioquid paruam quod non bene compleat urnam’: adde Il. Lat. 1062 ‘inque leues abiit tantus dux ille fauillas’ et Sen. H. O. 1758 sqq. ‘tam paruus cinis | Herculeus, huc huc ille decreuit gigans. | o quanta, Titan, ad nihil moles abit’: haec autem corpus Achilli (gen.) coniuncta redeunt carm. epigr. Buech. 1233 3. omnino sic sentio: fieri non potuisse quin Cynthia Propertium, si id uoluit quod tu eum uoluisse censes, quamuis docta puella,2 falso interpretaretur. Latinum esse ut non confido, neque enim exempla noui,3 ita negare non ausim. Illud deprecor, ne Midan4 tibi aliquem pro Rhadamanthye arbitrum sumpsisse uidearis.5 ann. 1934 mens. Iun. d. 5 coll. Trin. Cantabr. UCL MS Add. 166. Maas, 437.

Adam Gitner has provided the following translation: ‘A. E. Housman greets Otto Skutsch, very learned youth. It was neither suddenly nor by agreement that the Latin poets transferred the names Achilles and Vlixes from the fifth declension (for Achilli is used, like dii, facii, fami, and others in Gellius’s Noctes Atticae, 9. 14) to the third declension. Many years after Horace published the ablative form Achill˘e (Sermones, 2. 3. 193), Ovid retained Achille (Epistulae ex Ponto, 3. 3. 43), although he is proved to have written Achillis in the same work (1. 3. 74) by the metre. That he wrote Vlixes at Heroides 1. 84 the metre proves, that he wrote Vlixei at Metamorphoses 14. 159 (Grammatici Latini, ed. Keil, vol. 2, p. 277), Priscian attests, and also agrees with the manuscripts of Horace (Epistles, 1. 6. 63) in regard to the same form. It is my opinion that traces of the older form, many more of which survive in Virgil and later writers than you mention, must be all the more preserved because it is clear both from Propertius 2. 9. 13 and from many passages of Virgil that copyists were more apt to substitute-is. Moreover, in both lines of Propertius a word ending in 2 Propertius calls Cynthis a ‘docta puella’ on several occasions (2. 11. 6, 2. 28. 28, for example). 3 Skutsch had written quam rem ut sentio ab ingenio linguae latinae non abhorrere, ita recte se habere exemplis comprobare non possum (‘Which, although I feel that it is not alien to the nature of the Latin language, yet I cannot prove by any examples’). 4 Midas was an incompetent judge in the contest between Apollo and Pan. 5 Skutsch had prefaced his letter of 31 May with an elegiac couplet beginning Ante tuum venio, linguae Rhadamanthe, tribunal (‘I come before your court, Rhadamanthus of language’). Rhadamanthus was, with Minos and Aeacus, one of the judges of the dead in the Underworld. AEH’s spelling of the name is Hellenizing.

427

6 June 1934

the letter-s immediately precedes, which seems to have persuaded Virgil (Georgics, 3. 91, Aeneid, 1. 30, 2. 275, 3. 87, 6. 839, 2. 7, 90, 436, 3. 613, 691), Horace (Epistles. 1. 6. 63, 7. 40), and Ovid (Metamorphoses, 14. 159, 671) to choose these forms. The conclusion from Metamorphoses 12. 615 sq. (‘de tam magno restat Achille | nescioquid paruam quod non bene compleat urnam’) is that Ovid certainly took that ‘tanti … Achilli’ in the same way we have been used to doing so far. Add to this Ilias Latina, 1062 (‘inque leues abiit tantus dux ille fauillas’) and Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus, 1758, sqq. (‘tam paruus cinis | Herculeus, huc huc ille decreuit gigans. | o quanta, Titan, ad nihil moles abit’). Combined, these two come down to corpus Achillis (genitive) in Buecheler’s Carmina Epigraphica, 1233 3. I am entirely of this opinion: it could only happen that Cynthia, however learned a girl, would misinterpret Propertius if he meant it as you think he meant it. While I am not certain that it is Latin, for I do not know similar instances, nevertheless I should not dare to deny it. I entreat you not to suppose that you have had recourse to a Midas as judge in place of Rhadamanthus. 5 June 1934. Trinity College Cambridge.’

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 6 June 1934 My dear Jeannie, I am distressed to hear from Kate that you are ill, and I write immediately to say that of course I shall not think of coming to you next month, though I shall not be so happy anywhere else. I hope that you may be improving, and I am sure that you are being well nursed. Cambridge is just entering on its busiest and noisiest festivities, and I intend to steal away into Oxfordshire for the inside of next week. In view of the drought, it is my painful duty to hope for rainy weather. The village which I am going to lies in a very dry district, and contains a spring of water on which all the other villages for miles around depend. Our supply in Trinity is inexhaustible, but the level has fallen so much that our present pumps may not be long enough to reach it. My best love and sympathy. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Pugh, Appendix F, lxxxv.

428

Letters 1927–1936

TO ALLEN LANE Trinity College | Cambridge 8 June 1934 Dear Sir, I am obliged by your proposal, but another firm of publishers has for some years been asking for my books and has a prior claim on me, so I do not think you should take the trouble to come to Cambridge about the matter. I have heard nothing from the Richards Press. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Reading MS 2606.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 10 June 1934 My dear Kate, I am very grateful to you for sending me news of poor Jeannie. My address till next Saturday inclusive will be c/o Dr Withers, Souldern Court, Bicester. The second bulletin is a relief so far as it goes. I was to have spent the last three weeks of July there. You will have your usual visitors then, and in any case I will not throw myself on you, though it is very kind of you to suggest it. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 59 – 60 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’.

429

18 June 1934

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 15 June 1934 My dear Laurence, I certainly am daunted by the prospect of staying at the Cross1 even in your company. I should not mind the publication of the gnat and hat, but the antimacassar, as I remember it, was not good enough.2 I remember nothing about ‘Peter with small p’.3 At least you are less premature with your reminiscences than most people now are. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Memoir, 188 (with the name of the hotel omitted).

TO M A RY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 17 June 1934 Dear Mrs Withers, I am home again from my delightful stay with you, and find Cambridge as much burnt up as Souldern, though there has been violent rain in the Newmarket direction. I wish that Dr Withers could have been in better fettle when I took leave of him, but I hope that he is now picking up. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 74 (excerpt).

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 18 June 1934 My dear Jeannie, I was equally delighted and surprised to get a letter from you in your own hand last week when I was away from Cambridge. It is most kind of you to suggest my making a short stay with you towards the end of July, 1 The Golden Cross Hotel, High Street, Bromsgrove: see letters of 18 and 20 June 1934. LH and AEH were about to visit their brother Basil’s widow, Jeannie, who was ill, without staying as house guests. Pugh, Appendix F, lxxxvi, notes that the hotel had been Edward Housman’s favourite haunt. 2 Light verses by AEH: see Poems (1997), 236 (At the door of my own little hovel), 214 (Oh, what would I be but a turkey). 3 Poems (1997), 192 (The lady who writes this to me).

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Letters 1927–1936

but I feel that it is out of the question and I must not look forward to it. Both Laurence and I are a bit shy of the Cross, I because the High Street, being a main motor route, must be very noisy even for part of the night, and that sort of noise, which normally I do not much mind, is now a great nuisance to me. I hope your garden holds out against the drought. The Oxfordshire village where I was staying is the only one for miles round which has a pond with a spring, and the neighbouring villages are fetching water from it all day; and as the cows walk into it and drink it when they feel inclined, I doubt if it will last much longer, though it has never yet been known to go dry, not even in 1921. I am particularly glad that you are not suffering as much as I feared. With love Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Pugh, Appendix F, lxxxvi.

TO J O H N S PA RROW Trinity College | Cambridge 19 June 1934 Dear Mr Sparrow, In the second edition of A Shropshire Lad, which was not sent to me in proof, there are consequently a number of petty corruptions;1 but I accepted the even margin of XXXI as a less evil than the over-running of lines, which is apparently the only alternative on an ordinary page. The Alcuin edition2 was printed from the first. I have made only two real alterations, in XXXVIII 10 and LII 9,3 which were meant to appear in 1922 simultaneously with Last Poems but were belated by the publisher’s fault.4 All other changes, very few, are trifles of spelling or printing. Some of the plagiarisms in your list5 I thought imaginary and nonexistent, but a much greater number escaped your notice, and in particular I see that you are not such a student of the Bible as I am.

1

2 See Poems (1997), Introduction, xxv–xxvi. By the Alcuin Press (1929). ‘Loose’ for ‘Thick’, and ‘no more remembered’ for ‘long since forgotten’. 4 They were first made in the edn. published in Nov. 1922. LP was published on 19 Oct. 1922. See Richards, 264–5, on the delay. 5 ‘Echoes in the Poetry of A. E. Housman’, Nineteenth Century and After, 115 (Feb. 1934), 243–56. 3

431

20 June 1934

Mr Houston Martin, though I am always telling him how silly he is, cannot be repressed, and is now pestering my brother for things which he has no hope of extracting from me. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘John Sparrow Esq. | 3 Pump Court | Temple | E. C. 4’. Maas, 356.

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 June 1934 Dear Mr Clemens, Accept my thanks for the gift of your frank and entertaining interviews, and my best wishes for you and the Society.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Columbia MS, Housman Box.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 20 June 1934 My dear Laurence, The more I think of the Cross the less I like it. That narrow street sees and hears the passage of more motors than almost any other in England, and the noise must begin early and cease late; and noise has been a trouble to me for the last twelvemonth. I return the great poem1 corrected. Peter piper 2 does not come up to my exalted notion of my genius, nor the stanza added to Cousin Agnes’s poem.3 Mr Houston Martin is a lunatic, but not unintelligent. I have expressed so much contempt of his aims and activities that he has now let me alone for some time. I do not know what is the poem of which he has the unique MS.4 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 188; Maas, 356. 1

The Mark Twain Society, of which Clemens was President. Almost certainly one of the light verses mentioned in the letter of 15 June 1934 to LH. 2 Poems (1997), 192 (The lady who writes this to me). 3 Poems (1997), 190 (And so I wish, and long, and sigh), and notes on 502. 4 Possibly the copy of ASL II (which is not in fact a unique MS), which accompanied AEH’s letter to Martin of 20 Nov. 1933. 1

432

Letters 1927–1936

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 21 June 1934 Dear Scholfield, Gow has shown me the measurements on certain pamphlet-boxes which you are getting rid of. I should be glad to take four of ‘size 2’. 1.3 X 11 X 3. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 27 .

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Mr C. A. Ross1 may publish his settings of Nos. II, XXXII and XL from A Shropshire Lad A. E. Housman. 27 June 1934 Trin. Coll. Camb. LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed by Grant Richards ‘Grant Richards, Esq., | 8. Regent Street. | London. S. W. 1’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 2 July 1934 My dear Richards, P. 51 is chiefly hallucination. I do not believe that I have ever entertained you at Verrey’s.2 Anyhow it was in April 1922 that I first told you, /(by letter), that/ I should be having a book ready for the autumn.3 P. 6. The specimen pages did not exhibit any of the text of New Poems,4 if I remember right, and I can hardly have sent you the MS so early. But printed slips of the whole were in my hands in August, if not July.5

1 Colin Archibald Ross, Hereford-based composer (b. 1911), who seems however to have published a setting only of ASL II (Loveliest of trees), and that in 1963. 1 Of the proofs of GR’s Author Hunting (1934). GR had asked AEH for confirmations and corrections: to AEH, c.1 July 1934 (BMC MS). 2 Regent Street restaurant, where AEH gave GR dinner on 31 May 1922: see letter of 25 May 1922. 3 4 See letter of 9 Apr. 1922. i.e. LP. 5 ‘Within the first eight days of July as a matter of fact’: Richards, 278 n. 3.

433

2 July 1934

I have been amused by a book called Swan’s Milk by Louis Marlow,6 about Radley, Oxford, Cambridge, and literary men in 1895–1910, with minute personal details which I should have thought libellous. I am no better than I was at the beginning of the year. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 278; Maas, 357.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS You had intended, until discouraged by the booksellers, to print 5000 copies as a first edition of New Poems;1 I had advised 10,000: the number printed before the end of the year was 21,000. A. E. H. My heart bleeds when I read your account of the domestic scene at Cookham Dean, especially for poor Geoffrey and H´el`ene.2 2 July 1934 Trin. Coll. Camb. LC-GR MS: p.c. addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 279; Maas, 357.

TO J O H N S PA RROW Trinity College | Cambridge 2 July 1934 Dear Mr Sparrow, I am obliged to you for discovering the two misprints in the Alcuin text.1 I have signed copies of A Shropshire Lad for hundreds of people, deserving and undeserving, and I shall be very willing to sign yours.2 If you like to enclose a suitable envelope I can return it to you. 6 Pseudonym of Louis Wilkinson (1881–1968). The early chapters of Swan’s Milk discuss the homosexual atmosphere at Radley College and the romantic involvements of its hero Dexter Foothold. Later chapters detail encounters with, amongst others, Lytton Strachey, J. C. Squire, Llewelyn Powys, Ralph Straus, Ronald Storrs, and Oscar Browning. On pp. 201–2, Browning at one of his Sunday evening soir´ees displays a portfolio of photographs of naked youths and discourses enthusiastically about them. 1 i.e. LP. 2 Richards had written an exaggerated account of the effect of his first reading aloud the MS of LP at home to his family, which included his young son and twelve-year-old daughter. He cut out the account. 1 A two-volume boxed set of ASL and LP printed in 1929 by H. P. R. Finberg at the Alcuin Press, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, for the Richards Press in a limited edn. of 325 copies. 2 See AEH to Sparrow, 16 Oct. 1934, and note.

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Letters 1927–1936

I think penates much better than nepotes in Verg. georg. II 514, and there is no reason why M3 should not be right against the other MSS, though it does misbehave in 513. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘John Sparrow Esq. | 3 Pump Court | Temple | E. C. 4’.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 7 July 1934 My dear Withers, Your news is surprising to me and I suppose it ought to be pleasing, as you presumably wished a house which you offered for sale to be sold, and I am glad that you find a preponderance of advantages on that side. Changing your abode is not a novelty to you, and not so dismaying as it would be to me. I hope that the new house may be in Bucks rather than Wilts, for nearness to Cambridge.1 My sister-in-law2 still lives, and is in little pain or distress, and on the 16th I am going with my brother Laurence to Droitwich for a week to motor about the county and pay her visits. I wish fortitude and luck to Mrs Withers in her quest. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. I don’t know what the village3 will do without you. SCO MS. Maas, 357–8.

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 8 July 1934 My dear Cockerell, Needless to say that I am flattered and grateful; but when I turned 70 I made up my mind that I would not sit any more, and I have already declined one similar proposal. Yours sincerely and obliged A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.). Maas, 358.

3

The Codex Mediceus in the Laurentian Library, Florence. Withers, who had formerly lived near Bicester in Oxfordshire, now moved some twenty miles to Epwell Court, near Banbury, Warwickshire. See Robin Shaw, Housman’s Places (1995), 56–7. 2 3 Jeannie Housman. Souldern, near Bicester, Oxfordshire. 1

435

29 July 1934

TO PAU L LE M PE RLY Trinity College | Cambridge | England 23 July 1934 Dear Mr Lemperly, I ought not to avail myself of your generous proposal, as I have no proper appreciation of typography and format, and the merits of the volume would be wasted on me. With many thanks nevertheless I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Paul Lemperly | 17826 Clifton Boulevard | Lakewood | Ohio | U. S. A.’

TO W I L L I A M LYO N P H E L P S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 23 July 1934 Dear Mr Phelps, I thank you for your kind thought of sending me the extract from Mrs Wharton’s book. Yours very truly A. E. Housman Yale MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Wm. Lyon Phelps | Seven Gables | Grindstone City | Michigan | U. S. A.’

TO [ ? M RS ] 1 F O S N E L L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 29 July 1934 Dear [?Mrs] Fosnell, I am obliged by the kindness of your letter, but I do not accede to the requests, which I often receive from Americans, that I should copy out poems. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082.

1

Or ‘Miss’: AEH’s handwriting masks his uncertainty.

436

Letters 1927–1936

TO D R . A . A L L E N B RO C K I N G TO N Trinity College | Cambridge 30 July 1934 Dear Dr Brockington, You are at liberty to quote in your Mysticism and Poetry two lines from A Shropshire Lad and two from Last Poems and passages from The Name and Nature of Poetry.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Aug. 1934 Dear Sirs, I am obliged to you for sending me Messrs Macmillans’ letter which I return. If anything can be done, I suppose only the publishers, not the authors, can do it. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 168.

TO S T E P H E N G A S E L E E Trinity College 14 Aug. 1934 Dear Gaselee, I shall be much pleased to enjoy your succulent repast1 on Michaelmas Day. That date is safer for me than a week earlier. When I was in the Patent Office, I remember a trade-mark showing a ‘procession of the Emperor and Empress Nero’. Nero was not, as you might perhaps fancy, doubling the part: they were two figures. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Text based on Maas, 358. The MS was at the University Library, Liverpool, but is now missing. 1 In Mysticism and Poetry: On a Basis of Experience (1934) Brockington quoted ASL IV 3–4, LP XL 9–10, and, from NNP, AEH’s comments on Blake’s My Spectre around me night and day and on Milton’s line ‘Nymphs and shepherds, dance no more’ from Arcades. 1 A stew of tripe and oysters washed down with stout: Page, 118.

437

18 August 1934

TO E . H . B L A K E N E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Aug. 1934 Dear Mr Blakeney, I am much obliged to you for honouring me with one of your 25 copies of Watson’s sonnet.1 A. Y. Campbell has sent me a copy of his 20 odes of Horace.2 I am no judge of book-production, but to my untutored eye it is pretty. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 48980, fos. 24–5.

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Aug. 1934 Dear D’Arcy Thompson, Many thanks for sending me your address at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.1 These glimpses of the biography of eminent men interest me a great deal, even when their sciences are not mine. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman St Andrews MS 28208. Envelope addressed ‘Professor D’Arcy Thompson, C.B. | The University | St Andrews’.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Aug. 1934 My dear Kate, I shall leave here on Tuesday afternoon, sleep at Croydon, and cross to Paris by the 9. 30 plane thence on Wednesday; from Paris I shall take the 1. 45 train to Nancy, so you need not concern yourself about the fate of any other vehicles. 1 The Yesterdays and the Morrows by Sir William Watson, published by Blakeney at Winchester, 1934. AEH’s unannotated copy survives at CUL: Naiditch, HSJ 31 (2005), 175. 2 Horati Carmina Viginti (Hodder & Stoughton, 1934). 1 Fifty Years Ago, in the Royal Society of Edinburgh, delivered on 7 May 1934 in commemoration of the Society’s 150th year, and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 54 (1934), 145–57. Thompson had been elected president in 1934.

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Letters 1927–1936

Laurence was here for two or three days, and his lecture1 seems to have been lively and much appreciated by its rather contemptible audience. These ‘Summer Meetings’ consist of people who should never be allowed to enter a University town, and on this occasion I am told that the majority were foreigners,—who to be sure were probably the better educated part. The latest news of Jeannie seemed to have been rather more satisfactory. I am not better, either in strength or tranquillity, than I was at the beginning of the year. The part of France I am going to is Alsace-Lorraine, quite new to me. Strasburg is the chief sight, and the scenery of the Vosges; also there is a good deal of first-rate food and second-rate drink. I hear that Clemence has benefited by her stay with you, and I hope you are well yourself and capable of dealing with the grandchildren who I suppose have by now descended on you. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 61 . Maas, 359.

TO J O H N D R I N K WATE R Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Aug. 1934 Dear Drinkwater, I am much beholden to you for the book of the Pageant, and to you and Seaman for the very handsome dedication.1 I forget if I have told you how much interest and pleasure I had in reading your account of your early life.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Yale MS.

1

Probably on pacifism. Shropshire Historical Pageant. And Tercentenary Performances of Milton’s Masque of ‘Comus’. At Ludlow Castle. July 2nd to 7 th , 1934. Pageant Episodes by John Drinkwater. Prologue by Sir Owen Seaman, Bart. Published by the Shropshire Historical Pageant Committee and carrying a dedication on p. 3 ‘To A. E. Housman | Who has made | Shropshire | Memorable in English Poetry. | O. S. | J. D.’ Owen Seaman (1861–1936) was an eminent poet, satirist, and parodist, and editor of Punch, 1906–32. He was knighted in 1914, and created First Baronet in 1933. 2 Inheritance: Being the First Book of an Autobiography (1931). 1

439

13 September 1934

TO W I L L I A M H A M I LTO N [Trinity College | Cambridge | England 13 Sept. 1934] Dear Sir, I am obliged and complimented by your letter, but I am not in favour of setting poetry to music, and I should not give any countenance to your proposal. The two distichs which you wish to use do not seem to me suited for detached use, and you must forgive me for saying that one is not correctly quoted.1 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Clemens (1947), 260–1.

TO E L L I S D. RO B B Trinity College | Cambridge | England 13 Sept. 1934 Dear Mr Robb, The first edition of A Shropshire Lad consisted of five hundred copies. I cannot tell you where one is to be found for sale, though I see it sometimes in book catalogues. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Sept 1934 Dear Sirs, The Copp Clark Co. must be told that I do not consent to the appearance in their anthology of the poems they mention. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 169. 1 Hamilton, an admirer of Arthur Somervell’s setting of ASL II (Loveliest of trees), had asked for permission to include the poem and also to use some lines as mottoes for the various sections of Student Songs for Camp and College, ed. A. G. Abbie et al. (1937): Clemens (1947), 260.

440

Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Sept. 1934 My dear Kate, I came back last Wednesday after just three weeks abroad, and the pound, which dropped from 75 to 74 francs on the day of my departure, immediately recovered. However, I must have economised a good deal by hiring local cars instead of taking one from Paris. The weather was almost perfect throughout. Nancy and Strasburg and the Vosges were well worth seeing; and in returning, besides Franche-Comt´e and Burgundy, where I had been before, I went to Troyes in Champagne, where the cathedral is much finer than I had ever suspected, and there are several interesting churches. I think on the whole I am a bit better; certainly the difference from my last tour is very great. The chief ambition of my life has long been to be invited to the Colchester Oyster Feast.1 This year it has happened; but, to teach us that earthly hopes are dust and ashes,2 I have a lecture that will keep me in Cambridge. I am glad to have your good news of Jeannie, and I hope that you have enjoyed all your visitors at Exmouth. I saw the review of your book3 in the Times Literary Supplement,4 and I hope it will bring you repute as it evidently will be of value to the historical and antiquarian public. Our University Library is closed till October, as it is moving into a great new building, which takes four months. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 62 – 3 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Maas, 359–60.

1 The grand civic feast, dating back to the fourteenth century, hosted by the Mayor of Colchester in Essex on the last Friday in October. Rights to the Colchester oyster fishery were first granted by Richard I in 1189, and the ‘Colchester Natives’ (the oyster Ostrea Edulis) are highly prized. 2 OT phraseology: Gen. 18: 27, Job 30: 19, 42: 6. 3 See AEH to KES, 18 Mar. 1934, and n. 1 4 ‘Mrs Symons … has done a fine piece of research both for the school and for the past history of Bath’: TLS, 6 Sept. 1934, 598.

441

21 September 1934

TO E . H . B L A K E N E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Sept. 1934 Dear Mr Blakeney, I am much obliged by the gift of your edition of Iulius Africanus’ letter,1 which was worth doing. In ἔκρουσα it is surely a note and not a blow which is struck. Africanus may for aught I know have pronounced σχίνον, but not πρίνον and πρῖνον both. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 48980, fos. 3–4. Maas, 438.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge] Mr Masaroon can have his two stanzas.1 Many thanks for your book2 which I am reading and correcting. A. E. H. 21 Sept 1934 LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s: p.c addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1’. Richards, 279 (incomplete).

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS p. 28. Sedgwick] Sidgwick.1 55. apothegm] apophthegm. 124. Auteuil] Longchamp. 128 n. common] combination. 201. Danielli] Danieli. 219 n. mnie] mine. 224. ‘I did not have’ is American. 255. ‘reconcile’ is at any rate not English. 271. There should be no ‘`a la’ after barbue. 1 A letter to Origen on the Story of Susanna, the Greek text, ed. with introduction, translation, and notes, by E. H. Blakeney (1934). 1 The first two of The Welsh Marches, which Mr Masaroon wished to quote in his memoirs. 2 Author Hunting, just published. 1 Further corrections to Author Hunting: previous corrections are in the letter of 2 July 1934.

442

Letters 1927–1936

I have told you already2 that your account of our first acquaintance is wrong: I called in Henrietta Street by appointment, and you took me out somewhere in a cab to lunch; and I first met you at Laurence’s in Marloes Road.3 I have found your publishing intrigues rather slow reading, but the rest bright and interesting. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman 22 Sept. 1934. Trin. Coll. Camb. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 19–20 (excerpt), & 279; Maas, 360.

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 26 Sept. 1934 Dear Mr Martin, You ought to have known better than to send me the copy of A Shropshire Lad. American publishers have a perfect right to issue unauthorised copies, but for me to sign them would be an indignity or an excess of magnanimity. I am also deaf to fantastic requests that I should write my name in full or add special stuff for you. One thing I am prepared to do, which might gratify your depraved mind: if you like to send me New Year’s Eve I can make and initial a correction which I was too late to make before it was printed.1 If I possess a copy of Parta Quies,2 which I do not know to be the case, I do not know where to find it. A Shropshire Lad and New Poems3 will never be joined together while I am here to prevent it, and I think it a silly notion.4

2

‘In conversation’: Richards, 19 n. The account of his first meeting with AEH is on pp. 87–8 of Author Hunting. Richards, 19–20, questions again the accuracy of AEH’s memory of the occasion. GR’s premises were at 9 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and Laurence and Clemence Housman lived in Marloes Road. 1 Published in Waifs and Strays, A Terminal Magazine of Oxford Poetry, 3. 8 (Nov. 1881), 52–4. AEH corrected ‘Then’ to ‘Once’ in l. 48 of the t.s. (now BMC MS) and initialled the correction. 2 Published in Waifs and Strays, 2. 6 (Mar. 1881), 23. AEH’s copy is now in the Lilly Library. 3 4 i.e. LP. See AEH to GR, 5 Oct. 1924, and note. 3

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13 October 1934

I congratulate you on your 20th birthday and your approach, I hope, to years of discretion. I did not realise how frightfully young you were: it explains and perhaps excuses much. I thank you for your good wishes, and you have mine. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Martin (1937), 301; Maas, 360–1.

TO J O NATH A N CA PE Trinity College | Cambridge 6 Oct. 1934 Dear Sir, I am obliged by your letter, but more than one publisher already want my books if they leave the Richards Press. There will be no collected edition in my lifetime. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Reading MS 2446.

TO K I M BA L L F L AC C U S Trinity College | Cambridge | England 10 Oct. 1934 Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kindness in sending me your Avalanche of April,1 which I have read with admiration for its freshness and vividness. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Kimball Flaccus | c/ Messrs Charles Scribner’s Sons | 597 Fifth Avenue | New York | U. S. A.’ and redirected to c/o American Express Co, Dublin, Ireland.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 13 Oct. 1934 Dear Madam, I shall be pleased to sign your copy of A Shropshire Lad if you will send with it as you propose an addressed wrapper. I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. 1

Published by C. Scribner’s Sons, New York and London, 1934.

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TO J O H N S PA RROW Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Oct. 1934 Dear Mr Sparrow, G. B. Shaw lately advised a young man of my acquaintance to specialise in collecting unautographed copies of authors’ works, which bid fair to become rarities; so my name probably detracts from the value of this book.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Maas, 361.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 16 Oct. 1934 Dear Sirs, Mr Higgs1 cannot be allowed to print the words on a programme. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 173.

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 17 Oct. 1934 Dear Mr Martin, I have had to make more than one correction in the copy of New Year’s Eve which I return.1 New Poems was only a slip of my senile pen.2 Fragment composed in a dream3 I do not know, or have forgotten. 1 Sparrow’s copy of the first edn. of ASL, signed ‘A. E. Housman’ on the half-title, is now at SJCO. 1 A Mr M. K. Higgs. 1 In addition to the textual change he wished to make, AEH corrected two typing errors: ‘miricle’ (l. 6) and ‘rains’ [for ‘ruins’] (l. 35) in the t.s. Martin had sent him. 2 AEH to Martin, 26 Sept. 1934. 3 In 1930 John Sparrow and John Carter commissioned thirty-seven copies of a four-page pamphlet containing an unauthorized printing of When the bells justle in the tower (AP IX) for private circulation as a Christmas card. They described the verse as ‘A Fragment preserved by oral tradition and said to have been composed by A. E. Housman in a dream’.

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18 October 1934

I suppose it would be impossible to explain to you, perhaps to any American, the impropriety of your conduct in writing, as you seem to have done, to ask famous writers their opinion of me. I hope that some of them, at any rate, have ignored your letters. Bredon Hill is in Worcestershire on the edge of Gloucestershire. That poem4 was written early, before I knew that the book would be a Shropshire book. Abdon Burf is the highest part of the Brown Clee, which is the highest hill in Shropshire,5 but will soon cease to be so, as they are quarrying the top away. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Martin (1937), 301–2; Richards, 211 n.2 (excerpt); Maas, 361–2.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Oct. 1934 Dear Sirs, Certainly Miss Weale may quote her two verses. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 174.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Oct. 1934 Dear Sirs, In The Fireside Book by Arthur Stanley (Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1934), on pp. 601–3 is printed, under the title of Summer’s End, No. XXXIX of my Last Poems;1 and the author writes to thank me for giving him permission through my publishers to include it. I have no recollection of this: can you remind me, or explain?2 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 175–6. 4 Bredon Hill (ASL XXI). The first notebook draft, lacking only the title, is dated ‘July 1891’ by AEH; the second (complete) draft dates from 1891/2–Feb. 1893. 5 1,790 ft. high. 1 When summer’s end is nighing, untitled in LP. 2 The reply from the Richards Press (BL Add. MS 44929, fo. 177) identifies ‘Arthur Stanley’ as ‘Arthur Stanley Megaw’ and includes copies of Megaw’s letter of 29 Mar. and AEH’s of 27 Mar. 1934.

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TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Oct. 1934 Dear Mr Wilson, I return the reproduction of the photograph,1 but I would rather you did not get copies taken from it as you suggest. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Photograph of MS viewed on ebay (item 2235305346), 6 Apr. 2004.

TO T H E M A NAG E R , T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Oct. 1934 Dear Sir, I am obliged to you for aiding my memory by sending me the letters which I return. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO M I S S RO B E RT S 1 Trinity College 26 Oct. 1934 Dear Miss Roberts, It will give me great pleasure to dine with you on Nov. 17 at 8 p.m. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BCD: The Journal of the Book Club of Detroit, 3. 1 (Spring 1978), 23.

1

Carte-de-visite photograph by Van der Weyde, c.1894. William White, publishing the letter in BCD, suggests that the letter is addressed to the daughter of S. C. Roberts, Secretary of Cambridge University Press at the time. That there is no ‘Cambridge’ in the address would certainly indicate that AEH was writing to someone in Cambridge. Roberts’s elder daughter was named Molly, and Roberts records that AEH put her at her ease and was entirely amiable to her at a dinner party at the family home: Roberts, Adventures with Authors (1966), 128. 1

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TO D. L . G R A H A M [Trinity College | Cambridge c.29 Oct. 1934] 1 There is nothing in gemitu sedere dolores which corresponds to your ‘they could not find a full vent for their grief’. To vent grief is the very function of gemitus; and I have already said that it is illegitimate to supply ‘secret’. In order to propose the interpretation ‘gemitu and not caede Caesaris or such’ you have had to banish from your mind the contents of verse 44. TCC MS, with Adv. c. 20. 25: draft in pencil replying to Graham’s letter of 18 Oct. 1934.

TO D R E D UA R D F R A E N K E L Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Nov. 1934 Dear Fraenkel (as we are both Fellows of Trinity1 we must not address one another with prefixes), I have postponed reply in order to ascertain that I am no longer, as I was a year or two ago, one of the electors to the Corpus Professorship. I will now send you a testimonial in a few days. I had heard that in Oxford there was a wish for your candidature; and if it proves successful the University ought to join in the chorus of Heil Hitler! Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO D R E D UA R D F R A E N K E L Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Nov 1934 Dear Fraenkel, You are too modest and too complimentary. I apologise for having kept you waiting, but I have been inconveniently busy lately. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.

1 1

Graham’s proposed emendation of Lucan 7. 43. See the testimonal letter of 17 Nov.

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TO TH E E LE CTO RS O F T H E C O R P U S P RO F E S S O R O F L AT I N I N T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F OX F O R D To the Electors of the Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. Having learnt that Dr Eduard Fraenkel1 is a candidate for the vacant Chair of Latin in my native University, I most gladly contribute my testimony toward the support of his application. Dr Fraenkel is a Latinist of European repute, who won celebrity in 1922 by his Plautinisches im Plautus, a work of notable industry, grasp, and originality, which revealed him as a writer of high qualifications both in scholarship and in literature and has exerted a powerful influence on the subsequent course of Plautine study. A later book on Iktus und Akzent im Lateinischen Sprechvers addressed itself to the solution of a notoriously difficult problem with a thoroughness and resource which are respected and admired even by those whom he does not persuade to accept all his conclusions. Though Plautus and early Latin have claimed his chief attention, he has treated in his writings of various other departments of the literature, and always with competence. His presence within our gates is a substantial augmentation of English learning, and Trinity College has done its best to detain him here by conferring on him the research Fellowship founded by the late Professor Bevan. I cannot say sincerely that I wish Dr Fraenkel to obtain the Corpus Professorship, as I would rather that he should be my successor in Cambridge. A. E. Housman. Trinity College Cambridge 17 Nov. 1934 Private MS. Printed pamphlet: UCLA MS, collection 1151, box 21. There are no differences in wording between the MS and the printed text. Excerpt in Gordon Williams, ‘Eduard Fraenkel, 1888–1970’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 56 (1972), 421.

1

See List of Recipients.

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22 November 1934

TO WA LTE R H A M I LTO N Trinity College 18 Nov. 1934 Dear Hamilton, I enclose the book of Latin Verse Translation, and it now falls to you to bring it to the next meeting. I am setting pieces from Plautus, Juvenal, and the Aetna, unless that conflicts with anything of yours. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO RO B E RT PA RT R I D G E Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Nov 1934 Dear Mr Partridge, My Introductory Lecture of 1892 was reprinted privately last year by two infatuated bibliophiles,1 and as I have a copy to spare I may as well send it for your committee-man. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Nov 1934 Dear Sirs, The reply to R. & R. Clark1 must be that I do not like my poems to be included in educational works. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman The Richards Press Ltd BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 179.

1 1

John Carter and John Sparrow. Edinburgh publishers.

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TO DAVI D E M RYS E VA NS Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Nov. 1934 Dear Principal Emrys Evans, I thank you for the terms in which you conveyed to me the generous proposal of the Council of your University to confer on me the degree of Doctor in Litteris honoris causa. I have a high sense of the honour designed for me, and am correspondingly grateful; and if I nevertheless ask leave to decline it, as I have declined similar distinctions placed within my reach by the kindness of other Universities, I trust that I may not be deemed thankless in thus adhering to a resolution taken long ago and founded on reasons which still seem to me sufficient, though they could not be briefly or easily expressed. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Text based on that in Maas, 362, which was based on a copy (now missing) in the possession of the University of Wales.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 24 Nov. 1934 My dear Withers, I had begun to think of trying to find you by letter and discover which of the counties you meditated had caught and fixed you. It turns out to be none of them, but I am glad to hear that you have secured a spot which in some respects at any rate is so much to your taste. I regret to observe that my convenience has not been your prime consideration and that I shall have a much longer journey between me and your Domain of Arnheim. I am at liberty to hope that both of you are fairly well, as you say nothing to the contrary. My tour in Alsace and Lorraine was pleasant, and the weather almost perfect, and I suppose it did me some good. But improvement is infinitesimal, and the perpetual recurrence of discomfort every morning between waking and finishing my toilet is wearisome in the extreme, apart from the feeling of physical fatigue which is frequent and is probably a natural sign of old age. My life is bearable, but I do not want it to continue, and I wish it had ended a year and a half ago. The great and real troubles of my early manhood did not render those days so permanently unsatisfactory as

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these. At Trinity we have suffered a great loss in R. V. Laurence, whom I expect you remember. He was ill for nearly two years, but so brave that he had arranged and intended to lecture on the day he died. He talked so much about me to his nurse that she has written to bespeak me for her next death-bed. My kind regards to Mrs Withers: I suppose you are temporarily cut off from the rest of your family. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 35, 130 (excerpts); Maas, 362–3.

TO RO B E RT PA RT R I D G E Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Nov. 1934 Dear Mr Partridge, I have so few copies of the lecture1 left that I think I must keep them for persons possessing some special claim on me who may want one. In any case I should not autograph it, as I do not think well enough of it. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 29 Nov. 1934 My dear Laurence, Many thanks for Victoria Regina:1 there are several pieces which I had not read before. What impresses me most is your cleverness in inventing detail. Perhaps the Palmerston,2 as you think, is the best, though I think you take his side too much, and also make him too superior. There is a story by an eyewitness of his being reduced to tears by a jobation from the Prince Consort. 1 Introductory Lecture (1892), reprinted in 1933 at the instigation of John Carter and John Sparrow. Twenty-five copies were reserved for the author. 1 Vol. 1 of LH’s Palace Plays, published in 1934. 2 In LH’s play. Henry John Temple, third Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) was British Prime Minster, 1855–8, 1859–65.

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The verses come back to me, but I feel as if I wrote ‘stays’ and not ‘leaves’,3 which may be an emendation of Clemence’s prompted by her dislike for the harmless letter s. Also I don’t use notes of admiration.4 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. The press-cutting refers apparently to some of your more mature dramas. BMC MS. Memoir, 188–9; Maas, 363 (both nearly complete).

TO S Y D N E Y C O C K E R E L L Trinity College 2 Dec. 1934 My dear Cockerell, Many thanks for letting me look at Landor’s1 Horace, returned herewith. He has written ‘beautiful’ or ‘very good’ against most of my favourites. In one place he has anticipated a detail of correction, probably not quite right, put forward by a German editor a good many years later. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS. Maas, 363.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Dec. 1934 My dear Jeannie, Here is December, bringing round the sad time when we lost Basil,1 but bringing also this year to me in a letter from Kate the good news that you are wonderfully better in health and have kicked your nurse out of doors. I do beg you to keep it up and not to be weary in well doing.2 The winter, 3 Breathe, my lute, beneath my fingers, 11: ‘For the reaper stays his reaping’. See Poems (1997), 209, 515. The poem was written by AEH at the age of 18, or possibly 17, and it was first published by LH with AEH’s permission in Memoir, 38, and The Unexpected Years, 101. 4 This holds substantially true for AEH’s serious poetry, in which the only exclamation marks are in ASL V 27 (‘How green the grass is all about!’), in the posthumously published MP XX 8 (‘How sound they sleep!), and in Notebook Fragments, XXIV 1 (‘ ‘‘Hist, Terence, hist! wake up: ’tis I’’ ’. Exclamation marks are plentiful in the light verse. 1 Poet and essayist Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864). 1 Basil Williams Housman, AEH’s younger brother and Jeannie’s husband, died on 1 Dec. 1932 at the age of sixty-eight. 2 Gal. 6: 9, 2 Thess. 3: 13.

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3 December 1934

thus far, is being quite nice to invalids, of whom, however, we have rather a large number here among my friends and acquaintances. One of my best boon-companions3 died a few months ago, and apparently spoke so much and so well of me in his last illness that his nurse has written to me to engage herself for my death-bed. People however are always telling me that I look exceedingly well; so that, I fear, must be a pleasure deferred. When I read about the new wireless station at Wychbold, I wonder whether it interferes with your listening in or whether it benefits you directly. With all kind remembrances to Grace and the rest of your family I am Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 154; Maas, 364 (both incomplete).

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Dec. 1934 My dear Kate, I am glad that your history1 seems to be proving a best-seller. I have not consulted it in the new Library,2 which I rather seldom visit, as it is more than twice as distant as the old one. The outside, I agree, is ill-favoured; the interior spacious and well-arranged, though I have yet to learn my way about it. The weak point seems to be the lifts, which sometimes stick or do not act, and may imprison you. If you are a lady you then scream till released, and collapse in hysterics on your rescuer. I am just about the same, with frequent feelings of fatigue, occasional sinkings at the heart, and continual uneasiness at beginning to get up in the morning. I can bear my life, but I do not at all want it to go on, and it is a great mistake that it did not come to an end a year and a half ago. This period has been a serious subtraction from the total pleasure (such as it was) of my existence. I am not doing anything important, but putting together notes from my margins to print from time to time. I am much annoyed by being told by everyone how well I look, and being admired for my comparative youthfulness and my upright carriage.

3

R. V. Laurence. Of King Edward’s School, Bath. 2 The new Cambridge University Library, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, was officially opened in Oct. 1934. 1

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Letters 1927–1936

It is surprisingly good news about Jeannie. Laurence has sent me his Victoria book,3 a good deal of which I had not read before, and I have found it entertaining,—very clever in the invention of fictitious details and conversations. It is pleasant to hear that your respectably numerous progeny are well and that you are comfortable. I am looking forward to my usual Christmas gluttony. Which reminds me of a great calamity. For years it had been my chief ambition to be invited to the Colchester oyster-feast: this year I was invited but had a lecture which prevented me from going. Love from your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 64 – 6 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Maas, 364–5.

TO I R I TA VA N D O R E N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 4 Dec. 1934 Dear Mrs Van Doren, It is very kind of you to send me Books, but it would be a pity to continue, as I have not time to read it. Yours very truly A. E. Housmnan. LC MS (Irita Van Doren Collection, box 5).

TO JA M E S G E O RG E L E I P P E RT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 7 Dec. 1934 Dear Mr Lane-Latimer,1 I did not know Ernest Dowson,2 and I am sorry that I cannot put you in the way of getting any information about him. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr R. Lane-Latimer | 551 Fifth Avenue | New York City | U. S. A.’ 3

Victoria Regina (1934). See Leippert in List of Recipients. 2 Poet (1867–1900). He published Verses (1896) and Decorations (1899), and his Poetical Works appeared in 1934. 1

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12 December 1934

TO T. J. W I S E Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1934 Dear Sir, Messrs Carter and Sparrow’s reprint of the introductory lecture consisted of 100 copies, none for sale. Some were presented to me, but I have now so few left that I think I ought to keep them for persons having special claims on me who may wish to possess them. In any case I should not autograph the lecture, as I do not think well enough of it. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BL MS Ashley 3387, fos. 99–100. Maas, 365, where it is inferred from the fact that the letter is in Wise’s Ashley collection that book collector Wise (1859–1937) is the addressee.

TO G. M . T R E V E LYA N Trinity College 12 Dec. 1934 Dear Trevelyan, Many thanks for sending me your brother’s selected poems,1 in which I admire as usual the absence of the vices usually present in poetry: no strain or false intensity or merely external glitter. I rather think that the best piece in the book is Winter Rains.2 As a sort of return I am sending you the enclosed,3 which is at any rate a rarity and which you are not likely to have seen before. I don’t inscribe it because I don’t think it very good. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Texas MS. 1 Selected Poems by R. C. Trevelyan (1934). Robert Calverley Trevelyan (1872–1951) was a poet and playwright. He was the son of the Right Honourable Sir George Otto Trevelyan, and was educated at Harrow and TCC. His first volume of verse, Mallow & Asphodel, appeared in 1898. 2 When after weeks of winter rains | The foggy air hangs still and wet, | When misted are the window-panes, | And walls and sheets and cupboards sweat; | When chilblains itch in every shoe, | And the mind’s furnished chambers too | Are damp and sodden through and through.  When meals are glum and shoulders ache, | No match will strike or firewood blaze, | Fiddlestrings squeak and tempers break, | No robin sings and no hen lays; | When paths are pools, and noses pearled, | And cats in kitchen fenders curled | Dream of a happier, drier world;  Then suddenly, when least we think, | A bright wind breaks the mist, and there | The sun looks out above the brink | Of piled up clouds, stair over stair: | Glad then at heart are all live things, | Both small and great, on feet or wings, | Birds, boys and beggars, cats and kings. 3 Probably a copy of the 1933 reprint of the Introductory Lecture (1892).

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Letters 1927–1936

TO DAVI D E M RYS E VA NS 16 Dec. 1934 On Nov. 23 you kindly wrote to inform me that your Council had resolved to propose that the degree of Doctor in Litteris honoris causa should be conferred upon me, and you enquired whether I would allow my name to go forward. In reply I asked leave to decline this honour, and mentioned that I had /previously/ declined similar honours offered me by the generosity of other Universities. I now find in newspapers of the 13th instant the announcement, apparently official, that the University of Wales on Dec. 12 awarded me the honorary degree of D. Litt. I suppose that that announcement is the blunder of a subordinate; but it is unfortunate, and places me in a most invidious position. What must be thought of me by those Universities, half-a-dozen in number, which in the last 30 years have offered me honorary degrees—one of them quite recently repeated the offer, and with special urgency—when they see me apparently accepting from your University /a distinction which/ I declined to receive from them! Lilly MSS 1. 1 (draft). Maas, 365.

TO T H E E DI TO R O F THE SUNDAY TIMES [c.18 Dec. 1934] Sir,—I have been asked by scholars at Oxford to answer a note by ‘‘Atticus’’ on p. 13 of the S T of the 16th inst. concerning the election of Dr Eduard Fraenkel to the Corpus Professorship of Latin, where he makes the shade (which he represents as indignant) of Conington1 (whom he describes as a great Latinist) inquire: ‘‘Is, then, Oxford so barren in Latinity that she has to choose an ex-professor from Freiburg University to fill the chair and occupy the rooms which once were mine?’’ The question is invidiously put, and would not have been put by Conington, who was a modest man; but ‘‘Atticus’’ gives the answer in his next words: ‘‘Herr Fraenkel is a Latinist of European reputation.’’2 I do not 1 John Conington (1825–69), first Corpus Professor of Latin at Oxford, 1854–69. He published edns. of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon (1848) and Cho¨ephoroe (1857), Virgil, and Persius, and verse translations of Horace (1863–9), the Aeneid (1866) and half of the Iliad (1868). 2 ‘Atticus’ continued: ‘for Oxford to welcome the refugee—exiled under the Nazis’ preposterous Aryan rule—was very right and proper. But to press upon him one of the very few gilt-edged prizes in her gift, with the likelihood of his holding it for a quarter of a century, is a different proposition. What would that master of robust common sense, the late ‘‘Tommy’’ Fowler, have said to such a suggestion if it had been made when he was president of Corpus?

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know who the other candidates were, but they cannot have been Latinists of European reputation; for no Englishman who could be so described was young enough to be eligible. A. E. HOUSMAN. Trinity College, Cambridge. The Sunday Times, 23 Dec. 1934. Maas, 366.

TO W. H . D. RO U S E frequens senatus in alia omnia iit is in Cic. fam. VIII 13 2, and similar phrases in I 2 1 and X 12 3; but I do not see that eadem omnia poscere1 can be anything to correspond. A. E. H. 21 Dec. 1934 Trin. Coll. Camb. Private MS: p.c. addressed ‘Mr W. H. D. Rouse | Histon Manor | Cambs.’

TO P RO F E S S O R A L E X A N D E R S O U T E R Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Dec. 1934 Dear Professor Souter, If I had known that you were a candidate or realised that you were under 65 I should not have expressed myself exactly as I did.1 Now I must adhere to the theory that Scotchmen are not Englishmen. Fraenkel told me that you had written him a very kind letter. His appointment is known in Sweden and Switzerland but not in Germany. He is here for Christmas, exercising, while yet he may, the rights of the research fellowship which we gave him. In the testimonial I wrote him I gave some sketch of his writings, and this is now to some extent diffused in Oxford. He has been lecturing there

And what will be the general opinion in the Oxford common rooms of this sentimental gesture of anti-Nazi internationalism?’ An official reply from Corpus Christi College in the Sunday Times, 30 Dec. 1934, drew attention to the parallel appointment of Professor Vinogradoff (who had been expelled from his chair at the University of Moscow) to the Corpus Chair of Jurisprudence in succession to Sir Frederick Pollock. It also pointed out that the appointment raised no protests and had the complete approval of ‘Tommy’ Fowler. 1 Petronius, ch. 34. The words brought up in Rouse’s mind an echo of the senate, and he wondered if they had a technical sense: Rouse to AEH, 17 Dec. 1934; TCC MS, with Adv. d. 20. 5. 1 In the letter to the Times, c.18 Dec. 1934.

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with much acceptation, and the younger students at any rate approved of his election; and I do not think there will be any feeling against him. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS Eng. lett. c. 606, fos. 187–8.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Dec. 1934 My dear Jeannie, This is famous news of yours indeed, and was a fine Christmas present to send me. I hope that you are now going to be very determined and indulge in no backsliding. I don’t know whether the mildness of this extraordinary December is good for you, but I prefer it to the cold which is considered seasonable. We have already had one crocus, and the yellow jasmine is more profuse in blossoms, I think, than I have ever seen it. But there is still one village in the neighbourhood, or was about a week ago, where all this rain has not got to the wells, and water still has to be fetched from the next parish. Best wishes to you and all of you for this coming year. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Dec. 1934 My dear Withers, This is just to thank you for your kind letter and to wish a happy new year to you and your wife and children. On your expert advice I left off alcohol for a week, with no effect except the production of gouty symptoms, or symptoms which I am accustomed to regard as such. Your other recipe, a cold douche after my warm bath, is impracticable, because my bath is cold. My sister-in-law, whose death we were told to expect almost daily a year ago, has just been pronounced healed, and only needs to recover health and strength.

30 December 1934

459

I hope you will continue to find amusement in building your new house, and will bring it into satisfactory being. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 366.

1935 ? TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 15 Jan. 1935 The Family will meet in the Old Guest Room of Trinity (instead of Professor Housman’s rooms) on Friday Jan. 25 at 8 p.m. TCC Add. MS c. 112 50 .

TO G E O F F R E Y T I L LOTS O N Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Jan. 1935 Dear Mr Tillotson, My part in the reprint1 to be issued by your press is strictly permissive, and I express none of the preferences which you kindly suggest: I only want it to be as unassuming as possible. Six copies for me, since you are good enough to offer copies, will be ample, as no one outside my own family will be likely to want one. I naturally am quite willing that your assistant should have copies. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 164. Envelope addressed ‘G. Tillotson Esq. | University College | London W. C. 1’. Maas, 367.

1 Of three poems, The Parallelogram, The Amphisbœna, and The Crocodile, previously printed, unsigned, in The University College London Union Magazine, in (respectively) 1. 1 (Christmas Term 1904), 21–2, 2. 1 ( June 1906), 11, and 5.1 (March 1911), 159. The reprint, Three Poems: The Parallelogram The Amphisbœna The Crocodile By A. E. Housman, was privately printed under Tillotson’s supervision in the Department of English at UCL, and published in a limited edn. of 55 copies on 20 June 1935. AEH corrected proofs. For further information, see Tillotson, ‘The Publication of Housman’s Comic Poems’, English, 1. 6 (1937), 485–93, rptd. in Tillotson, Essays in Criticism and Research (1942), 157–66. See also Poems (1997), 272–3, 274–6, 277–8, 554–5, 556, 558–9.

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15 February 1935

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Feb. 1935 Dear Mr Wilson, I have to thank you for your usual kind enquiries and invitations, and to reply that I am not very well nor disposed to stir away from Cambridge. Though I do not altogether approve of your political activities, I am sorry that they have brought upon you a chill and consequent illness. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Virginia MS (McGregor, box 4). Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | Watling Villa | Wallington | Co. Durham’. Maas, 367.

TO G. M . LE E Trinity College 15 Feb. 1935 Dear Mr Lee, I suppose it is you whom I must chiefly thank for the gift of Nineteen Echoes and a Song, where you fill two parts; but I am also indebted to your associates.1 I do not pass judgment on the works of my contemporaries, being neither a qualified critic of literature nor immune from the moral vices of jealousy and envy; so let me content myself with congratulating you on winning the Davies Scholarship.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. TCC Add. Ms Letters c. 1 157 . Maas, 367.

1 Nineteen Echoes and a Song: Translations, mainly from the Greek and Latin, by H. M. Dymock, G. M. Lee, W. D. H. Moore, H. K. St. J. Anderson, and Nolan Wood, with an introductory poem by Denis Botteril (Cambridge: G. M. Lee, Trinity College, 1935). Lee contributed five translations. 2 The Davies Jackson Scholarship funded two years’ study at St John’s College, Cambridge, for graduating seniors.

462

Letters 1927–1936

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 Feb. 1935 My dear Richards, I will not let my poems appear in school-books. If you think it will soothe Mr Phillips1 you may tell him that Horace felt the same dislike for the idea.2 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 280.

TO P RO F E S S O R D. S. RO B E RT S O N Trinity College 19 Feb. 1935 Dear Robertson, I am much obliged for the sight of this book. He is a conscientious fellow, and some of his remarks are amusing. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS.

TO T H E R E V D G R E V I L L E C O O K E Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Feb. 1935 Dear Sir, I suppose that you are intending to quote lines or stanzas from the poems side by side with the musical phrases of the settings. To this I make no objection whatever. I do not think that you should quote entire poems. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Virginia MS 10743-a. Envelope [?self-]addressed ‘The Rev. Greville Cooke | Crausley Vicarage | Kettering | Northants.’ Published in HSJ 3 (1977), 20, by Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV. 1 ‘Arthur Phillips, writing from Wesley College, Melbourne, … asked permission to include poems in an Anthology of English Poetry for Use in Australian Schools’: Richards, 280. 2 Epistles, 1. 20. 17–18 (addressing his book): hoc quoque te manet, ut pueros elementa docentem | occupet extremis in vicis balba senectus (‘This fate, too, awaits you, that stammering age will come upon you as you teach boys their A B C in the city’s outskirts’).

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5 March 1935

TO P E T I C A RO B E RT S O N Trinity College 22 Feb. 1935 Dear Mrs Robertson, I have great pleasure in accepting your kind invitation to dinner on March 11 at 7. 45, and will dress properly. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 2 March 1935 Dear Mr Wilson, I am very sorry to hear that you have succumbed to an attack of pleurisy, which from your account of your condition is evidently a bad one. I shall not however attempt to nurse you back to health by amusing you on your sick bed with any opinion I have of the League of Nations.1 I have just spent one day in bed myself, more to please the doctor than for anything else. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. NLS MS 15562, fo. 45r is a copy in an unidentified hand. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | Watling Villa | Willington | Co. Durham’.

TO G E O F F R E Y T I L LOTS O N Trinity College | Cambridge 5 March 1935 Dear Mr Tillotson, I return the proofs, with such misprints as I have noticed corrected. As to ‘changing any of the types’ I am not competent to have an opinion, but I think that the ‘or’ in all three titles should be in capitals.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 164. Envelope addressed ‘Geoffrey Tillotson Esq. | University College | London W. C. 1’ Maas, 368. 1 1

See AEH to Jeannie Housman, 30 Dec. 1929, and n. 2. The change was made.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 5 March 1935 Dear Sirs, In answer to your letter of yesterday’s date, you may print 5000 copies of the small edition of A Shropshire Lad. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman The Richards Press Ltd BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 181.

TO K A R L S T E I N M A N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 21 March 1935 Dear Mr Steinman, I do not move in literary circles and therefore am not qualified to answer your questions; but I may say that Cabell is much less esteemed and known than Poe and Hawthorne or even Melville, whose reputation has much increased with in my memory. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. MS inspected at Bloomsbury Book Auctions, 9 June 2006. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Karl Steinman | 2040-65th Street | Brooklyn | N. Y. | U. S. A.’

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 27 March 1935 My dear Richards, Your naval officer seems to be a person of some judgment. I am baffled by the allusion to a conversation between Gosse and Morley after Meredith’s death.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR MS. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 280. 1 ‘I remember having tea in the House of Lords, on the day of G. Meredith’s funeral, with John Morley. Morley said, ‘‘A dear fellow, and very bright, but alas! Not founded on the humanities!’’ ’: Sir Edmund Gosse to Dr Sim, 4 May 1928, The Life and Letters of Sir Edmund Gosse, by the Hon. Evan Charteris, K.C., (1931), 506. ‘My correspondent, Captain Weatherhead, had written me a letter in which Housman’s work was dealt with at some length, and had aroused Housman’s curiosity by referring to this story as ‘‘revolting’’ ’: Richards, 280 n.

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31 March 1935

TO P RO F E S S O R PAU L A . H A RWO O D Trinity College | Cambridge | England 30 March 1935 Dear Professor Harwood, I am much obliged by your kindness in writing to me as you do of my poetry. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. University of San Francisco MS. Envelope addressed ‘Professor Paul A. Harwood | Department of English | University of Nevada | Reno | Nevada | U. S. A.’

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 31 March 1935 My dear Kate, As to my precious health, about six weeks ago I had a turn of not being able to sleep lying down, and consequently four sleepless nights in succession. That soon passed away, but the result is that I am less well than I have been since I came back from France last September, in point of strength for walking and studying, and also I have not much appetite. However, owing I suppose to the magic of your letter on my birthday, I have been walking much more strongly since that date. I do not much mind things which properly belong to old age, but the nervous annoyance every morning, and undue sensitiveness to noises which I used not to mind, are extras, and do not show any sign of leaving off. My work is no tax on me, except that I have had to write the University’s Address to the King on this so-called jubilee,1 which was a worry, though there was no reason why it should be. I am very sorry that you have had trouble with your eyes, a thing which I should not like at all; and it is lucky that you could find some solace in wireless. This reminds me that the great new wireless station near Droitwich puts the apparatus at Tardebigge out of order. Jeannie wrote to me at the beginning of the year, very cheerfully and hopefully. I am glad you are occupying and amusing yourself again with your archaeology. This early and flowery spring has been pleasant here, especially the good

1 Celebrated on 6 May 1935, the twenty-fifth (not the fiftieth) anniversary of King George V’s accession. AEH’s address was printed by Cambridge University Press on 28 Apr., and published in the Cambridge University Reporter, 65. 3024 (14 May 1935), 914. Repr. in Selected Prose, 165–7.

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Letters 1927–1936

days lately, though March has been a mixed month. Our Trinity crocuses were outshone by a bed at Queens’. No more, except love from your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1. Memoir, 151–2 (incomplete); Maas, 368.

? TO T H E M A NAG E R , T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [   , |  , |  6 April 1935] Dear Sir, I don’t understand what From Ur To Rome has to do with the matter, but there seems to me no reason why the two verses from Last Poems1 should not be quoted as they propose with reference to Persia and Greece. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Text: quoted in a letter from David Randall to Seymour Adelman, 8 Nov. 1937 (BMC MS), in which he states that he has a copy of K. M. Gadd’s book, From Ur to Rome, in which is tipped-in at the front this letter from AEH.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 9 April 1935 Dear Sirs, I shall be obliged if you will send me one unbound copy of the larger edition of A Shropshire Lad. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 182.

1

From LP XXV (The Oracles), quoted on p. 131.

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12 April 1935

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 12 April 1935 My dear Jeannie, This is great and glorious news, especially when one thinks of this time last year, and I am very grateful to you for letting me know and rejoice. Please also tell Grace how glad I am that she is following your good example, or that you are following hers. It would indeed give me great pleasure to visit you again, and the beginning of July, to include the visit of Clemence and Laurence, would probably suit me very well. I am better than I was at my last visit two years ago, but I cannot expect to get rid of what is partly old age. There is a grandson of Dr George Fletcher here as an undergraduate, at his college of Clare;1 but his grandfather would not approve of him, as he has never been to see Bromsgrove. Kate wrote to me very cheerfully, about herself and her family, a fortnight ago, and Laurence also seems busy and happy. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT [Trinity College | Cambridge] 12 April 1935 I have received several guesses at the order of some or all of the stanzas,1 but I do not let the truth be known, because then everyone would begin to pretend that it was obvious to them. If I had to guess myself, I am sure I could not tell which was last and which last but one; though I think I could guess which two came first. Memoir, 207.

1 Derek George Murchison Fletcher (d. 1991). He entered Clare College from Winchester College in 1934, and was in the first year of a degree in mechanical sciences at this time. His father was Sir [Arthur George] Murchison Fletcher (1878–1954), at this time Governor of Fiji. 1 Of ASL LXIII. See AEH to Josephine Johnson, 23 Mar. 1934, and n. 1.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 15 April 1935 Dear Mr Wilson, I am very glad to hear that your health is recovering, and am pleased to have your last photograph, though it makes you look rather hollowcheeked. I have signed, and return, the 2 photographs you sent for my autograph. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | Watling Villa | Willington | Co. Durham’.

TO M I C H A E L H O L L A N D Trinity College | Cambridge 26 April 1935 Dear Mr Holland, I am quite accustomed to signing copies of my books for their possessors, which after all is not a laborious process, and I shall be happy to sign yours. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. MS viewed on ebay.com, 7 Feb. 2001. Envelope addressed ‘Michael Holland Esq. | Lullings | Balcombe | Sussex’.

TO G E O F F R E Y T I L LOTS O N Trinity College | Cambridge 28 April 1935 Dear Mr Tillotson, I am content with your proposal for the title-page, and have no ideas of my own.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 164. Envelope addressed ‘G. Tillotson Esq. | University College | London W. C. 1’. Maas, 369.

1

See AEH to Tillotson, 23 Jan. 1935, and notes.

469

4 May 1935

TO G E RA LD CH A PM A N [Trinity College | Cambridge] 30 April 1935 Dear Mr Chapman, I am flattered by your desire, but unfortunately I cannot gratify it.1 I am not able to write poetry unless it comes of its own accord: it is no use to sit down and ink a pen. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Clemens (1947), 258.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT 1 Trinity College | Cambridge 4 May 1935 Dear Sir, I thank you for sending on to me Mr Hougland’s paper, which might easily be worse. I am used to signing copies of A Shropshire Lad, and I will sign yours if you like to send with it an envelope in which it can conveniently be returned. But the edition of 1898 was printed without my supervision, and if it gets into my hands I shall correct some of the punctuation and spelling.2 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 4 May 1935 My dear Withers, I am indignant to hear what inconvenience you have been put to by your builders—what a perfidious race they are we have learnt from our experience in repairs to the College—but glad to know that the worst trouble is now over. 1 Chapman had suggested that AEH write a poem to celebrate the Jubilee of King George V in 1935: Clemens, 258. 1 Probably one of two American collectors, Harry Bacon Collamore and William C. M. Owen, whose copies of the 1898 edn., now in Lilly and BMC respectively, bear AEH’s corrections and his signature. 2 Errors in the 1898 text are documented in Poems (1997), Introduction, xxv–xxvi. As noted there, three copies of the 1898 edn. bearing AEH’s corrections survive.

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Letters 1927–1936

My sister-in-law has made a miraculous recovery and has invited not only me but one of my sisters to stay with her in the summer. I shall most likely be going there on Saturday June 29, and if I may pay you my visit in the week which ends then, that should suit me well. For the last two months and more I have been less well, physically weaker and with less mastery over my nerves. Sometimes I have found it difficult to sleep lying down, owing to a sort of failure of breathing when dozing off; but a very short use of sleeping tablets puts that right. The doctor, whenever I see him, tells me that my heart is stronger and steadier, but he always wants to see me again in a week’s or fortnight’s time. I fear I shall not be a worthy walking-companion for you, although (not to forget my blessings) I have suffered much less than usual from corns this last winter. My kind regards and thanks to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 105 (excerpt); Maas, 369–70.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 13 May 1935 Dear Sir, Many thanks for your kindness in sending me the poems of Anna Akhmatova.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 15 May 1935 My dear Richards, The Society of Authors1 worried me till I became a member and then worried me till I joined the Council, which involves no duties, or they would not have succeeded. 1 1

Russian poet (1889–1966). Founded in 1884 to look after the rights and interests of writers.

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20 May 1935

Port no longer plays such a part in my life as it once did, nor indeed any strong wine. It is probably lucky that I grow less bibulous as I grow older. Yours sincerely, A. E. Housman. BMC MS. LC-GR t.s. Envelope addressed ‘Grant Richards Esq. | 8 Regent Street | S. W. 1.’

TO G E O F F R E Y T I L LOTS O N Trinity College | Cambridge 20 May 1935 Dear Mr Tillotson, There seems to be nothing wrong with the proof which I return.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add.164. Envelope addressed ‘G. Tillotson Esq. | University College | London W C 1’.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 20 May 1935 My dear Withers, One advantage of living in this charming world is that however bad one may think one’s own lot it is always easy to find some one whose lot is worse; but I am sorry that the person to provide me with this poor sort of consolation should be you. I hope that there is no cause beyond your unsettled life in these last months, and that as this experience recedes you will grow better. Cambridge is at its best just now except for this ferocious cold. I have not heard whether the fruit is ruined in Worcestershire as it seems to be in Kent. I look forward to seeing you after midsummer. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman SCO MS. Withers, 105–6 (excerpt); Maas, 370.

1

See AEH to Tillotson, 23 Jan. 1935, and notes.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 21 May 1935 Dear Sirs, Although I have no recollection of giving Messrs Putnam permission to print the poem IX from Last Poems in Mr Gray’s Shoulder the Sky,1 I suppose I must have done so; and, if so, there is no reason why it should /not/ be printed in the English edition, as in respect of Last Poems the two countries are on the same footing. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 183–4.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 22 May 1935 Dear Sir, The first edition of A Shropshire Lad was 500 copies. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 1 June 1935 My dear Kate, The term is over, so far as I am concerned, but I shall be staying here for the present. I have not heard lately from Jeannie, but if all goes well I am engaged to go there for a fortnight on the 29th , and I shall probably leave here some days earlier to pay a visit near Edgehill. I expect to go to France for three weeks about Aug. 20. In the last three months I am decidedly weaker, and the doctor does not want me to take walks of much more than a mile, but I do not humour 1 James Gray’s novel, Shoulder The Sky (1935). The British edn. was published by Chapman and Hall. LP IX is printed as an epigraph to the novel, whose four parts are named after phrases in AEH’s poem (‘There’s an End of May’, ‘Our Sentenced Souls’, ‘And Mar the Merriment’, ‘Proud and Angry Dust’).

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1 June 1935

him to that extent. I have a certain amount of swelling of the ankles, which does not at all interfere with walking; this is the dropsical condition which often arises when the heart is not equal to its job. My kidneys on the other hand, if such details interest you, are supposed to be extremely healthy. The nervous annoyance every morning goes on with little variation. I hope that you have not had any recurrence of the eye-trouble you mentioned when you last wrote, and that you enjoyed the visit of your progeny at Easter. The frosts seem to have injured the fruit in the Vale of Pershore as badly as in Kent, but I hope that Tardebigge, being on higher ground, may have suffered less. Here many of the flowering trees have had their looks spoilt. Love from your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 67 – 8 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 1 June 1935 My dear Jeannie, Here is June beginning, and I must write to say that I hope you are still going on as well as when you wrote to me in April, and that Grace also is keeping her health. I have been weaker during these last months, and the doctor does not approve of my walking much; and though this would once have annoyed me very much, I am now willing to oblige him. But I am hoping to come to you, if you are well enough when the time comes, on Saturday June 29 for a fortnight, as the idea was, and to meet Clemence and Laurence. I hear that the frosts did a great deal of harm to fruit in the Vale of Pershore, but I hope that Tardebigge, being on higher ground, may have suffered less. I hope too that your family has not suffered either from frost or from any other ill. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. Private MS.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO M I C H A E L H O L L A N D Trinity College | Cambridge 1 June 1935 Dear Mr Holland, It is very good of you to reward me1 so lavishly, and the bottle of 1815 sherry is a gift which I greatly appreciate. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. MS viewed at ebay.com, 7 Feb. 2001. Envelope addressed ‘Michael Holland Esq. | Lullings | Balcombe | Sussex’.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 1 June 1935 Dear Sirs, Mr Glanville Hicks1 is at liberty so far as I am concerned to broadcast a musical setting of With rue my heart is laden. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 186.

TO J O H N M A S E F I E L D Trinity College | Cambridge 3 June 1935 Dear Masefield, Let me congratulate you very heartily on your Order of Merit. When I wrote to congratulate Bridges I was obliged to condole with him at the same time for having an unworthy companion;1 but Gowland

1

See AEH to Holland, 26 Apr. 1935. In fact, Peggy Glanville Hicks (1912–90), Australian-born composer and critic. She moved to London, 1931, where she won a Carlotta Rowe scholarship at the Royal College of Music. Her settings of five of AEH’s poems published in 1952 were of MP VII, XII, XXIX, and XXXVI, and of AP VII, and so With rue my heart is laden was not among them. 1 See the letter of 23 June 1929. 1

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9 June 1935

Hopkins2 and I presume also Vaughan Williams3 are proper recipients of the honour like yourself. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BCD: The Journal of the Book Club of Detroit, 3. 1 (Spring 1978), 23–4, with ‘console’ corrected to ‘condole’.

TO H E NRY TO NK S Trinity College | Cambridge 9 June 1935 Dear Tonks, I am always glad to get a letter from you; but the few people pretending to artistic taste or knowledge whom I know here belong to schools which do not much revere the Pre-Raphaelites, and some of them think that the affair is Oxford’s job.1 For my own part, when I remember how much defaced the frescoes were more than fifty years ago, I think that restoration could not avoid being falsification, and something like restoring Leonardo’s Last Supper. I have not come across Cockerell lately, and I have not applied to him, as I understand that he is likely to be out of humour with the Pre-Raphaelities, the Fitzwilliam Syndicate having recently bought a Holman Hunt against his wish.2 Did you ever hear the story that Rossetti, having been rebuked by Holman Hunt for his loose living, affected to believe that Hunt had been unduly intimate with the Scape-goat, and that Hunt drew up and circulated a formal denial of the scandal?3 2 Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (1861–1947), praelector in biochemistry at TCC, 1910–21, Professor of Biochemistry, 1914, and Sir William Dunn Professor at Cambridge, 1921–43, was awarded the OM in 1935. 3 The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) was awarded the OM in 1935 (and elected an honorary fellow of TCC in the same year). 1 The Times, 17 May 1935, 12, printed a letter of appeal to ‘Oxford men throughout the Empire’ for £500 to restore the mural paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and others in the library of the Oxford Union Society. It was signed by Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, Archbishop of York, John Simon, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, Viscount Cecil, John Buchan, J. P. Hickerton, William Rothenstein, and Hugh Molson. Henry Tonks’s letter of protest at the poor response appeared in The Times, 31 May 1935, 12. 2 A portrait of Cyril B. Holman Hunt by William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists in 1848. 3 Holman Hunt’s painting The Scapegoat was completed in 1855 and exhibited in 1856.

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Letters 1927–1936

I hope you are well. I am suffering from what no doubt is partly old age and only partly heart. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Texas MS. Maas, 371.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 9 June 1935 My dear Laurence, Since the end of February I have grown much weaker, and more liable to shortness of breath and occasional thumping of the heart. The doctor does not want me to take walks of much more than a mile, and I myself am often inclined not to do much more than twice that amount. I still go up my 44 stairs1 two at a time, but that is in hopes of dropping dead at the top. As a tour in Yorkshire would be very pointless unless one could walk a fair amount, and up steeper gradients than those of Cambridgeshire, I no longer cherish the idea: otherwise it would have been very pleasant. I may be going to France in the autumn, but there I should be chiefly in towns. I saw some notices, generally favourable, of your Palace Plays,2 and I am glad that the acting satisfied you and that there is a promising future for them in our revolted colonies.3 Apparently Kate will be at Shrewsbury while we are at Bromsgrove. Love to Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 118 (excerpt) and 189; Maas, 370–1 (both incomplete).

1

To his rooms on staircase K, Whewell’s Court, TCC. Produced as Victoria Regina at the Gate Theatre, London, 1 May 1935. 3 ‘A highly successful American production opened six months later at the Broadhurst Theatre, New York’: Maas, 371 n. 2

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15 June 1935

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 14 June 1935 My dear Withers, You do not give me proper information about your own health, and how far you have managed to surmount the treachery of insulin;1 but I hope that no news is good news. I am due at my sister-in-law’s on Saturday June 29, and there is a meeting of adjudicators of prizes which I ought to attend here on Monday the 24th , so I propose to come to you on Tuesday the 25th. if that will suit. I should lunch at Buckingham, and ought to reach you between 3 and 4. For travelling on into Worcestershire I should need to have a car bespoken as you kindly propose. I had better leave your house about 2. 30. My destination is half-way between Bromsgrove and Redditch, which are 5 miles apart, and the chauffeur had better choose whichever route he may be better acquainted with. De la Mare was here yesterday receiving an honorary degree:2 he spoke to me of you, and seemed very well. Kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 15 June 1935 My dear Laurence, Your idea of staying here with your car in the second week of August attracts me, as just now I am having very unpleasant nights and hardly feel courageous enough to contemplate a tour. You could of course have all your meals with me, but I could not with certainty offer you lodging for more than three consecutive nights, as we are not allowed to engage the Guest Room for more than three days at once. If nobody else wanted it, 1 Perhaps a reference to the decreased ability of insulin to induce glucose molecules from the blood, resulting in high blood glucose. 2 The poet Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) was awarded an honorary Litt. D. by Cambridge University on 13 June. He also received honorary degrees from Oxford, St Andrews, Bristol, and London.

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Letters 1927–1936

I could prolong the occupation a day at a time, but there would be the risk of interruption. You have probably seen Ely and perhaps Peterborough, but there are a lot of good churches (of which I know only some) within reach of a car, and some quite nice country too. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Memoir, 190.

TO M I C H A E L H O L L A N D Trinity College | Cambridge 15 June 1935 Dear Mr Holland, In spite of your prohibition I must thank you for your kindness in sending me End of Roaming.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS. Reproduced in Paul C. Richards, Autographs. Inspected on ebay.com, 5 Sept. 2000. Envelope addressed ‘Michael Holland Esq. | Lullings | Balcombe | Sussex’.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS    , |  , | . 18 June 1935 My dear Withers, I am grateful for the information in your letter, though I wish it were more cheerful. The doctor has sent me here ‘for a fortnight or perhaps a week’. I hope for the latter, but even so I am afraid I should not be able to come to you before Wednesday the 26th . In the state in which I have been for the last week I could not have gone to stay in yours or any man’s house. You probably know all about Cheyne-Stokes breathing, described in Arnold Bennet’s1 Clayhanger:2 sleepless nights spent in recurrent paroxysms of 1 By Alexander Kinnan Laing (1931). The title is from LP XXXIX 31: ‘So here’s an end of roaming’. 1 For ‘Bennett’s’. 2 Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR), after the physicians John Cheyne (1777–1836) and William Stokes (1804–78), is abnormal respiration, often seen in comatose patients, characterized by

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failure of breath, which can be combated if one is broad awake but which overwhelm one if one dozes. Last night they conquered it with morphia and I slept long and almost continuously, but to day3 I have been rather sick in consequence, and the treatment is to be varied, with oxygen in readiness as a second string. The specific trouble has not yet recurred to-day. If I were in proper health I should at this moment be representing Cambridge at the tercentenary of the French Academy.4 Kind regards and excuses to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Pencil. Withers, 106 (excerpt); Maas, 371–2.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N [   , |  , | .] 18 June 1935 My dear Laurence, So far as I can see the dates you propose would suit me equally; but I have been sent here ‘for a fortnight or perhaps a week’ by reason of Cheyne-Stokes breathing, described in Arnold Bennett’s Clayhanger where it is an embellishment of the death-bed of the hero’s father.1 They are getting the better of it with morphia, and I slept last night. If I were in proper health I should at this moment be representing Cambridge at the tercentenary of the French Academy.2 Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Memoir, 190.

alternating shallow and deep breathing. In ch. 16 of Arnold Bennett’s Clayhanger (1910), Darius suffers from it in the late stages of his fatal illness: ‘Darius breathed like a blown dog that has fallen. He snatched furiously at breath like a tiger snatching at meat.’ 3 No hyphen. 4 The prestigious Académie Française, the literary academy founded by Cardinal de Richelieu in 1634 and incorporated in 1635. 1 2 See note 1 on the previous letter. See note 4 on the previous letter.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO E L L A E . C L A R K Trinity College | Cambridge | England1 23 June 1935 Dear Miss Clark, My book A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in the United States and you do not need my permission to print poems from it in your anthology;2 nor should any acknowledgement be made. I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Washington State University MS.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS    , |  , | . 23 June 1935 My dear Withers, Your proposal to fetch me is very kind, and though I am ashamed to accept it its simplicity is an element which adds to its attraction, as relieving me of thought. But I cannot yet fix a day with certainty. I have written to my sister-in-law suggesting to postpone for a few days my visit to her, which was to have been next Saturday; and I want you to tell me whether it would be less inconvenient to you for me to come to you, say, on Friday, or a fortnight later, on my return to Cambridge. This of course may possibly be quite inconsistent with your engagements. My heart does not trouble me, but this breathing makes my nights unquiet and has to be countered by drugs; and there is no prospect of a real cure. Kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman SCO MS. Pencil. Maas, 372.

1 He was in fact still in the Evelyn Nursing Home, but did not wish to have correspondence addressed to him there. 2 Poetry; an Interpretation of Life (1935)

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1 July 1935

TO G E O F F R E Y T I L LOTS O N    , |  , | . 24 June 1935 Dear Mr Tillotson, I believe I have not yet thanked you for the six copies of Three Poems which I have received from you since the doctor sent me here. I must therefore do so without delay, and add, though I am no judge, that they look very nice to me. I certainly shall not crave for any more. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman UCL MS Add. 164. Pencil. Envelope addressed ‘Geoffrey Tillotson Esq. | University College | London W. C. 1’ in ink. Postmarked 25 June 1935. Maas, 372–3.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D    , |  , | . 25 June 1935 Dear Sirs, I regularly allow the publication of my poems in volumes of translations such as that which Mr Crace is preparing, and he may have permission for Soldier from the wars returning and Wake not for the world-heard thunder. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman SIU MS VFM 1082. Pencil. Clemens (1941), 15, where ‘Richardson’ is wrongly given for ‘Crace’.

TO P RO F E S S O R D ’ A RC Y T H O M P S O N as from Trinity College | Cambridge 1 July 1935 My dear D’Arcy Thompson, I am sorry to think of your visit to the nursing home, and all in vain, but it was very kind of you. I am now passing from house to house of friends and relations, and improving more or less. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. St Andrews MS 23601. Envelope addressed ‘Professor D’Arcy Thompson | The University | St Andrews’.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO M A RY W I TH E RS Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove 3 July 1935 Dear Mrs Withers, I was glad to hear that you said I seemed happy while with you, for indeed the fact was so, and everything conspired to give me peace and enjoyment, and I make warm returns of thanks to you and your husband for your care and kindness.1 I find my sister-in-law apparently little weaker than when I stayed here two years ago. I noticed the celebrated kennels as I passed them, and saw Michael at his work. Yours with every good wish and thought A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 114 (excerpt); Maas, 373.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Lower House | Tardebigge | Bromsgrove 8 July 1935 Dear Sirs, Mr Stanley Casson and his publishers are at liberty to reprint in his book one verse or the four verses of No. XXXV of A Shropshire Lad 1 if they feel sure that they can spell my name correctly.2 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 189.

1 Withers, 108–9, recalls AEH’s astonishing ‘vitality, high spirits, and good companionship’ over dinner with the President of Magdalen College, Oxford, George Stuart Gordon (1881–1942), and his wife. 1 Casson’s wartime memoirs Steady Drummer: Reminiscences of the Macedonian Campaign of 1916–1918 (Messrs G. Bell & Sons Ltd, 1935), which takes its title from ASL XXXV 3, printed the first three verses of the poem as an epigraph. 2 They had mis-spelt his name in their letter requesting permission.

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TO E . H . W. M E Y E R S T E I N as from Trinity College | Cambridge 11 July 1935 Dear Sir, I am obliged to you for sending me your Selected Poems,1 but the request with which you accompany them, and with which many writers do accompany their gifts, puts me, as I always feel, in an invidious position, the more so as I do not imagine myself to possess more than ordinary judgment in literary criticism. The octave of the sonnet on John Selden struck me as just and weighty in thought and as apt and impressive in language.2 Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Clemens (1947), 260.

TO G E O F F R E Y T I L LOTS O N Trinity College | Cambridge 17 July 1935 Dear Mr Tillotson, As I have been unwell lately, and part of the time in bed, my correspondence has been somewhat neglected, and I am apprehensive that I may have omitted to thank you for the six copies of Parallelogram etc. which you were kind enough to send me.1 The typography, though I am not competent to judge it, seems to me agreeable. The third line on p. 8 ought to begin a new paragraph. This has probably gone wrong because the proofs were sent to me in two detached parts, and not simultaneously. I am much behoven to you and your associates for squandering your pains on what Martial I am afraid would call ‘difficiles nugas’2 adding perhaps ‘stultus labor est ineptiarum’3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCL MS Add. 164. Envelope addressed ‘Geoffrey Tillotson Esq. | University College | London W. C. 1’ Maas, 373. 1

Published by Macmillan & Co, 1935. As one who, when the leaves are due to fall, | Revealing girth of branch and depth of bark, | Plods curiously through a stout-timbered park, | Admiring all, yet nowise bond to all, | Until uprises, as a curtain-wall, | Advance forbidding, some gigantic mark, | Elm, oak, or chestnut, of its nature dark, | That halts, then holds him a bemusèd thrall. 1 He had not in fact forgotten: see the letter of 24 June 1935. 2 ‘Difficult trifles’. 3 ‘Foolish is the labour spent on puerilities’. Epigrams, 2. 86. 9–10. 2

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Letters 1927–1936

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 17 July 1935 My dear Jeannie, The day was just right for the journey, and I got home without anything to spoil the happy effects of my stay with you, which has given me just what I needed; and I am most grateful to you for you kindness and for the care which you took for my ease and comfort. I only hope that you did not put yourself to more trouble than you ought, and that I shall see you next year without finding you the worse in health. With love to Grace I remain indebted to you both and indeed to all your family, including the rightful owner of the coat. Yours always affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Having written this letter I remember that you wrote me another with kind plans for me in connexion with Jerry, but I cannot lay hands on it.

Trinity College | Cambridge 19 July 1935

My dear Kate, It was very pleasant to see you again, and I was glad that we were able to manage it, and in such pleasant circumstances.1 Jeannie’s recovery seems miraculous, and except that she does not come down to breakfast I can see no difference between now and two years ago. I don’t think I ever congratulated you on all the news in your last letter, such as the King’s favouritism towards your three sons,2 and the demand for your historical work in America.

1 ‘At Tardebigge, where we all met for the last time in June, 1935’: KES’s note written on the MS. 2 ‘My sons each received the Jubilee Medal for 25 years’ service in the reign of George V’: KES’s note written on the MS. Confirmed by her note in a copy of LH’s Memoir inspected at Sotheby’s, 4 Nov. 2001.

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I enclose a copy of the address to the King3 which you wanted to see. I have been complimented to an absurd extent, but not enough to repay me for the bother of composing it. Laurence is going to bring his car and driver here on Aug. 11 and stay for a week. I expect to go to France on Aug. 27 for about 3 weeks. I hope that you have pleasure ahead of you at your sea-side residence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. Memoir, 152 (incomplete); Maas, 374 (with headnote at end).

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 21 July 1935 Dear Mr Clemens, I was ill when your letter about Mark Twain’s centenary1 reached me, and I am afraid that even now I cannot make a contribution to its celebration. However, I hope and expect that you will receive no dearth of worthy matter. The Clemence Housman about whom you ask is my sister. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. I return as requested the tribute enclosed in your letter. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Cyril Clemens | President Mark Twain Society | Webster Groves | Missouri | U. S. A.’

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 July 1935 My dear Withers, Your proposals are overwhelmingly kind, and I shall gratefully bear them in mind, even though I may not stir myself up to taking advantage of them. I continued in Worcestershire the tranquil laziness of Epwell,1 and I am rested though not strong. My brother is coming here in the 2nd week of 3 1 1

See AEH to KES, 31 Mar. 1935. Twain was born on 30 Nov. 1835. Withers’s house, Epwell Mill, near Banbury, Warwickshire.

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Letters 1927–1936

August to motor in this neighbourhood for a few days. All kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS.

TO E R N E S T H A R R I S O N Trinity College 25 July 1935 Dear Harrison, I do not dispute the opinion of the Registry that Mr A. E. Houseman better answers the description; but after all the name on the envelope was mine and not his.1 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS a. 723(19) .

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 27 July 1935 My dear Richards, J. and W. Chester Ld. can have the permission they ask for When I was one-and-twenty, but they should give the publishers’ name correctly, or rather they should omit it, as the publishers are not entitled to give permission. Thanks for Gastronomic Italy which is interesting and instructive. The Wines of Italy contains much inappropriate language. The continuation of my life beyond May 1933 was a regrettable mistake, and the bright side of the weakening of my health since the end of February is that it encourages me to hope for an earlier termination of the affair. The heart is regarded by the doctor as the chief culprit, but partly it is just old age and partly a nervous disorder. I have been passing a quiet three weeks in the country. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. LC-GR t.s. Richards, 280. 1 A letter addressed ‘Poet A. E. Housman, Esq., | c/o Cambridge University, | Cambridge, England’ had been mistakenly redirected by the university Registrar to a Mr A. E. Houseman, who sent it on to AEH.

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7 August 1935

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 July 1935 My dear Richards, It is kind of you to suggest coming to see me, but I think I am best left alone, though Laurence will be here for a week in the middle of August. At the end I think of going to France for three weeks, which last year seemed to do me some good. So many people have worse troubles than mine that I am ashamed to dwell on them; but the recurrence of disquiet and agitation every morning is wearisome and disheartening. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman LC-GR t.s. Richards, 281 (dated as 30 June); Maas, 374.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 3 Aug. 1935 Dear Sirs, I do not give my consent to the use of the two poems by Mr J. W. Cunliffe. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Richards Press Ltd BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 195.

TO R. WINDLE Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Aug. 1935 Dear Sir, I shall be pleased to sign and correct your copy of A Shropshire Lad if you will send it with an envelope suitable for returning it. Yours very truly, A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45. Envelope addressed ‘R.Windle Esq. | 70 Brammeston Road | Beckenham | Kent’.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 7 Aug. 1935 Dear Gow, I should like very much to dine with you on Tuesday, and so I am sure would my brother. But he is not likely to have evening things with him, and he has already left his home. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 112 51 . Maas, 375.

TO P E T I C A RO B E RT S O N Trinity College 7 Aug. 1935 Dear Mrs Robertson, I should have been delighted to lunch with you on Tuesday and meet Miss Bacon, but next week my brother will be staying with me and we shall be motoring about the country. Thanks and regrets. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 17 Aug. 1935 My dear Witter Bynner, Many thanks for your kindness in sending me your Guest Book,1 which I find lively and varied. I am afraid that I cannot make the inadequate return of sending the early nonsense given you by Laurence, as I do not know what it was. I have written a great deal of nonsense,2 and the other members of my family remember more of it than I do.

1

Poems, published in 1935.

2

See Poems (1997), 189–285.

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22 August 1935

Kimball Flaccus3 impressed me as a very agreeable and good-looking young man. With best wishes I am Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/29. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | 342 Buena Vista Road | Santa Fe | New Mexico | U. S. A.’ and redirected to Hotel Seymour | 50 W. 45th St. | New York City. Bynner/Haber (1957), 33.

TO M R A RNO LD Trinity College | Cambridge 17 Aug. 1935 Dear Mr Arnold, Only very seldom, and not for many years past, have I read papers, so I hope you will not much mind if I decline your proposal. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Aug. 1935 My dear Kate, I am leaving here on Monday afternoon, sleeping at Croydon, and crossing next day by the plane which starts thence at 9. 30 p.m.;1 so do not distress yourself about the fate of any other. I expect to come back on Sept. 17, till which date I shall have no fixed address. I am going to Dauphiné and Savoy. This heat is rather trying, and I hope it will not keep on in France as it did in 1933. Laurence’s visit here was a pleasant 5 days, and we covered a good deal of ground and saw many churches. He says that Clemence was much the better for her visit to you. Love from your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 69 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. 3 1

See List of Recipients. He means a.m.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Aug. 1935 Dear Sirs, Dr Nicholls is at liberty to publish his settings of the poems he has selected except LXII, which would be absurd as a song. I do not object to his combining LVIII with LIX. Perhaps he had better be told that many of them have been set by other composers, and XIII by a considerable number.1 Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 203–4. Clemens (1941), 15 (nearly complete).

TO B E R NA R D F R E C H K M A N [Trinity College | Cambridge | England 24 August 1935] Dear Sir, The line ‘When lads were home from labour’ is an open imitation of Corbett.1 I have many such things: for instance, in another poem, ‘When I from hence away am past’ from the Lyke-Wake Dirge.2 I thank you for the terms of your letter. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Clemens (1947), 259, slightly amended.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Lyon, 28 Aug. 1935. I have given myself a nasty knock on the head in entering a taxi. I went to a hospital and had the wound sewn up and bandaged, (and also, to ease your anxiety, took an injection against tetanus), and it will require medical attention off and on for some eight days. It does not prevent me from getting about; the pain is not much, and the mosquitoes annoy me much more. Do not expect bulletins: death or 1 The poems, all from ASL, are: LXII (‘Terence, this is stupid stuff’, 76 lines long), LVIII (When I came last to Ludlow), LIX (The Isle of Portland), and XIII (When I was one-and-twenty). 1 Richard Corbett (1582–1635), The Fairies’ Farewell, 21: ‘When Tom was home from Labour’, imitated in LP XLI 1. 2 ASL LIII 9, imitating line 5 of the ballad, ‘When thou from hence away art past’.

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grave illness will be duly notified to you and the Head Porter of Trinity. I am going to Grenoble tomorrow. A. E. H. Pencil because no ink is handy. TCC Add. MS c. 50 71 : p.c. written in pencil, addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth | Angleterre’, and redirected to Miss Housman, Longmeadow, Street, Somerset. Maas, 375.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Annency (Savoie) | Splendid Hôtel 3 Sept. 1935 My dear Kate, In this pretty spot and comfortable hotel I shall probably stay at least 4 days; but do not go writing just to say that you are sorry for the top of my head. On the 13th I shall return to the Hôtel Savoie, Grenoble, Isère, and letters addressed there will be kept for me. My head is healing so well that it makes doctors exclaim. I ought perhaps to add that I am weaker than usual, but that may be due to eating too much. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. The weather has been good except the first day. TCC Add. MS c. 50 72 . Maas, 375.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Sept. 1935 Dear Mr Wilson, I have just come back from France, and must lose no time in thanking you for the pretty gift of the fruit-knife, though probably I shall use it more for cutting books. I am afraid that I do not at all know how many copies of A Shropshire Lad have been sold. Of editions in the proper sense I suppose there have been between half-a-dozen and a dozen: it has been stereotyped in two forms for many years past, and batches of 5000 or so are printed as required. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | Watling Villa | Willington | Co. Durham’.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Sept. 1935 My dear Kate, I came back on Tuesday, a very unpleasant journey. I had to wait 3 hours at Le Bourget before the aeroplane could make up its mind to face the wind, and the transit was more than 25 minutes above the scheduled time. The machine was not particularly unsteady, except in taking off and in landing. My three weeks were almost uninterruptedly fine, and the scenery very striking; and the works of man, in the engineering of roads up and over the hills, as striking as those of nature. I crossed the frontier of Switzerland and went round the lake of Geneva, which is too much surrounded by human habitations. From several spots I had good views of Mont Blanc, and saw it turn rose-colour in the sunset. I do not expect to go abroad again. Comparing this year with last I have been conscious of the decline of vigour and capacity which is the sign of old age and not of anything specific like heart or nerves. My head has healed very well, but as it was partly shaved at the hospital I shall have to wear a skull-cap for some time. I have discovered that skull-caps are unknown in France, and I had to get myself what is called a calotte, a taller affair. [Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman.] TCC Add. MS c. 50 73 – 4 . The end of the MS is missing. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 20 September 1935 My dear Richards,] I came back from France through the tempestuous air of Tuesday. I am, if anything, weaker than ever, though I had a good deal of enjoyment in Dauphiné and Savoy. Three poems, supposed to be humorous, which I contributed anonymously to the Students’ magazine at University College, have recently been

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reprinted in a private and very limited edition by the English school there.1 The poems which Laurence recites are mostly juvenile. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 281.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Sept. 1935 My dear Withers, To allay your kind anxiety I had better begin by saying that the doctor paid me an uninvited visit this morning and told me that I was very well. In point of fact I am rather weaker than before I went abroad; but the tour itself was pleasant, and the scenery of Dauphiné and Savoy more magnificent than I had guessed; and the works of man, in the engineering of roads up and over the hills, rival the works of God. From several points I had good views of Mont Blanc, and saw it turn rose-colour in the sunset. There are also many good restaurants, and some excellent Rhone wine. On the first day, at Lyons, I knocked my head very hard in getting into a taxi. I went to a hospital and had the wound sewn up and bandaged, which was done very well, and it has healed so /quickly/ that doctors exclaim at it. It did not interfere with my movements, and I continued in the same taxi the outing I had planned for the day. I had a disagreeable journey home from Paris on Tuesday, as I had to wait 3 hours at Le Bourget before the aeroplane could pluck up courage to start, and the crossing was 25 minutes longer than usual. The machine was not particularly unsteady, except in taking off and landing. I now have my hands full, and see no prospect of taking advantage of your kind invitation. I hope you for your part are well. Thanks and kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman SCO MS. Withers, 115–16 (summary and excerpts); Maas, 376.

1 ‘On September 18, 1935, I wrote to Housman that ‘‘one Willard Hougland’’ has asked me, on the note-paper of ‘‘the bookman’s club, kansas city, missouri’’, a question: ‘‘Have you heard of the humourous poems of A. E. Housman? Do you think they will ever find their way into print?’’ ’: Richards, 281. On the publication of Housman’s comic verses at UCL, see AEH to Tillotson, 23 Jan. 1935.

494

Letters 1927–1936

TO L I L LY F R A Z E R Trinity College | Cambridge 26 Sept. 1935 Dear Lady Frazer, It is very kind of you to send me news of you both, though I wish you were able to give a better report of Sir James. What you tell me about the recent sales of his works is pleasant to hear. No doubt, as you say, they give only temporary cheer to the author; but the fame to which they are a testimony must have something like the effect of a mattress to lie on, keeping one from contact with the cold hard ground. You know that it would be a pleasure to me to give him pleasure; but translating the essay on Renan1 is a task beyond me. I have never undertaken any job unless I thought that I could perform it to my own satisfaction; and I am not skilful in translation and have always avoided it as much as possible.2 Moreover my strength and spirits are now barely sufficient for my own proper work. My life ought to have come to an end more than two years ago: age and weakness of heart in combination cause me to spend my days in fatigue and somnolence, except for periods after meals, and I often feel as if I had no marrow in my bones. I ventured abroad for three weeks and have not long returned from Savoy and Dauphiné, where I had a pleasant tour with a helpful companion; though I did myself no good by banging my head, on getting into a taxi, so hard that I had to resort to the excellent and adjacent Hôtel Dieu of Lyons to have the wound sewn up. There seem to be no skull-caps in France, so I got a calotte for indoor wear: this seems to be becoming, and made my companion say that I might be taken for a great scholar. Please give my affectionate good wishes to Sir James. Putting together your secrecy about your address and the post-mark S. W. I suspect that you are making a stay at Buckingham Palace.3 Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. 1 Frazer’s Sur Ernest Renan (Paris, 1923), repr. in Garnered Sheaves (1931), comprised two addresses in French to the Ernest Renan Society. 2 J. D. Duff to E. H. Blakeney, 16 Mar. 1931 (BL Add. MS 48980, fo. 57): ‘I asked Housman lately whether he would ever translate Manilius for us … He said that he never would, that he loathed the business of translating. Yet he translates very well in lecture.’ Duff ’s letter is published and fully annotated in Naiditch (1995), 44–7. AEH’s published translations of passages from Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in A. W. Pollard’s Odes from the Greek Dramatists (1890), of Horace, Odes 4. 7 in The Quarto in 1897 (repr. as MP V), of part of the traditional French song Nous n’irons plus au bois as the epigraph to LP, and his versions of Heine in LP XXX and of Sappho in MP X and XI, should all be borne in mind. 3 The Frazers were at the Ecclestone Hotel, Ecclestone Square (BL Add. MS 55150, fo. 182).

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27 September 1935

The ‘Sedgwick elm’ in the round-about was blown down at last in the storm of the 16th . Could he not translate the Renan himself? No one could do it so well. TCC Frazer MS 18 96(1, 2) .

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 27 Sept. 1935 Dear Mr Martin, Your questions, though frivolous, are not indecent, so I suppose I must humour you. I do not admire the oracle poem1 quite so much as some people do. The italics, as elsewhere, are equivalent to inverted commas, and give the supposed words of the oracle. Alterations were made by the printer in the 2nd edition of A Shropshire Lad.2 The proofs were not sent to me for correction. I certainly shall not issue my preface to Manilius separately. The Introductory Lecture of 1892 was reprinted in 1933 by two young men named John Carter and John Sparrow in an edition of 100 copies, not for sale. I shall not reprint it. Hardy and I never talked about my poems. I think it was Mrs Hardy who told me his opinion.3 Certainly I have never regretted the publication of my poems. The reputation which they brought me, though it gives me no lively pleasure, is something like a mattress interposed between me and the hard ground. The lectures I care very little about. With all good wishes for your health and sanity I am yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Martin (1937), 302–3; Maas, 376–7.

1 3

2 The Oracles (LP XXV). See Poems (1997), Introduction, xxv–xxvi. See AEH to Martin, 28 Mar. 1933.

496

Letters 1927–1936

TO M I S S C RO M P TO N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 2 Oct. 1935 Dear Miss Crompton, I always decline the task of criticising other people’s poems, which is invidious, and for which I am not well qualified. I am obliged by the terms of your letter, and I acknowledge that your manuscript is not voluminous. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO N E I L S O N A B E E L Trinity College | Cambridge | England 4 Oct. 1935 Dear Mr Abeel, My heart always warms to people who do not come to see me, especially Americans, to whom it seems to be more of an effort;1 and your preference of the Cam to the Hudson, which I have always understood to be one of the finest rivers, is also an ingratiating trait.2 If you think this note is a reward, I shall be pleased. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Gen. MSS. Misc.). Envelope addressed ‘Mr Neilson Abeel | The American-Scandinavian Foundation | 116 East Sixty-Fourth Street | New York | U. S. A.’ Forum, 96 (1936), 193; Princeton University Library Chronicle, 13. 1 (1951), 18–19; Maas, 377.

1 ‘I had written that, although I had been in Cambridge every summer for ten years past, I had never tried to see him’: Abeel, op. cit., 19. 2 Abeel, loc. cit.: ‘I added that I came to perform my ablutions in the River Cam in the same spirit in which the pious Hindu approaches the Ganges.’

497

12 October 1935

TO P RO F E S S O R A . S. P E A S E Trinity College | Cambridge | England 12 Oct. 1935 Dear Professor Pease, I hasten to thank you for your great kindness in sending me the copy which I have just received of your opulent edition of the Fourth Aeneid;1 and I congratulate you on the successful completion of so great and exacting a task. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Harvard MS: autograph file: Housman.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 12 Oct. 1935 Dear Mr Wilson, Many thanks for your book and photograph. No portion of The Immortal Part 1 has been set to music. Yours very truly A. E. Housman BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | Watling Villa | Willington | Co. Durham’.

TO W I T T E R B Y N N E R Trinity College | Cambridge | England 12 Oct. 1935 My dear Witter Bynner, I shall not do anything to enable you to get hold of the nonsense verses you mention, and if they dwell in Laurence’s too retentive memory I shall not authorise him to communicate them to you. He is bringing out a volume of reminiscences early next year, in which I have allowed

1 Publi Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber quartus, ed. Arthur Stanley Pease (Harvard University Press, 1935). 1 ASL XLIII.

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Letters 1927–1936

him to print a piece which is rather better.1 His address is Longmeadow, Street, Somerset. With best wishes I am Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Harvard MS Eng 1071/30. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Witter Bynner | 342 Buena Vista Road | Santa Fe | New Mexico | U. S. A.’ Bynner/Haber (1957), 34; Maas, 377.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 15 Oct. 1935 Dear Gow, As I am encouraged to hope that the Classical Board will grant my request that I may be allowed to /nominate/ a deputy to examine for the University Scholarships and Chancellor’s Medals I write to ask whether you think that you could come to my assistance in this capacity. I would rather it were you than anyone else, and I have ascertained that you are not being nominated as one of the appointed examiners or as the Vice Chancellor’s deputy. On the other hand you are not a young married man, with greed for your ruling passion, and have probably more than enough to do already, and are no more inclined to undertake the job for the money than I myself should be if I were in your place. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 11252 . Maas, 378.

TO A . S. F. G OW Trinity College 16 Oct. 1935 My dear Gow, I should not think of urging you, nor of making it a question of you or me; and I should not have taken any step towards nominating a deputy before I had the permission of the Board unless I had heard that you had 1 AEH’s At the door of my own little hovel is printed in LH’s The Unexpected Years (1937), 97–8, and previously printed by LH in John O’ London’s Weekly 36. 913 (9 Oct. 1936), 40 and in the American edn. of The Unexpected Years (1936), 86. LH reported to Bynner that AEH was ‘not seriously annoyed’ that he (LH) had divulged some nonsense verse: Bynner/Haber, 35.

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19 October 1935

not been snapped up, which made me anxious not to miss the chance if there was one. It will be proper for me to delay my arrival at the meeting to-morrow till after the 4th item of agenda. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11253 . Maas, 378.

TO W. B. Y E ATS Trinity College | Cambridge 19 Oct. 1935 Dear Mr Yeats, It would naturally be a pleasure to me to meet any wish of yours, and therefore I am vexed by my present situation. Some thirty years ago requests to include pieces from A Shropshire Lad in anthologies had become so disproportionate to the meagreness of my output that I began to refuse my consent, and this practice I have ever since maintained, alleging an inflexible rule, so that I cannot now desert it without breach of faith. (In America the book is not copyright, and I have no say in the matter.) As regards my later volume, which is more meagre still, I have tried to discourage anthologists, partly by that consideration and partly on the ground that there are far too many anthologies in the world already, but have not laid down a rule. I am however unwilling to countenance an anthology which by its very conception allots so much importance to Hopkins, not chiefly because I myself regard him as a moth blundering round a candle but from a craven fear of being some day made to look foolish if, for instance, posterity decides that Doughty was the epoch maker.1 I thank you for your civility, and am sorry not only that I am not answering as you are good enough to desire but also that I have had to trouble you with this explanation. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Letters to W. B. Yeats, ed. Richard J. Finneran, George Mills Harper, and William M. Murphy (1977), 2. 579. I have altered the form of the address and the date so that they correspond to AEH’s usual practice.

1

AEH relented: to Yeats, c.25 Oct. 1935.

500

Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Evelyn Nursing Home | Trumpington Road | Cambridge 24 Oct. 1935 My dear Kate, I suppose I was spoiled while I was abroad by living in hotels and always using lifts, but anyhow since I came back I have been going downhill at a great pace, the chief blame for which is being laid upon my 44 stairs, which give my heart more work than it can manage, so that I have breathlessness, weakness, and dropsical swelling of the ankles and knees. I lecture without difficulty, but the 10 minutes’ walk to and fro was so exhausting that I now have a lecture-room within the walls of the College. I am to change into a ground-floor set of rooms, and one of the younger Fellows1 has nobly made over his set to me; but it will be a great nuisance and will raise grave and probably insoluble problems about accommodating my books. At present I have gone to stay in this nursing home for a week or more, which the doctor hopes will get me into a state from which a start of recovery can be made. I shall taxi into College for my lectures twice a week. The University has relieved me of the examination which is the chief terror of the winter. People are very kind in taking trouble on my behalf. I had hoped to induce Jerry to stay here for a day or two, but that is now out of the question. I hope that he is enjoying himself, and you with him. The red ink is an accident and has no lurid significance. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 5075 . Red ink. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Maas, 378–9.

1 C. A. Coulson, identified in Graves, 261. See AEH to Coulson, 13 Dec. 1935, and List of Recipients.

501

28 October 1935

TO W. B. Y E ATS [c.25 Oct. 1935] If you condescend to edit the collection, I suppose I must not be above contributing to it, and I assent to your taking from Last Poems the five pieces you specify.1 I exact no tribute from anthologists, so there are no ‘usual terms’. SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. Written on a t.s. letter from Yeats bearing his autograph signature and the date 24 Oct. 1935.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 28 Oct. 1935   , |  , | . My dear Laurence, Thanks for your offer to help with my books, but I do not think it is a task on which I ought to employ your energies, nor on which you would find very much to do. The boys of the college Library seem to be experienced in such matters, and Gow is very kindly giving an eye to the matter. He told me that you were coming here next month and suggested that I might wish to consult you about discarding or retaining books, but I do not think this will prove much of a problem. Probably nothing which I am discarding is anything which you would wish to take. The main difficulty is to find space in the new rooms. I shall be here probably at least ten days more, and at this moment I am reduced to great weakness by sleepless and distressed nights, the sedatives having failed; so that even if I were back in College I could not offer you hospitality or society. None the less I am grateful to you for offering to sacrifice so much of your time. Love to Clemence. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman Lilly MSS 1. Memoir, 191 (nearly complete); Maas, 379.

1 See AEH to Yeats, 19 Oct. 1935, and note. The Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892–1935 chosen by W. B. Yeats (1936), 46–50, included LP V (Grenadier), VIII (Soldier from the wars returning), IX (The chestnut casts his flambeaux), X (Could man be drunk for ever), and XIII (The Deserter). In the Introduction (p. xiii), Yeats remarked: ‘the Shropshire Lad is worthy of its fame, but a mile further and all had been marsh.’ He included seven poems by Gerard M. Hopkins (1844–89), but none by C. M. Doughty (1843–1926). Doughty’s poetry includes The Dawn in Britain, 6 vols. (1906–7), Adam Cast Forth (1907–8), The Clouds (1912), and Mansoul, or, The Riddle of the World (1920).

502

Letters 1927–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 2 Nov. 1935    , |  , | . My dear Kate, I have had four tranquil nights in succession, partly due to champagne: the doctor, though he did not suggest it, approves of the results. I manage my lectures without difficulty, and the change of rooms is being carried out very competently so far as I can judge from the reports I receive. The dropsy seems to have vanished; and by the way it was not this which hindered my walking, but general feebleness, which continues. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 77 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Maas, 380.

TO H . G. B ROA D B E N T 4 Nov 1935    , |  , | . Dear Mr Broadbent, Yours is the second application which I have received about printing the words in the programmes of this recital of the Wenlock Edge Song Cycle, and I have already sent a refusal: it is a thing I happen to dislike. I am very generous to composers who want to set my poems, and I ought not to be worried /in consequence/. There is too, if I remember right, a particular reason why neither this composer nor I should wish to see the words in the programme.1 I am yours very truly A. E. Housman. Shrewsbury School MS. Maas, 380.

1

See AEH to Richards, 20 Dec. 1920.

503

8 November 1935

TO S. C . RO B E RT S 4 Nov. 1935    , |  , | . Dear Roberts, I have been obliged to hesitate; but things seem to be going on well, and I hope to be equal to the pleasure of dinner with you and Miss Roberts and meeting Lord & Lady Charnwood1 at 8 p.m. on Nov. 23. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 70949, fo. 556.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N [The Evelyn Nursing Home | Trumpington Road | Cambridge] 8 Nov. 1935 My dear Laurence, I should be glad to see you between 5 o’clock and 6. 30 on Monday, and at the earlier hour, if you let me know, I could offer you tea. I shall not be leaving before that day. I am much more tranquil, and the dropsy has almost disappeared, so the doctor is quite satisfied, but he does not realise how weak I am. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Memoir, 191, with a comma after ‘30’ deleted and a comma added after ‘Monday’.

1 Godfrey Rathbone Benson, 1st Baron of Charnwood (1864–1945), Liberal MP for Woodstock, 1892–5; Mayor of Lichfield, 1909–11; man of letters. Publications include Tracks in the Snow (a history of crime, 1906), Abraham Lincoln (1916), and Theodore Roosevelt (1923). He married Dorothea Mary Roby (1876–1942) in 1897.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO J. M . RO S E 8 Nov 1935    , |  , | . Dear Mr Rose, You will see from my address that I am in no case to welcome you, which is one of ‘the painful family of death more hideous than their queen’ awaiting us in ‘the vale of years’.1 I am sorry that it should be so. Yours very truly A. E. Housman Eton MS, in shaky handwriting. Envelope addressed ‘J. M. Rose Esq | Poste Restante | Cambridge’.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Evelyn Nursing Home | Cambridge 10 Nov. 1935 My dear Kate, I have been going on satisfactorily with very good and quiet nights. Always lying in bed makes me weak on my legs when I do sally forth for lectures or revelry, as I am going out to luncheon to-day to meet scholars from Oxford and abroad. My new rooms are much admired, especially as to bath-room and lavatory, by those who have properly examined them, and are said to be the last word in luxurious and scientific plumbing. Did you ever hear of a thermostat? a thing which watches the thermometer and sends the temperature up when it begins to fall. I expect to move in early this week. I abandoned Christianity at 13 but went on believing in God till I was twenty-one, and towards the end of that time I did a good deal of praying for certain persons and for myself. I cannot help being touched that you do it for me, and feeling rather remorseful, because it must be an expenditure of energy, and I cannot believe in its efficacy. The college has insisted on paying for most of the expense of the new rooms. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 50 79 – 80 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Maas, 380–1. 1 Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 81–4: ‘Lo, in the vale of years beneath | A grisly troop are seen, | The painful family of Death, | More hideous than their Queen’.

505

17 November 1935

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D 12 Nov. 1935    , |  , | . Dear Scholfield, I have received encouragement to hope that you will carry me to Babraham on Saturday night, and am grateful and expectant. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11228 . Maas, 381.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Evelyn Nursing Home 16 Nov. 1935 Dear Scholfield, This is very magnificent1 and I am proportionately grateful; I hope too that your health will proportionately mend. I will be ready at 7. 45. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 11229 .

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Evelyn Nursing Home 17 Nov. 1935 I go back to College tomorrow Dear Scholfield, We had a very pleasant dinner, saddened only by your absence, and the news that Lady Wemyss’s1 entire household has given her a month’s notice, which she sustains with gaiety in affiance on a Miss Wilkinson.2 I hope you are going on all right and will appear faithfully next Friday. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 11230 : ink, with pencilled addition at the top. Maas, 381 (incomplete).

1

‘I had lent my car to AEH to drive to Babraham’: Scholfield’s note written on the MS. See List of Recipients. 2 ‘Mr. L. P. Wilkinson’s aunt, Winifred Wilkinson, for many years companion and general factotum to Lady Wemyss. One of her jobs was to produce the plays that Barrie wrote for the children at Christmas. She saw Housman several times when he dined with Lady Wemyss and was surprised to learn that in Cambridge he was thought formidable’: Henry Maas’s note in HSJ 2 (1975), 34. 1

506

Letters 1927–1936

TO M A RY, LA DY W E M YS S Trinity College | Cambridge 22 Nov. 1935 Dear Lady Wemyss, I must remember not to forget to send you the new address of Dr Percy Withers: Epwell Mill, Banbury, Oxfordshire. It lies some distance north-west of Ba[n]bury and is rather hidden away among by-roads. It was a great pleasure to meet you the other night. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS. The paper bearing ‘n’ in the second ‘Banbury’ is torn off.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Nov. 1935 Dear Sir, I suppose I shall do right in forwarding to you the enclosed appeal which I have received from Dr Wilhelm Rechnitz. The editorship of the Bibliotheca Philologica Classica (an annual index of classical work) from which he is expecting to be dismissed, is a responsible post and would not have been conferred upon him unless he were a scholar of known capacity. I do not personally know of any piece of work such as he desires which I could find for him.1 I am yours faithfully A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS SPSL 539/3, fos. 378–9.

TO A . F. S C H O L F I E L D Trinity College 25 Nov. 1935 Dear Scholfield, Perhaps this may serve. In any case I am ashamed to have kept you waiting so long. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman 1 Dr Rechnitz (b. 1899?) had written to AEH on 24 Nov. 1935 to say that he expected to be dismissed from the editorship of the Bibliotheca Philologica Classica on grounds of his being a Jew: Bodleian MS SPSL 539/3. Among possible jobs which he suggested he might do was assisting AEH in editorial work.

507

End of November 1935

Qui hoc in armario seruantur apud Indos extra Gangem conquisiti codices Vniuersitati Cantabrigiensi secundum testamentum Roberti Forsyth Scott, equitis, Collegii S. Ioannis Magistri, donati sunt anno MDCCCCXXXIII1 TCC Add. MS c. 112 31 .

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge [End of Nov. 1935] My dear Withers, If you have not engaged yourself to someone else I should hope you would dine with me in hall on Friday Dec. 6, if the food and drink are suitable to your dietary requirements. I regularly dine there myself and sometimes proceed to Combination Room. I have not very recent news of your health, nor you of mine. When I came back from France I was in fair fettle, perhaps due to living in motor cars and hotels and always using lifts; but I soon began to go rapidly down hill, so that I have had to abandon my old rooms, where the 44 stairs were too much for me, and come to B 2 /(ground floor)/ in the Great Court, which would have removed an annoyance of Bridges’s. I spent about 3 weeks in the Evelyn Nursing Home while the change was making, but motored in twice a week for my lectures. I am much weaker generally than in July, and you would not have to check me in walking uphill over broken ground. I met Lady Wemyss the other day and gave her your new address. I am to meet Madame de Navarro1 at luncheon on Saturday. My kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 116–17 (excerpt); Maas, 382. The letter bears no date in AEH’s hand, and Withers, 116, states that it is ‘dated December 1’. However, it certainly predates the letter of 30 Nov. in which AEH finalizes arrangements for Withers’s visit.

1 The inscription for the Scott Collection in the University Library: ‘The books collected amongst the Indians beyond the Ganges which are kept in this book-case were given to Cambridge University in accordance with the will of Sir Robert Forsyth Scott, Master of St John’s College, in 1933.’ 1 See AEH to Withers, 18 Jan. 1918, n. 1.

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Letters 1927–1936

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 30 Nov. 1935 My dear Withers, It is quite plain to me that your troubles of health are greater than mine, which, apart from the annoying feebleness which is now added, consist in nervous uneasiness. I am at present, now that hot water has at last been laid on, more comfortable in my new rooms than in my old, though I foresee that in summer there will be some lack of air. I will be in my rooms after 5 on Dec. 6, and you will come again for dinner. Kind regards to Mrs Withers. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 382.

TO C H A R L E S A . C O U L S O N Trinity College 10 Dec. 1935 Dear Coulson, The Junior Bursar states the amount of my indebtedness to you for furniture and decorations as £50. 12. 8, and I enclose cheque for that amount. I hope that your reckoning tallies with his. Yours sincerely and gratefully A. E. Housman. C. A. Coulson Esq. Bodleian MS Coulson A.3.3.

TO D E N I S S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1935 My dear Denis, Thanks for your kind enquiries: I am now in very comfortable quarters on the ground-floor, with a bath-room which dazzles the beholder and is equipped with every imaginable luxury, including a thermostat. Hot water however was not laid on till I had been 10 days in residence, and then the

509

11 December 1935

gas pipe did not supply enough gas to heat it, so there was another delay. I walk every day after lunch, though slowly and feebly, and take my dinner in Hall. I get to sleep with reduced doses of a bromide, washed down by champagne; but I wake up early and worry. The loquacious clock of Trinity is now silenced from midnight to 7 a.m., so though I am near to it I am not annoyed. I am glad that your family is duly growing up. Love to Phyllis, and Christmas wishes. Your affectionate uncle A. E. Housman. SJCO MS, Symons Collection. Envelope addressed ‘Dr Symons | The Mount House | Shrewsbury’.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Dec. 1935. My dear Jeannie, I was very glad to get your long and early Christmas letter, with the news, among other things, that your family is soon to indulge again in its favourite recreation of marriage.1 I hope the young couple will be happy and will find some means of livelihood. My present rooms are the warmest and cosiest that could be imagined; and the bath-room, which has been equipped by the College, is the admiration and envy of all beholders. I myself walk very feebly and do not sleep very well, and my breathing is apt to be troublesome; but the comforts around me make me more cheerful than I should otherwise be. I can get through all the work that is required of me, and I go out to dinner when invited. One of the medicines I am taking is champagne, which however is not a wine I am very fond of. With best wishes for a happy Christmas to you and Grace and the rest of the family I am Yours affectionately A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Memoir, 154–5; Maas, 383 (both incomplete).

1

‘Jeannie Housman’s niece had become engaged’: Maas, 383 n.

510

Letters 1927–1936

TO C H A R L E S A . C O U L S O N Trinity College 13 Dec. 1935 Dear Coulson, de Bruyne1 now tells me that the gas-fire, valued at £1. 13. 3, should have been added to the articles which I am purchasing from /you,/ so I enclose a cheque for that sum. I do not want any formal acknowledgement. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Bodleian MS Coulson A. 3. 3.

TO P RO F E S S O R F. W. O L I V E R Trinity College | Cambridge 14 Dec. 1935 Dear Oliver, We were indeed on the Council1 together at the critical period, and though all else may fade from memory the meeting of July 1900, when Horsburgh was dismissed,2 is branded on my soul. I was at Henley,3 whence I was brought up by an S.O.S. from Micaiah,4 and Lord Reay5 asked me to keep the minutes while Horsburgh was out of the room: consequently I had to stay afterwards and enter them in the minute-book, and you kindly took to the Post Office a telegram to my friends warning them that I should not be back till late. I cannot take to myself much credit for any of my actions in the reforming movement, for I was only a partisan and occasionally a mouth-piece, not a 1 Norman Adrian de Bruyne (1904–97), who gained first class honours in Part II of the Natural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge, 1927, and who was Fellow of TCC, 1928–44 and Junior Bursar, 1931–7. He became an innovator in aircraft construction. 1 Of UCL. 2 James MacDonald Horsburgh (1854–1905). Secretary of UCL, 1886–1900. Previously Assistant Master, Radley College, 1881–2, Librarian and Secretary of the London Institution, 1882–6. Naiditch (1988), 96, states that ill health evidently precipitated the disastrous end to Horsburgh’s career at UCL. The college had found itself deeply indebted to its bankers: Oliver in Richards, 439. 3 During regatta week: Oliver in Richards, 440. 4 Micaiah John Muller Hill (1856–1929). Professor of Pure Mathematics, UCL, 1884–1907; Astor Professor of Mathematics, University of London, 1907–23; Vice-Chancellor, University of London, 1909–11. Brother of G. F. Hill. Naiditch (1988), esp. 67–70, provides further information. 5 Donald James Mackay, the 11th Baron Reay (1839–1921), President of UCL, 1897–1921. Previously Governor of Bombay, 1885–90, and Under-Secretary of State for India, 1894–5. First President of the British Academy, 1902–7.

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19 December 1935

convinced reformer nor a statesman with any prevision of the great success which resulted. When you were here in June I was in a nursing-home. My descent to the grave has brought me down a staircase of 44 steps to the ground-floor, where I am stuck at present and my heart has less opportunity of making itself a nuisance. Ker’s successor and (I suppose) your colleague R. W. Chambers has been giving the Clark Lectures6 here this term, and I have met him several times; and Lyde has sent me a book on Pindar7 of all subjects in the world. Tonks I met three years ago in Scotland. I hope climate and surroundings allow you to be happy. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman Harvard University MS: Autograph file: Housman. LC-GR MS (in Richards’ handwriting). Maas, 383–4.

TO A . S. F. G OW [Trinity College] 19 Dec. 1935 My dear Gow, I did not sleep last night, so I am afraid I had better not walk to Magdalene and back, and I will order a taxi to be at the Great Gate at 7. 55. Yours A. E. Housman TCC Add. MS c. 11254 .

6

On English Prose from Chaucer to Raleigh. Lionel William Lyde (1863–1947), Professor of Economic Geography at UCL, 1903–28. Published Contexts in Pindar, with reference to the meaning of φέγγος in 1935. AEH’s copy is in SJCO: Naiditch (2002), 66. 7

512

Letters 1927–1936

TO E . H . B L A K E N E Y Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Dec. 1935 Dear Mr Blakeney, Many thanks for the specimen of your private printing.1 If Watson has2 gone on writing things like Wordsworth’s Grave3 and some other things which he wrote when he was thirty, he would have been one of the first poets of the age. But he swallowed the praises of The Spectator and wrote a lot which he ought to have known was quite second-rate, and when early in this century he made a fresh start, the merit of his writing, which was sometimes considerable, was that of epigram rather than of poetry. Thanks too for your enquiry after my health. It is weak and declining, and I have already lived more than two years too long. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 48980, fos. 26–7; Maas, 384.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Dec. 1935 Dear Mr Wilson, I reciprocate your kind wishes and thank you also for your gifts. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘C. Wilson Esq. | Watling Villa | Willington | Co. Durham’.

1 Of Sir William Watson’s sonnet The Yesterdays and The Morrows, printed in an edn. of 25 copies, Winchester, 1934. AEH’s copy is in CUL: Naiditch, HSJ 31 (2005), 175. 2 For ‘had’. 3 Watson (1858–1935) published Wordsworth’s Grave and other poems in 1890.

513

27 December 1935

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 21 Dec. 1935 Dear Sirs, The New Zealand composer is at liberty to set to music my poem The First of May. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. The Richards Press BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 208.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 27 Dec. 19351    , |  , | . My dear Kate, Christmas in a nursing home, so I must write to you. From the doctor’s point of view it is not much, but for the patient indigestion and nausea are the worst things in the world. I have been nursing myself in College on soup, hot milk and brandy in great discomfort, and finally have come here where I receive great attention. I am fed on toast, chicken-broth, orange juice, champagne, breast of turkey, Brand’s essence of chicken. I am very weak. The other night they gave me an injection of heroin instead of my usual soporific, and I learnt what it is to be totally deprived of intellect. My College fellows sympathise with me more than my family would, knowing more of my gluttony. Yours A. E. H. TCC Add. MS c. 50 81 – 2 . Written shakily in pencil on headed writing paper. Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Postmark is 26 Dec. Maas, 384–5.

1

For 26 Dec. 1935 (the postmark date).

514

Letters 1927–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Evelyn Nursing Home end of 1935] I do not accede to this request. A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082. Autograph note signed, written on t.s. letter to ‘Messrs. Grant Richards, Ltd.’ from L. C. Harris, editor of Home and Country, the magazine of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, requesting permission to reprint Fancy’s Knell ( LP XLI).

1936 TO H U G H M . L A S T [Before 6 Jan. 1936] By way of reciprocity1 you might send me your translation of my Mercenaries,2 of which I have heard scraps from Duff.3 SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection. ‘Given by HML 6 i 36’: Sparrow’s note accompanying the MS.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N 10 Jan. 19251    , |  , | . My dear Laurence, Days fly /and/ I /am/ little better at [?] at conducting /business/so I shall be grateful if you will take it upon you to say that I am not prepared to give permission about Hell Gate. I am not conscious of any strong objection, and perhaps I am foolish, but I am not strong enough to deciede2 affirmatively. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman Lilly MSS 2. Pencilled in feeble handwriting. Memoir, 192; Maas, 385 (with the date corrected).

TO E . A . B E N I A N S Trinity College 15 Jan. 1936 Professor Housman looks forward to joining the Family at the Lodge of St John’s College at 8 o’ clock on Jan. 24th . Private MS.

1 The request is appended to an autograph MS, initialled ‘A. E. H.’, of As I gird on for fighting (LP II). 2 3 Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries (LP XXXVII). J. D. Duff. 1 2 For ‘1936’. For ‘decide’.

516

Letters 1926–1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Jan. 1936 Dear Sirs, I have been ill for some weeks and unable to answer letters; and I regret that I seem to have lost the letter you sent me on Dec. 23 from Mr Bhawani Shankar.1 Can you apologise to him from me and ask him to repeat it, if you do not sufficiently remember its purport? Faber & Faber wish to reprint in England a trashy American book by Babette Deutsch.2 She was of course entitled to quote /in America/ as much as she liked of A Shropshire Lad, and I am always willing to see quotation from any book made for ‘criticism or review’; but the amount quoted from this work, of which I forbid the reproduction wherever I can, does seem to me inordinate, and the book is trashy. To Mr Moore3 you may say that I refuse him permission to publish his illiterate alterations of my verses, and that I regard his request as an act of incivility. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman The Richards Press BL Add. MS 44924, fos. 213–14. Clemens (1941), 15 (nearly complete); Maas, 386.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Jan. 1936 My dear Kate, I am very sorry that you too have been obliged to lay yourself down officially on a bed of medical attention, and it is good news that you seem to have got from it all that you required and that the pleasure of your stay at Jerry’s was not materially spoilt. Thanks for your enquiries, which I heard of from the matron. I was in bed three weeks, leaving letters unanswered, and unable to write a cheque without advice and assistance in the early 1 Member of the English Department at the University of Allahabad who had written an essay on AEH’s poetry. 2 This Modern Poetry (1936). 3 G. V. Moore of Burton-on-Trent had sought permission on 14 Jan. 1936 from the Richards Press to quote Housman poems in an article (never published) for The London Quarterly and Holborn Review.

517

20 January 1936

days of this year. My weakness is no longer bodily and mentally such a nuisance, but all my strength is needed for my actual work. I lectured yesterday with comfort to myself, except in crossing the Court1 to the room, and the hearers could hear me all right. Almost every physical action is a labour. I sleep fairly well, with the usual aids, and, best of all, my inside is getting right. Love from your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 2. Maas, 385.

TO G RA NT RI CH A RDS [Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Jan. 1936 My dear Richards,] I was 3 weeks in the Nursing Home unable to answer letters. I am now back here and lecturing but with no strength for anything beyond my actual work. I am having your books returned and I thank you for sending them but I cannot bear to look at them; and I should not approve of anything of that sort under any circumstances. I am not a descriptive writer and do not know Shropshire well.1 The chief trouble was digestive. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Richards, 281–2; Maas, 386.

1 Trinity Great Court, where AEH had occupied a set of rooms on the ground floor (B2) since 18 Nov. 1935. 1 ‘The books he returned were published by Methuen. E. V. Lucas had sent them to me and had asked me to do my best to enlist Housman’s interest and to obtain his approval for a similar volume to be devoted to the country of A Shropshire Lad. The actual books … contained the work of the illustrator whom Lucas proposed to employ’: Richards, 282.

518

Letters 1926–1936

TO M I C H A E L H O L L A N D Trinity College | Cambridge 20 Jan. 1936 Dear Mr Holland, I am not so incapable of answering your kind letter as I was when I received it but I am as weak as water, so pray excuse this reply. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘Michael Holland Esq. | Lullings | Balcombe | Sussex’. Also Michael Holland to Richards, 4 Sept. 1944: LC-GR1 MS.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS [Trinity College | Cambridge] I have spent 3 weeks in the Nursing Home unable to answer letters. I am now in College and lecturing, but my strength is barely sufficient for necessary work, so forgive this poor acknowledgement. Internal chill, indigestion and at one time nausea. Yours 20. 1. 36 A. E. H. SCO MS: p.c. addressed ‘Dr Withers | Epwell Mill | Banbury’.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Trinity College | Cambridge] 21 Jan. 1936 [Dear Sirs,] Yes, please apologize to Mr Bhawani Sankar1 for my overlooking his request and losing his proof owing to the state of my health, and ask him to send me another if he thinks it worthwhile. [Yours sincerely A. E. Housman.] Clemens (1941), 15, 23.

1

For ‘Shankar’.

519

23 January 1936

TO I . R . B RU S S E L Thanks: I am out of the Nursing Home but almost too weak to lift the pen, much more look for Carter’s reprint.1 Yours A. E. Housman. 23 Jan. ’36 Trin. Coll. Camb. Private MS: p.c. addressed ‘Mr I. R. Brussel | 615 Linwood Street | Brooklyn | N. Y. | U. S. A.’ HSJ 2 (1975), 19.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 23 Jan. 1936 My dear Withers, Your letter is so extravagantly kind and wrong-headed that I am obliged, weak as I am, to lift the pen. Although my physical weakness is depressing and prostrating, my misery is much less than it has been for two years and a half. My own diagnosis for much of my discomfort before Christmas was obstruction in what I suppose to be the upper intestine: there was a protuberance above the navel which has now vanished, and my inside is that of a new man. My nerves are not restored but are quieter than at any time since June 1933. I am surrounded by more comforts, luxury and attention than ever in my life, and take quite an interest in ordering my meals. Lecturing is far less labour than walking across the court1 to the lecture room: my only worry in the matter is that my preparation, which usually occupies the vacation, has because of my illness been curtailed, and is not so much ahead as is usual and desirable. A weak soporific and a glass of champagne, followed by a cup of tea at 7. 30 p.m., procure me a peaceful night, except that the champagne has not a very quieting effect on the bladder. Do therefore be at peace and persuade Mrs Withers, to whom all thanks and good wishes, to imitate you. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Maas, 386–7.

1 Probably the private reprint of the 1892 Introductory Lecture which Cambridge University Press did for John Carter and John Sparrow in 1933. Twenty-five copies were reserved for AEH. See AEH to Jeannie Housman, 20 Dec. 1933, and to Houston Martin, 27 Sept. 1935. 1 See AEH to KES, 18 Jan. 1936, and note.

520

Letters 1926–1936

TO G O R H A M M U N S O N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 26 Jan 1936 Dear Mr Munson, I am obliged by your letter, but I am not disposed to supply such information as you invite. Yours very truly A. E. Housman BMC MS.

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS Trinity College | Cambridge 28 Jan. 1936

My dear Withers, I am sorry to have written tartly: my intention was not so; and indeed the extreme and undeserved kindness and generosity of your letters move me almost to tears. On my part, perhaps the facts do not quite justify the account I gave of my surroundings, as you would think me to be pitied for being alone at night with only a telephone for company. But, so far as I can analyse my feelings and separate bodily weariness from condition of soul, I am in better spirits than I have been for two years and a half, although particular ailments rather tend to increase. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. SCO MS. Withers, 126 (excerpt); Maas, 387.

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge | England 28 Jan. 1936 Dear Sir, I am afraid that ‘American limited edition’ is what is called a piracy, an edition for which I have received nothing from the publisher. As A Shropshire Lad was not copyrighted in America, the practice is perfectly legal, and I have no ground for complaint; but I do not add my signature to copies of this description. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1. 1.

521

31 January 1936

TO G. V. M O O R E [c.29 Jan. 1936] Permission to quote is one thing, permission to misquote is another. First you take certain verses of mine and disfigure them with illiterate alterations, then you ask me to let you attribute them publicly to me, and now, because I do not abet you in injuring my reputation, you think it rather hard.1 Why was Burton built on Trent?2 SJCO MS, Sparrow Collection: draft written on the verso of Moore’s letter. Clemens (1947), 261, prints under the date ‘12 January, 1936’ a letter, virtually identical apart from Clemens’s likely illiterate alterations (which include ‘alliterative’ for ‘illiterate’), to ‘William Johnson’. Memoir, 94; Maas, 387–8.

TO J E A N N I E H O U S M A N Trinity College | Cambridge 31 Jan. 1936 My dear Jeannie, I am sorry to hear that you too have been ill and laid up, and I hope your recovery is proceeding as it should. As you say nothing of Grace I suppose that she is despising us both and exulting in good health. When your letter reached me I had strength to read it but not to answer it; and this is one of many pieces of correspondence which I am trying to overtake. In several respects I am much more comfortable and cheerful than when I went into the nursing home at Christmas, but my physical weakness (chiefly due I suppose to lying so long in bed) is extreme and very vexatious; and next to walking, writing seems to be what tires me most. On the other hand my lectures are no trouble. Some shadow is cast over the pleasure with which I look forward to visiting you in the summer by perplexity how I am to manage your stairs. True, there are not 44 of them,1 but they are precipitous; and the days when I used to take them two at a time are not likely to return. Love to you and Grace and everybody. Yours affectionately A. E. Housman Laurence writes to me that he is in great trouble trying to evade paying super-tax. BMC MS. Memoir, 155–6; Maas, 388 (both incomplete). 1 See AEH to The Richards Press Ltd, 18 Jan. 1936. On 28 Jan. Moore had written to express ‘intense regret’ at AEH’s refusal to allow permission to quote the poems in an article on AEH’s poetry, adding that ‘it seems rather hard luck after having the article accepted’. 2 ASL LXII 18. ‘Burton-on-Trent was the address of his correspondent’: LH, Memoir, 94. 1 As there were leading to AEH’s former rooms in Whewell’s Court, TCC.

522

Letters 1926–1936

TO T H E AC A D E M I C A S S I S TA N C E C O U N C I L I am recovering from illness but cannot expect to be strong enough to attend the meeting of the Academic Assistance Council on Feb. 21. A. E. Housman. Trinity College Cambridge 1 Feb. 1936 Bodleian MS SPSL 22/4, fo. 69: p.c. addressed ‘The Academic Assistance Council | 12 Clements Inn Passage | Clare Market | London W. C. 2’.

TO B E RT R A M G O U L D I N G B ROW N Trinity College 4 Feb. 1936 Dear Mr Goulding Brown, Cic. de fin. III 3 is the right reference: the cumbrous ceremony of mentioning the long chapters as well as the sections is now generally disused as a waste of space. I do not feel sure that it is less bad to omit one of the four at serm. I 1 29 than to substitute, but I have thought of sanguinis hic caupo miles. I think Nettleship told me that he had heard Haupt mention Lachmann’s Lucretius and Madvig’s de finibus as the necessary books besides Bentley’s Horace. Thanks for your kind enquiries after my health. Lecturing costs me less effort than walking across the court. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Private MS. Envelope addressed ‘B. Goulding Brown | 16 Brookside’ and marked ‘Local’ in AEH’s hand.

TO M I S S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 7 Feb. 1936 Dear Miss Wilson, Your request is one which I have sometimes received from Americans,1 but I have not acceded to it, as it seems to me unwarrantable. 1

To write out a poem in her copy of ASL.

523

11 February 1936

There arrived here this morning what appeared to be your copy of A Shropshire Lad, but I returned it to the post office. Yours very truly A. E. Housman Colby College MS. Maas, 388.

TO R I C H A R D G A R D N E R Trinity College 8 Feb. 1936 Dear Mr Gardner, I do not propose to attend the Greek and Latin Auction1 on Monday; but although this course would be approved by my doctor I do not feel able to allege ‘grave cause’, as, if it were a dinner instead of an auction, I should probably find myself quite strong enough. The fine will therefore be justly added to the other fines which, as usual, I have incurred. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. Emmanuel College MS 398.

TO P. AY RE S Trinity College | Cambridge 11 Feb. 1936 Dear Sir, If your edition of A Shropshire Lad is that of 1898 I can correct the errors because I know what they are. The edition of 1904 I will not touch with a pair of tongs.1 The remainder are mostly correct or nearly so,2 and I do not remember what errors occur in which, so that I cannot turn immediately to the faults, and I obviously cannot read the book through in search of them. If you nevertheless like to send it, enclosing an envelope suitable for its return, I will see what can be done. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘P. Ayres Esq. | Emmanuel | Forest Rise | E. 17’. 1 Of the Cambridge Greek and Latin Book Club. Naiditch (2005), 122, provides further information. 1 The edns. of 1898 and 1904 contained many errors of printing. See Poems (1997), Introduction, xxv–xxvii. 2 This is true of two other early edns., those of 1900 and 1903: Poems (1997), Introduction, xxv, xxviii. See, however, letters of 18 June and 13 July 1928 to Dr Geoffrey Keynes, and of 6 Sept. 1928 to the Richards Press, on misprints in the edns. of 1926 and 1927.

524

Letters 1926–1936

TO P. AY RE S Trinity College | Cambridge 18 Feb. 1936 Dear Sir, I thought that the text of this edition was quite correct; but I have found an error on p. 41, so I cannot be sure that there are no others. On pp. 78 and 105 I have made alterations which were introduced in 1923 and which the author meant to be improvements.1 Unfortunately the paper does not take ink well. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Lilly MSS 1.1. Envelope addressed ‘P. Ayres Esq. | Emmanuel | Forest Rise | Whipp’s Cross | E. 17.’, and postmarked 27 Feb. 1936. White (1950), 410.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 25 Feb. 1936 Dear Sirs, I do not object to what Messrs Faber & Faber propose1 in the letter returned herewith. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 44924, fo. 219.

1 ‘Loose’ for ‘Thick’ at ASL XXXVIII 10, and ‘no more remembered’ for ‘long since forgotten’ at LII 9. 1 In connection with the book by Babette Deutsch: see AEH to the Richards Press Ltd, 18 Jan. 1936.

525

2 March 1936

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT Trinity College | Cambridge 27 Feb. 19261 Dear Sir, No change has been made in Last Poems since the first edition except to add the title Revolution to XXXVI. In the first issue (4000 copies) of the first edition the printers omitted two stops at the end of lines in XXVI. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. MS reproduced in facsimile on covers of Howes Bookshop catalogue 244 (1989).

TO CY RI L CLE M E NS Trinity College | Cambridge | England 2 March 1936 Dear Mr Clemens, My forefinger has a small fracture and is in plaster of Paris, so please excuse my handwriting and my brevity. I am deeply sensible of the honour which your Society does me by the offer of its Silver Medal, and I shall always remember it with gratitude. Nevertheless I beg you to allow me to decline it, as, in pursuance of an early resolve, I have in the course of my life already declined a considerable number of honours, even when offered me by my own two Universities and by the King of England with the same excess of kindness and over-estimate of desert. Yours sincerely and gratefully A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Cyril Clemens | President Mark Twain Society | Webster Groves | Missouri | U. S. A.’ Mark Twain Quarterly, A. E. Housman Memorial Number, 1. 2 (Winter 1936), 1 (excerpt); Clemens (1947), 257–8, reproduced with minor improvements in Maas, 388–9.

1 For ‘1936’: Naiditch (2005), 33–4, establishes that AEH erred in writing the date. Naiditch notes that AEH authorized the addition of the title to LP XXXVI in a letter of 28 Jan. 1926, that the change itself was not sent to the Richards Press until a letter of 17 May 1928, and, further, that the form of the capital ‘D’ in ‘Dear’ was not used by AEH as early as 1926.

526

Letters 1926–1936

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S Trinity College | Cambridge 3 March 1936 My dear Kate, My forefinger is in plaster of Paris, so do not expect much. A month ago I slipped and fell and sprained my hand; and as the swelling and pain did not much decrease it was X-rayed on Saturday and a small fracture of a bone was found. I am to go on like this for a fortnight. It does not interfere with other things so much as writing. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. I hear that I am lecturing better than ever. TCC Add. MS c. 50 83 . Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’. Maas, 389.

TO L AU R E N C E H O U S M A N [Trinity College | Cambridge] 11 March 1936 My dear Laurence, I rejoice that you have made a fortune.1 Do not squander it as you did the proceeds of the Englishwoman.2 When you wrote to me about the setting of Hell Gate I was very ill and could not make up my mind to say yes; but I now do not mind consenting.3 The orchestra will drown the words, which must be pretty bad if a composer has an overwhelming admiration for them. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. Brightness falls from the air; Queens have died young and fair; Dust hath closed Helen’s eye. T. Nashe In time of plague4 BMC MS. Memoir, 192; Maas, 389. 1 2 3 4

From his play Victoria Regina An Englishwoman’s Love Letters (1900) earned LH over £2,000: Unexpected Years, 184–5. See AEH to LH, 10 Jan. 1936. ‘The quotation is in answer to my request to be told who wrote it’: LH, Memoir, 192.

527

22 March 1936

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D [Trinity College | Cambridge] 18 March 1936 1 I do not accede to this request, A. E. Housman. Richards, 283. Note written on the back of a letter from the editor of Home and Country.

TO T H E R I C H A R D S P R E S S LT D Trinity College | Cambridge 19 March 1936 Dear Sirs, The applicant must be told that by a rule of many years’ standing permission to reprint poems from A Shropshire Lad is not given. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman. SIU MS VFM 1082. Mark Twain Quarterly, 4. 4 (Summer–Fall 1941), 23 (incomplete).

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N As from Trinity College | Cambridge | England 22 March 1936 Dear Mr Martin, I was very ill at the beginning of the year, and I am now again in a nursing home. I hope that if you can restrain your indecent ardour for a little I shall be properly dead and your proposed work will not be by its nature unbecoming. But the hope is not more than a hope, for my family are tough and long-lived, unless they take to drink. Do not send me your manuscript. Worse than the practice of writing books about living men is the conduct of living men in supervising such books. I do not forbid you to quote extracts from my letters. I think you should ask yourself whether you are literary enough for your job. You say that I may think it ‘indignant and presumptious’ for an American to write such a book before an English one has appeared. By presumptious you mean presumptuous, and what you mean by indignant I have no idea. 1 The editor of Home and Country, the magazine of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, had written to request permission to print Fancy’s Knell (LP XLI), having each month since 1934 printed a poem by one of the best modern poets.

528

Letters 1926–1936

The best review I ever saw of my poems was by Hubert Bland the Socialist in a weekly paper The New Age (1896).1 The American who called them (I do not know where) the best poetry since Keats is endeared to me by his amiable error. When an athletic performance, previously the best, is excelled, the record is said to be broken or cut. I am not sure if the latter is really good English, but it was common in sporting circles in my youth.2 In philosophy I am a Cyrenaic or egoistic hedonist, and regard the pleasure of the moment as the only possible motive of action.3 As for pessimism, I think it almost as silly, though not as wicked, as optimism. George Eliot said she was a meliorist: I am a pejorist4 and also Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS (pencil). Martin (1937), 284; Maas, 390.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 24 March 1936    , |  , | . My dear Kate, I use pencil because it is easier. I am not nearly so bad as I was at Christmas, but shortness of breath and indigestion cause me a good deal of annoyance. I fear I shall live to be seventy-seven. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. TCC Add. MS c. 50 85 (pencil). Envelope addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’ in ink. Maas, 390.

1

See AEH to LH, 27 Apr. 1896, n. 1. ASL XIX 14: ‘Cannot see the record cut’. OED, v. 21c., cites an example in Referee (1884). 3 AEH gives one of the chief tenets of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy founded by Aristippus of Cyrene (Socrates’ pupil) or his grandson. 4 See AEH to Pollet, 5 Feb. 1933, and notes 15 and 16. 2

529

2 April 1936

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT    , |  , | . 1 April ’36 Dear Sir, I shall now be pleased to sign your copy of A Shropshire Lad if you will send it me. Do not take the trouble to /send/ its chance companion, as I do not approve the lecture On the Nature1 and Nature of Poetry. The first edition of A Shropshire Lad was 500 copies. Of these 150 copies were purchased by John Lane and published in America under his imprint there. It is quite true that the work was published at the author’s expense, and also that it was originally my intention to publish it under the name Terence Hearsay:2 But why this was not done is nobody’s /business/but my own. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. Princeton MS (Robert H. Taylor Collection). Shaky handwriting in pencil. T.s. copy at BMC.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S 2 April 1936    , |  , | . My dear Kate, After the great turn for the better I took on /Thursday/ my birthday I have not looked back. My doctor was away but his substitute managed me very well with his opiate, and the Regius professor1 came to see me and seemed quite satisfied. Sleep and digestion are both satisfactory and I have reading to fill my hours. I have heard from Jeannie not very good news. I did not think of asking Venn2 if he would like to know anything of Fletcher Housman3 who probably would be more interesting than our grandfather. But probably he was not at Cambridge. Your affectionate brother A. E. Housman. 1

The correct title was The Name and Nature of Poetry. The title seems to have been Poems of Terence Hearsay or Poems by Terence Hearsay: Poems (1997), 316. 1 John Alfred Ryle (1889–1950), Regius Professor of Medicine at Cambridge, 1935–43. 2 John Archibald Venn (1883–1958). Lecturer in the History and Economics of Agriculture, Cambridge University, 1921; President of Queens’ College, Cambridge, 1932–58. 3 Robert Fletcher Housman of Lune Bank (b. 1807), cousin of AEH’s grandfather; biographer of the Revd Robert Housman (1759–1838), Vicar of St Anne’s, Lancaster. 2

530

Letters 1926–1936

You see why the Post Office has returned this letter. I am going on well, and so I hope are you. A. E. H. 7 April 1936 TCC Add. MS c. 50 87 – 8 . Pencil. Envelope wrongly addressed ‘Mrs Housman | Oak tree Lodge | Exmouth’ in ink. Maas, 391. Also envelope correctly addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oak Lodge | Exmouth’ ( TCC Add. MS c. 50 92) .

TO DR PE RCY W I TH E RS 2 April 1936    , |  , |  My dear Withers, I am sorry that your experiment has been attended by pain, but I hope it will prove a success. My term was conducted to a triumphant end, but finally I had such bad nights that I was obliged to resort to the Nursing home and the 24th and 25th were very wretched, on the 26th I was wondrously renewed by morphia and am going on well. Yours sincerely

A. E. Housmam.1 SCO MS. Pencil. Withers, 127 (excerpt); Maas, 391.

TO B H AWA N I S H A N K A R Trinity College | Cambridge April 19136 Dear Sir, I return to you (at /my (or his)/ request request I am told some writings of his on writings of mine).1 I take no interest in the matter. Yours faithfully A. E. Housman A. E. Housman BMC MS. Sotheby’s, New York, 16 and 17 May 1984, no. 461 (nearly complete). The repetitions and the blunder in the date are AEH’s.

1 1

AEH began to write ‘H’ instead of ‘E’, and the final ‘m’ is his. Shankar had sent AEH proofs of an essay he had written on him.

531

20 April 1936

TO P. AY RE S Evelyn Nursing Home | Trumpington Road | Cambridge Friday April 3 1936 Dear Sir, My doctor expects me to be here next Wednesday, so I shall be pleased if you will call as you propose in the afternoon. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100/45: p.c. addressed ‘P. Ayres Esq. | Emmanuel | Forest Rise | Whipps Cross | E 17’.

TO P RO F E S S O R D. S. RO B E RT S O N 8 April 1936    , |  , | . Dear Robertson, I was very much annoyed this afternoon that I had made two /definite/ appointments and that one of the persons /(not you)/ kept me waiting for his. I hope you were not much put out, and apolologise.1 Yours A. E. Housman. Private MS.

TO S. C . RO B E RT S [20 Apr. 1936]1 I trust that I responded to your Family invitation. I still hope to be there, though I am not so sanguine as I should like to be.3 A. E. H. 22 April 1936 2

BMC MS (p.c.). S. C. Roberts, Adventures with Authors (1966), 128 (excerpt). Maas, 391.

1

A mistake owing to extreme ill health. Date as postmark. 2 Roberts was host to the Family in Pembroke College, Cambridge, on 24 Apr.: Roberts, 128. 3 Roberts, 128: ‘he came. He looked terribly ill and, shortly after we had sat down to dinner, he confessed to me that he felt sick. I took him into the bedroom and asked him whether I should get a taxi to take him back to Trinity. No, he said, he would rather come back to the table. Having nibbled a little toast and drunk a glass of Burgundy, he left early. The next day he went to a nursing home and on the 30th he died.’ 1

532

Letters 1926–1936

TO H O U S TO N M A RT I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England 21 April 1936 Dear Mr Martin, If I were well I could make a long reply to your kind but irrelevant letter of the 2nd inst., but I am so ill that I am not fit to discharge the functions of my office or of ordinary life, and my doctor is trying hard to send me back into a nursing home. Yours sincerely, A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Mr Houston Martin | 6488 Woodcrest Avenue | Overbrook | Philadelphia | U. S. A.’ Martin (1937), 303; Maas, 392.

TO C H A R L E S W I L S O N Trinity College | Cambridge 21 April 1936 Dear Mr Wilson, I have just emerged again from a nursing home, am not strong enough for the ordinary offices of life, and it would be a kindness if correspondents did not write to me. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BMC MS. Envelope addressed ‘Charles Wilson Esq. | Watling Villa | Willington | Co. Durham’.

TO R. A . S COTT-JA M E S Trinity College | Cambridge 21 April 1936 My dear Sir, I am obliged by your letter,1 but my career and it is to be hoped my life are so near their close that it is to be hoped they will concern neither of us much longer. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. The Editor The London Mercury Texas MS. Maas, 392 (incomplete). In an editorial note on AEH in The London Mercury, 34. 200 ( June 1936), 101–4, Scott-James printed the main body of the letter (101). 1

Requesting a contribution.

533

25 April 1936

TO S T E P H E N G A S E L E E Trinity College | Cambridge 23 April 1936 Dear Gaselee, I do hope to dine with you at the Pepys Feast,1 but in spite of your kind invitation it will not be as your guest, as I was asked some weeks ago by Vernon Jones.2 I gave my first lecture yesterday with no difficulty,3 but in general I am pretty rotten. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. UCLA MS S/C 100:72.

TO K AT H A R I N E S Y M O N S [25 Apr. 1936]1 Back to Evelyn nursining home to A. E. H. Ugh2 TCC Add. MS c. 50 89 : p.c. addressed ‘Mrs Symons | Oakwood Lodge | Exwoods Exmouth’ and postmarked 25 Apr. 1936. With deep concern, KES forwarded it to ‘Miss Housman | Longmeadow | Street | Som.’. Maas, 392, but see the photograph in Maas, opposite p. 203, or in Page, opposite p. 117: the date and ‘Saturday’ are in KES’s hand, and ‘Ugh’ should follow AEH’s initials. After the ‘h’ in ‘Ugh’ is an ascender, cancelled by AEH. 1 First held in 1905 at Magdalene College, Cambridge, to commemorate the birthday of Samuel Pepys on 23 Feb. 2 [Stanley] Vernon Jones (1875–1955). Greek scholar; educated at KCC; elected Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1900, where he was successively Director of Studies in Classics, Senior Tutor, Praelector, and President, 1937–46. 3 ‘He continued to give his lectures even after his health broke down, sometimes coming from the nursing-home to the lecture-room, and going back there as soon as the lecture was over. I saw him on the day he gave his last lecture. He was terribly ill and must have had invincible determination to lecture in such a state. He was taken to the nursing-home the next day, and died there on April 30, 1936’: Sir J. J. Thomson, Recollections and Reflections (1936), 318. See AEH’s praise of R. V. Laurence in the letter of 24 Nov. 1934. 1 Five days later he was dead. 2 A characteristic expression of disgust from at least 1915 onwards. Naiditch (2005), 63, 180–3, records instances written in the margins of AEH’s books. There is also his reaction in the preface to Manilius V to those who would not accept his proposed emendation of ‘rustling’ to ‘rusting’ in Walter de la Mare’s poem Fare Well: ‘the only possible answer would have been ugh!’: Selected Prose, 52; Ricks (1988), 394.

LETTERS UNDATED OR APPROXIMATELY DATED

TO LU CY H O U S M A N [Not before 9 Oct. 1873]1 To Mamma from her children Alfred E. Housman. R H. Housman Clemence A Housman Katharine Elizabeth Housman Basil Williams Housman G. Herbert Housman. Wishing her many happy returns of the day. BMC MS. Facsimiles in Sotheby’s catalogue, 8–9 July 1968, no. 782, in The Adelman Collection (Bryn Mawr, 1976), no. 136, and in NNAEH, 5. AEH has written the greeting and his signature, and the others have signed for themselves.

TO A . S. F. G OW [Not before 1911] De elisionis aphaeresis hiatus usu in hexametris Latinis ab Ennii usque ad Ouidii tempora. Dr Alfredus Siedow. Gryphiae, typis Iulii Abel, MCMXI. (Pentameters are included: not other metres.) TCC Add. MS c. 112 56 .

1 The date is determined in a reprint of a 1983 article in Naiditch (1995), 3. Naiditch sets 9 Oct. 1880 as the terminus ante quem on two grounds: by 4 Apr. 1881 AEH had replaced ‘Alfred E.’ in his signature with ‘A. E.’, and he had to guide his youngest brother’s hand in forming his signature on the greeting, which makes it ‘practically certain’ that it was inscribed ‘at a time nearer to 1873 than to 1880’. That AEH signed himself ‘A. E. Housman’ in a letter to his stepmother of 9 Jan. 1875 makes this still more likely. On his signature, see the note on the single letter from 1872.

535

Not before 1918

TO A . S. F. G OW [Not before 1911] I think it means he had been trepanned. consol. ad Maec. 22 3 lacerationes medicorum ossa uiuis legentium et totas in uiscera manus demittentium. de prouid. 3 2 remedii causa quibusdam et radi ossa et legi. A. E. H. With TCC Add. MS c. 11256 .

TO A . S. F. G OW [Not before 1911] You will find the variants agricola argolica in Owen’s tristia, Magnus’s or Ehwald’s metamorphoses, and Korn’s ex Ponto. A. E. H. With TCC Add. MS c. 11256 .

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT [1911–36] Marriage is a thing which I cannot approve in the abstract; but, after all, it usually takes place in the concrete, and may also be palliated by circumstances, such as I doubt not exist in the present case.1 Cyril Clemens, ‘A. E. Housman at Cambridge’, Dalhousie Review, 22 (1942), 323.

TO A R N O L D RU B I N Trinity College | Cambridge | England [Not before 1918] Dear Mr Rubin, Thanks for the compliment of your poem. As before, I will criticise a detail or two. Space and waste do not make a correct rhyme. The last line of the 4th stanza has a syllable too few. ‘This unhealthy spot’ and ‘in an atmosphere so hot’ are so prosaic as almost to raise a smile. Literary men are not best qualified for advising others about public affairs. Certainly I do not know what the United States, which has no foe to fear, wants with an air force; but our own is insufficient for our safety, 1 According to Clemens (loc. cit.), the opening of a letter accompanying a silver tobacco-box with a Latin inscription that AEH sent to a friend who was about to be married.

536

Letters 1927–1936

and I should be much more inclined to protest against the money spent on dogs. In reducing armaments since the war we have set other nations an example which they have not followed. Do not be so infatuated as to think of studying Manilius, who is a very poor poet as well as a very difficult one. Study astronomy if you like, and Latin if you like, but not as a preliminary to Manilius. I shall hope to see you if you are in England this year. Yours sincerely A. E. Housman. BMC MS.

TO A . S. F. G OW [Not before 19191 ] The Family will meet in the Old Guest Room of Trinity (instead of Professor Housman’s rooms) on May 9 at 8 p.m. With TCC Add. MS c. 11256 .

TO A . S. F. G OW [1922 or later]1 Oxy. pap. vol. XIII. 1604 pp. 42–4), Pindar. (τυπάνων is mine, though Grenfell2 obscures the fact that the Budé editor takes the opportunity of ascribing it to Bury3 and saddling him with a false quantity.) vol. XV 1790 (p. 82, Ibycus). 1793 (p. 108 /7/), Callimachus. 1794 (p. 112), anonymous. 1796 (p. 118), anonymous. A. E. H. With TCC Add MS c.

1 1 2 3

112 56 .

The year AEH joined ‘The Family’. Vol. XIII was published in 1919; vol. XV in 1922. Bernard Grenfell, who edited the papyri with A. S. Hunt. British classicist and historian J[ohn] B[agnell] Bury (1861–1927).

537

Not before 1927

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT [c.1927] Luc. V 553 sq. is clearly derived from Verg. g. 1. 363 sq., but there in nothing in Aratus equivalent to either, and thus ardea is not his ἐρωδιόσ.1 But it /pretty clearly/ is Aristotle’s; and I take natans to mean πλωτόσ, Aristotle περὶ πορειασ Ζῴων ed. Bekk[er]2 p. 710a 11–13 mentions the ἐρωδιόσ among birds which are πλωτά μὴ πτητικά, not meaning that it does not fly, for he proceeds to describe the flight and how it trails its legs, but merely that its habits are aquatic. pinnae natanti would of course well suit a diving bird; but the ardea is not anywhere described as such. The passages you cite from modern naturalist[s] about the heron’s behaviour in stormy /and windy/ weather do not touch Virgil, who is saying how it . Prognosticates the coming /on/ of wind. TCC MS, with Adv. c. 20. 25: draft in very faint pencil.

TO W. H O U G L A N D [Trinity College | Cambridge | England Not before 1927]1 Dear Mr Hougland, I have received your paper2 and I thank you for sending it. I am flattered by receiving so much attention and it contains nothing which I can complain of, though Frank Harris’s recollections3 are not accurate. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. W. Hougland, ‘The Eighteen Nineties: A Confession’, Reading and Collecting: A Monthly Review of Rare and Recent Books, 1. 11 (Oct. 1937), 5–6.

1

2 For ‘ἐρῳδιόσ’ (‘heron’). Immanuel Bekker’s edn. of Aristotle (1831–6). Frank Harris’s recollections were published in 1927. Hougland records that the envelope was postmarked ‘Cambridge’, which indicates a date not before 1911. 2 Hougland had delivered a lecture on AEH’s poetry, and had arranged for a copy to be sent to him. 3 Frank Harris had given an account of a lunch with AEH in Latest Contemporary Portraits (1927), 272–83. See Poems (1997), 320. 1

538

Letters 1927–1936

TO AN UN KN OW N CORRES P O NDE NT […] I shall meet there, God knows; though to be sure his intentions seem to be peaceable and he only purposes to show me the scenery. I daresay we shall […] creator. Yours very truly A. E. Housman. BL Add. MS 45926, fo. 94. Fragment of letter.

TO A . S. F. G OW Hyginus astronomica II 2 (p. 32, 11 Bunte) Plaustrum nominauerunt, quod ex VII stellis duae quae pares et maxime in uno loco uiderentur pro bubus haberentur, reliquae autem V figuram plaustri similarent. More to your purpose probably is schol. Arat. 27 τῶν τεσσάρων ἀστέρων ἀντὶ τροχῶν παραλαμβανομένων, τῶν δὲ τριῶν τῆσ οὐρᾶσ ἀντὶ ῥυμοῦ. Other scholia on the same verse give a rather different account. A. E. H. With TCC Add. MS c. 11256 .

TO A . A L L E N B RO C K I N G TO N [Before 1932] I have a great admiration for some of the poetry which Browning wrote between 1835 and 1869, especially in the period of Bells and Pomegranates; but on my own writing he has had no influence at all, except that the phrase ‘to rest or roam’ in one of my poems is probably a reminiscence of ‘to roam or rest’ in one of his.1 Text fragment taken from Browning and the Twentieth Century: A Study of Robert Browning’s Influence and Reputation by A. Allen Brockington (OUP: London, 1932) p. 90. Maas, 290, who assigns it to ‘c.1930’: it was in answer to a query.

1 LP I 37, a reminiscence of Browning’s In a Gondola, 79. Poems (1997) documents thirteen ‘reminiscences’ of Browning in AEH’s poetry: P. G. Naiditch, An Index to Archie Burnett’s Commentary on ‘The Poems of A. E. Housman’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) (1998), 9.

539

Undated

[FRAGMENT ] 1 A. E. Housman. Now from the hills that he had known His way lies dark and long. It is as though a bird has flown, But left behind his song. Dunsany.2 BMC t.s. 1 2

Of the end of a letter. Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron Dunsany (1878–1957).

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INDEX OF RECIPIENTS

Abbott, Claude Colleer I xxiii; II 211 Abeel, Neilson I xxiii; II 496 Abercrombie, Lascelles I xxiii; II 251 Academic Assistance Council II 350, 422, 522 Academy, Editor I 69–70, 70–1 Adams, Herbert Mayou I 612; II 259 Adcock, Arthur St John I xxiii, 558, 559 Adelman, Seymour I xxiii; II 22, 45–6, 52, 68–9, 77–8, 118, 122, 124, 127, 135–6, 136, 291, 399–400 Agard, Walter Raymond I xxiii; II 157, 336 Alington, Cyril Argentine I xxiii, 567 Allen & Unwin, Messrs George I 640 Ames, Percy W. I 306 Anderson, Jessie Mina Innes, Lady I xxiii–xxiv, 497 Arnold, Mr II 489 Ashburner, Walter I xxiv, 112–13, 132, 134, 135, 148, 179–80, 207, 225, 263, 617–18, 637; II 41, 90, 108–9, 227–8 Asquith, Herbert Henry, see Oxford and Asquith, Earl of Athenaeum, Editor I 101–2, 104, 115–16 Ayres, P. II 523, 524, 531 Baker, Hettie Gray I xxiv, 542 Bane, Blanche (Mrs William S. Kuder) I xxiv, 188 Barnes, Dr I 326 Barnes, George Reginald I xxiv; II 256, 344 Barney, Danford I 594 Barrie, James I xxiv, 529; II 60 Beer, Mary G. F. II 405 Beerbohm, Max I xxiv; II 345–6 Beesly, Edward Spencer I xxiv, 89–90

Bell & Sons, Messrs George II 213 Benians, Ernest Alfred I xxiv; II 515 Bennett, Andrew I xxv, 485–6 Bennett, C. Ralph II 14, 180 Benson, Arthur Christopher I xxv, 306 Benson, Olive I 298; II 381 Binyon, Robert Laurence I xxv, 170 Blakeney, Edward Henry I xxv; II 217, 289, 290, 309, 342, 437, 441, 512 Blinkhorn, Mrs I 626 Blunden, Edmund II 59 Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen I xxv, 277–8, 278 Bowra, Cecil Maurice I xxv; II 173, 388 Brett-Smith, Herbert Francis Brett I 557 Breul, Karl Hermann I xxv–xxvi, 535, 552 Bridges, Mary Monica I xxvi; II 181, 218, 242 Bridges, Robert Seymour I xxvi, 396–7, 434–5, 468, 544–5, 545, 569, 572, 603–4; II 48, 101–2, 133, 155, 156 British Museum, Director, Students’ Room I 617 Broadbent, Henry I 389; II 502 Brockington, Alfred Allen I xxvi; II 436, 538 Brown, Bertram Goulding I xxvi; II 264–5, 284, 348–9, 522 Brown, Horatio Robert Forbes I xxvi, 121, 132, 523–4 Brussel, Isidore Rosenbaum I xxvi; II 199, 201, 208, 233, 247, 250, 261, 262, 319, 355, 360, 424, 519 Bullett, Gerald I xxvi; II 338–9, 339, 340 Burkitt, Amy Persis I xxvi; II 76, 347 Burkitt, Francis Crawford I xxvi–xxvii, 259

542 Butler, Agnata Frances, n´ee Ramsay I xxvii, 264 Butler, Harold Edgeworth I xxvii, 142, 269, 597, 598, 639; II 12, 49, 164, 193, 255, 344, 392 Butler, Henry Montagu I xxvii, 365 Butler, James Ramsay Montagu I xxvii; II 403 Butler, Margaret (Mrs Harold Edgeworth Butler) I 598 Bynner, Harold Witter I xxvii, 146, 146–7, 157, 158, 172, 173, 181–2, 183–4, 198, 200, 212, 248, 267, 290, 315, 339, 536, 568, 589, 611; II 56, 195, 215–16, 241, 358, 369, 381, 404, 488–9, 497–8 Campbell, Archibald Young I xxvii; II 17, 205 Cape, Jonathan II 331, 443 Carter, John Waynflete I xxviii; II 169, 385, 391, 396 Carter, William Fowler I 350 Castello, Mr I 550 Cave, Countess, n´ee Anne Estella Penfold Matthews I xxviii; II 331, 383 Chalmers, Mr II 96 Chambers, Raymond Wilson I xxviii, 87; II 37, 236 Chapman, Gerald II 469 Chapman, Robert William II 151, 377 Chatto & Windus, Messrs II 220 Clark, Ella Elizabeth I xxviii; II 480 Classical Review, Editors I 593; II 306 Clemens, Cyril Coniston I xxviii; II 8, 108, 112, 159, 196, 198, 245, 262, 278, 284, 337, 354, 403, 431, 485, 525 Cockerell, Sydney Carlyle I xxviii, 267–8, 268, 286, 323, 392, 480, 487, 492, 525–6, 562, 621–2; II 37, 51–2, 161, 273, 276, 345, 401, 434, 452 Coghlan, John II 405–6 Collingwood, Edward Foyle II 219 Constable & Co., Messrs I 372 Cooke, Greville I xxviii; II 462 Cooper, Alice Cecilia I xxviii, 497 Cornford, Francis Macdonald I xxix, 267, 439, 455, 575; II 160, 344, 422

Index of Recipients Coulson, Charles Alfred I xxix; II 508, 510 Country Life, Editor I 213 Cowell, Philip Herbert I xxix, 543–4 Craig, Edwin Stuart II 69, 70 Crompton, Miss II 496 Cross, Wilbur Lucius I xxix, 383; II 27, 43, 46, 250 Cumont, Franz-Val´ery-Marie I xxix; II 335 Darlington, J. II 243 Darwin, Maud n´ee du Puy, Lord I xxix; II 310, 401 Davidson, Alexander MacKenzie I xxix; II 114–15 Davis, J. Irving, & Orioli, Pino I xxix; II 178 De la Mare, Walter John I xxix, 504–5 De Rue, Harold Allison II 71 Dixon, William Macneile I xxix; II 402 Dodd, Mead & Co., Messrs II 240 Dooher, Mr II 280 Downing, L. J. I 325 Drinkwater, John I xxix–xxx, 379, 389, 491, 518, 530; II 36, 38, 126–7, 186, 302, 363, 384, 387, 438 Duff, James Duff I xxx, 180–1, 197, 465, 468, 508, 596, 608; II 266–7, 312, 315, 323, 342, 359, 361, 363–4, 365, 368, 368–9, 380, 381, 385 Duff, James Fitzjames I xxx, 459 Edge, Mr II 9 Edmonds, John Maxwell I xxx; II 265 Eliot, Thomas Stearns II 63 Ellis, Robinson I xxx, 71, 207 Ellis, Stewart Marsh I 382 Evans, David Emrys I xxx; II 450, 456 Fairchild, Mrs I 130–1 Fenwick, John I xxx, 74 Finberg, Herbert Patrick Reginald I xxx–xxxi; II 109–10, 110, 129–30, 137, 155 Finkelstein, Mr II 64 Finn, Brian II 21 Fitzsimmons, Matthew II 39

Index of Recipients Flaccus, Kimball I xxxi; II 443 Fleet, C[harles?] I xxxi, 112 Fletcher, George I xxxi; II 71 Fobes, Francis Howard I xxxi, 592; II 302 Forster, Edward Morgan I xxxi, 537 Fosnell, Mrs or Miss II 435 Foster, Thomas Gregory I xxxi, 143 Fowler, William Carter I xxxi Fraenkel, Eduard David Mortier I xxxi, 627–8; II 447–8 Frazer, James George I xxxi–xxxii, 307, 337–8, 579; II 39–40, 318 Frazer, Lilly, n´ee Elizabeth Johanna de Boys Adelsdorfer, Lady I xxxii, 612, 629, II 322, 355, 362, 494–5 Frechkman, Bernard II 490 Frenage, Frances II 200 Gallup, Charles I 335 Gardner, Richard I xxxii; II 523 Garrod, Heathcote William I xxxii 277, 421, 552; II 99 Garvin, James Louis I xxxii, 183 Gaselee, Stephen I xxxii, 303, 333, 388–9, 401, 522; II 42, 196–7, 305, 436, 533 Gibson, Elizabeth I xxxii, 193 Glover, Terrot Reaveley I xxxii–xxxiii, 601, 609; II 263, 263–4, 333 Goldring, Douglas I xxxiii, 528–9 Gollancz, Israel I xxxiii, 268 Gorecki, Thaddeus I xxxiii; II 398 Gosse, Edmund William I xxxiii, 259, 317, 331, 333–4, 375–7, 377–8, 395–6, 399–401, 519, 566–7 Gosse, Ellen Epps (‘Nellie’), Lady II 72 Gosse, Philip Henry George I xxxiii; II 109 Gow, Andrew Sydenham Farrar I xxxiii, 300, 303, 306, 319, 321–2, 329, 355–6, 368–9, 430, 430–1, 434, 470, 482, 483, 500, 543, 551, 551–2, 554, 557, 559–60, 560, 588, 592, 599, 602, 613–14, 614, 619, 624; II 7, 54, 56, 58, 62, 75, 88, 98, 115, 116, 261, 263, 266?, 341?, 406, 417, 460?, 488, 498, 498–9, 511, 534, 535, 536, 538

543 Graham, Douglas Leslie I xxxiii; II 447 Grey, Mrs II 356 Gurney, Ivor Bertie I xxxiii–xxxiv, 566 Hackforth, Reginald I xxxiv; II 239 Hale, William Gardner I xxxiv, 113–14 Halifax, Viscount (Edward Frederick Lindley Wood) I liii; II 419 Hall, Edward II 85 Hall, Mr II 99; perhaps Edward Hall Hall, Frederick William I xxxiv, 470, 533, 544, 583–4, 622, 625, 629, 632, 634; II 20, 136, 137, 173 Hamilton, George Rostrevor I xxxiv, 559, 589, 590 Hamilton, James II 134 Hamilton, Walter I xxxiv; II 449 Hamilton, William II 439 Harden, Donald Benjamin I xxxiv, 490; II 276 Hardy, Thomas I xxxiv, 119, 122, 299–300, 316, 332, 418–19 Harper, George McLean, the Elder I xxxiv; II 75 Harrison, Ernest I xxxv, 538–9, 582; II 486 Harwood, Paul A. II 465 Haynes, Edmund Sidney Pollock I xxxv; II 323 Hemmerde, Pauline II 44, 47, 87, 334 Hethington, H. W. II 249 Higgins, Alexander George MacLennan Pearce I xxxv, 577 Hill, George Francis I xxxv, 144, 145 Hinkson, Katharine Tynan, n´ee Tynan I xxxv, 178 Hires, Harrison S. I xxxv; II 360–1 Holland, Michael James I xxxv; II 468, 474, 478, 518 Hollond, Henry Arthur I xxxv, 398–9; II 354–5 Holmes, Phillips II 402 Holt & Co., Messrs Henry I 564–5, 580, 582–3 II 25, 424 Horsburgh, James MacDonald I xxxv, 73 Houghton, Arthur Villiers I 310 Hougland, W. II 537

544 Housman, Basil Williams I xxxv–xxxvi; II 47–8 Housman, Edward I xxxvi, 23–29 Housman, Felicia I 3 Housman, Jeannie I [xxxv]; II 121, 146, 162–3, 195, 226, 248, 253, 255–6, 271, 356, 367, 397–8, 407–8, 427, 429–30, 452–3, 458, 467, 473, 484, 509, 521; see Housman, Basil Williams Housman, Katharine Elizabeth (later Mrs E. W. Symons) I xxxvi, 33–40, 52–3, 60, 230–1, 281–2, 308, 328, 346–7, 437–8, 444, 444–5, 447, 448, 453–4, 493–4, 496, 531–2, 535, 539, 540, 546–7, 551, 556, 567–8, 576, 587, 593, 604–5, 607, 619, 620–1, 637–8 II 3, 19, 33, 34–5, 46–7, 65, 81–2, 100, 115, 116–17, 120–1, 134–5, 139, 144–5, 171, 186, 188, 221, 229, 257, 275, 277, 295–6, 299–300, 310–11, 313, 314, 320, 322, 324, 334, 348, 362–3, 366–7, 371, 372–3, 373, 374, 374–5, 375, 376, 376–7, 378, 382, 409, 428, 437–8, 440, 453–4, 465–6, 472–3, 484–5, 489, 490–1, 491, 492, 500, 502, 504, 513, 516–17, 526, 528, 529–30, 533 Housman, Laurence I xxxvi, 78–81, 82–4, 85–6, 86, 88–9, 90–1, 91–2, 92–3, 94, 94–6, 153, 203–4, 206, 215, 218, 220, 222–3, 227, 228, 231, 251, 262–3, 266, 268–9, 314, 373–4, 423–4, 451, 527, 527–8, 595, 597, 603, 606; II 95, 111–12, 113, 120, 186, 222, 229–30, 283, 287, 321, 324, 347, 349–50, 354, 379, 391, 393, 429, 431, 451–2, 476, 477–8, 479, 501, 503, 515, 526 Housman, Lucy Agnes I xxxvi, 4, 5–7, 7–8, 8–12, 19–20, 21–2, 32, 48–51, 55–6, 56–7, 96–7, 97–9, 100–1, 106–7, 107–8, 123–5, 125–7, 127–9, 132–3, 162–4; II 534 Housman, Mary Brettell I 3 Howard de Walden, Lady II 59 Hudson-Williams, Alun I xxxvi; II 149

Index of Recipients Hutchison, William George I xxxvi, 145 Innes, Hugh McLeod I xxxvi–xxxvii, 260 Ishill, Joseph I xxxvii; II 202, 225–6, 264, 288, 399 Jackson, Gerald Christopher Arden I xxxvii; II 348 Jackson, Henry I xxxvii, 146, 190, 194, 195–6, 222, 264–5, 310, 409–10 Jackson, Henry Cholmondeley I xxxvii, 482 Jackson, Margaret Adelaide (‘Marg’) I xxxvii; II 129 Jackson, Moses John I xxxvii–xxxviii, 516–18 Jackson, Rosa I 232 see Jackson, Moses John James, Montague Rhodes I xxxviii, 391, 419; II 123–4, 124, 188, 204, 205 Jamin, Georges I xxxviii; II 254–5, 258–9 Jenkinson, Francis John Henry I xxxviii, 290, 322, 383 Johnson, Josephine II 412 Jones, H. Parry II 53, 54 Jones, Henry Festing I xxxviii, 429, 431, 479, 606, 613 Jones, Henry Stuart I xxxviii; II 228 Judge, Max I xxxviii–xxxix; II 167 Keary, Charles Francis I xxxix, 204 Keynes, Geoffrey Langdon I xxxix; II 77, 86, 105, 174, 353 Keynes, John Neville I 574–5 Knoche, Ulrich I xxxix; II 90–2 Knopf, Alfred A. II 372 Kuder, Mrs William S. see Bane, Blanche Lane, Allen I xxxix; II 408, 423, 428 Lane, John I xxxix, 110, 210 Lane-Latimer, J. Ronald, see Leippert, James George Lapsley, Gaillard Thomas I xxxix, 496, 613; II 217

Index of Recipients Last, Hugh Macilwain I xxxix; II 515 Lee, George Mervyn I xxxix; II 461 Leippert, James George I xxxix; II 17, 34, 64, 105–6, 138, 165, 175, 454 Lemperly, Paul I xxxix, 117; II 435 Leonard, William Ellery I xl; II 49, 58, 351 Lindsay, Wallace Martin I xl, 134, 141 Logan, Robert Young I xl, 599 Love, Paul V. II 10 Lowe, Mr I 198 Lucas, Edward Verrall I 521, 553 Lulham, Edwin Percy Habberton I xl, 159 McCole, Camille II 224 MacColl, Dugald Sutherland I 341, 618 Mackail, John William I xl, 151–3, 186, 291–3, 361, 384, 408, 432, 501, 503–4, 505–7, 585, 624; II 6, 74, 111, 168, 224, 269, 295, 394 Maclagan, Eric Robert Dalrymple I xl–xli, 253 MacLaren, Malcolm Shaw I xli; II 290 Macmillan, Frederick Orridge I xli, 642 Macmillan and Co., Messrs I 58–9, 576 Makin, W. I xli; II 236 Marie Louise Victoria, Princess I xli, 540 Markham, Edwin I xli, 636 Marsh, Edward I 297–8, 299 Martin, Houston I xli; II 317, 337, 389, 395, 396, 413, 415–16, 442–3, 444–5, 495, 527–8, 532 Martin, Mrs N. M. II 181 Marvin, Francis Sydney I xli; II 60 Masefield, John Edward I xli, 256; II 184–5, 364, 474–5 Mathews Ltd, Messrs Elkin II 11, 13 Meakin, Annette Mary Budgett I xli–xlii, 118–19 Meech, Sylvia II 286 Melvutsky, Mr II 160 Merrill, William Augustus I xlii, 319 Meurig-Davies, E. L. B. II 232 Meyerstein, Edward Harry William I xlii; II 321, 483

545 Meynell, Wilfrid John I xlii, 308, 309 Midland Bank Ltd II 213 Millington-Drake, Eugen John Henry Vanderstegen I xlii, 594 Monro, Harold I xlii; II 140, 164 Monroe, Harriet I xlii, 478 Moore, G. V. II 521 Morgan, Louise II 252 Moring, Messrs Alexander I xlii, 198–9 Morley, Sylvanus Griswold I xlii; II 383 Morton, H. J. I 102–3, 386–7 Morton, Katharine M. I 91 Moseley, Miss II 96 Moult, Thomas I xlii, 444 Munson, Gorham Bert I xlii; II 520 Murphy, James P. J. II 403, 407 Murray, George Gilbert Aim´e I xlii–xliii, 120–1, 156, 157, 166, 166–7, 167–8, 226–7, 241, 244, 330, 518–19 Newall, Hugh Frank I xliii, 386–7 Nock, Arthur Darby I xliii, 610; II 168 O’Brian, Delos II 318 O’Connor, [?A. H.] II 131 Oliver, Francis Wall I xliii; II 510–11 Oppenheim, Elizabeth Alexandra I xliii, 417 Owlett, Frederick Charles I xliii, 553, 561; II 196, 208, 210 Oxford, University of: Electors, Corpus Professor of Latin II 448 Registrar–II 69 70, 70 St John’s College, Bursar I 54 University Press, New York II 240–1 Oxford and Asquith, Earl of (Herbert Henry Asquith) I 615 Parry, Milman II 332 Parry, Reginald St John I xliii, 426–7, 607–8 Partington, Wilfred George I xliii; II 199 Partridge, Robert II 449, 451 Patent Office, Trade Marks, Registrar I 65

546 Payne, Leonidas Warren, Jr I xliii, 510; II 237, 282–3 Pearson, Alfred Chilton I xliii–xliv, 477–8, 574, 631, 631–2; II 103 Pease, Arthur Stanley I xliv; II 497 Perkins, Mrs I 337 Perret, Jean-Louis I 486 Pettitt, H. B. I 586 Phelps, William Lyon II 435 Phillimore, John Swinnerton I xliv, 405, 422, 558 Pinker, James Brand, and Son I xliv; II 307, 307–8, 311? Platt, John Arthur I xliv, 359 Platt, Mildred I xliv, 118, 248, 258–9, 298, 301, 362–3, 460; II 18, 20, 163, 169 Pollard, Arthur William I xliv, 45–6, 46–8, 62–3, 66–8, 533–4 Pollet, Maurice I xlv; II 325–6, 327–30 Postgate, John Percival I xliv–xlv, 217, 341–2, 369–70 Powell, John Enoch I xlv; II 333 Priestley, John Boynton I xlv, 489, 570–1 Pulsifer, Harold Trowbridge I xlv; II 357 Purdy, Richard Little II 84 Purves, John I xlv, 130 Pym, Thomas (‘Tom’) Wentworth I xlv, 286 Quiller-Couch, Arthur I xlv, II 125 Rackham, Harris I xlv; II 25, 142 Ramsay, Allen Beville I xlvi, 508; II 418 Ramsay, Margaret Johnstone, n´ee Buchanan, Lady I xlvi, 262, 366 Rice, Virginia II 311 Rice, Wallace de Groot Cecil I xlvi, 170 Richards, Elsina I 177 Richards, Franklin Thomas Grant I xlvi, 105–6, 108, 109, 114, 115, 119, 120, 135–6, 136–7, 138, 138–9, 140, 142, 143, 147, 149, 150, 151, 154, 155, 159, 160, 160–1, 161, 161–2, 164–5, 165, 168, 169, 171–2, 173,

Index of Recipients 174, 174–5, 175, 176, 177, 177–8, 178, 179, 181, 182, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186–7, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 199, 200, 201, 205, 208, 208–9, 209, 210, 211, 211–12, 213, 214, 215–16, 216, 219, 220, 221, 223–4, 224, 225, 228–9, 229, 233, 234, 234–5, 236, 237, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245, 246–7, 247, 250, 251, 252, 255, 256, 258, 260, 265–6, 266, 271, 271–2, 272, 272–3, 274, 275, 276, 277, 279, 280, 280–1, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 293, 294, 294–5, 296, 296–7, 299, 302, 302–3, 305, 310, 312, 313, 318, 320, 320–1, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 327, 328, 330, 335–6, 336, 339, 340, 343, 343–4, 344–5, 345, 345–6, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 353–4, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 358, 359–60, 360, 360–1, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 366–7, 367, 368, 369, 370, 370–1, 372, 372–3, 374, 374–5, 375, 379, 380, 380–1, 381–2, 383, 387, 388, 389–90, 390, 393, 393–4, 394, 401, 402, 403, 404, 406, 407, 409, 411, 412, 412–13, 413, 413–14, 414–15, 415, 416, 418, 420, 420, 421, 423, 424, 425, 426, 429, 433, 433–4, 435, 436, 440, 441, 442, 442–3, 443, 445, 445–6, 446, 447, 449, 450, 451, 452, 452–3, 453, 454, 456, 457–8, 458–60, 463, 464, 466, 467, 469, 469–70, 471, 471–2, 472, 472–3, 473, 473–4, 474, 477, 480, 481, 487, 488, 489–90, 491, 492–3, 494–5, 495, 496, 498, 499, 499–500, 500, 501, 501–2, 502, 504, 507–8, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513, 514, 515, 515, 516, 519, 521, 523, 524, 525, 526, 531, 533, 534, 535, 541, 545–6, 548–9, 558, 572–3, 573, 575, 580–1, 586, 588, 594, 597–8, 603, 610, 611, 633, 633–4, 634, 636, 638, 640, 641; II 4, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15–16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28–9, 32, 33, 38, 45, 51, 53–4, 55, 57, 64, 67, 72, 76, 76–7, 78–9, 79–80, 81, 84–5, 86, 89,

547

Index of Recipients 93, 107, 114, 126, 128, 131, 139, 140, 141, 141–2, 152, 161–2, 166–7, 170, 178, 179, 180, 183, 183, 187, 191, 197, 202–3, 231, 234, 235, 238, 240, 243–4, 244–5, 250, 251, 258, 266, 268–9, 273, 275, 281, 282, 285, 286, 293–4, 294, 295, 296, 296–7, 298, 300, 302, 303–4, 307, 312, 319, 325, 330, 338, 340, 341, 359–60, 370, 372, 380, 382, 383, 384, 388, 392, 399, 402, 404, 407, 432, 432–3, 433, 441, 441–2, 462, 464, 470–1, 486, 487, 492–3, 517 Richards, Grant, Publishing Manager of I 155, 239, 240, 242 Richards Ltd, Messrs Grant I 255, 278, 283, 284, 285, 294, 300, 305, 320, 329, 332, 335, 341, 343, 344, 348, 352, 354, 373, 382, 404, 409, 427, 464, 467, 537, 561, 565, 570, 583, 596, 600, 602, 637 Richards, Maria I 394, 405–6, 411, 425, 479, 481, 497, 502, 522, 525, 544; II 313 Richards Press Ltd II 30, 30–1, 32, 34, 35, 42, 50, 56–7, 57–8, 61, 62, 63, 66–7, 68, 69, 72–3, 73, 75, 80, 82, 83, 85–6, 87, 88, 89, 90, 94, 95, 98, 104, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 126, 130, 132, 143, 146–7, 147, 148, 150, 153, 156, 157, 158–9, 159, 161, 165, 167, 169, 171–2, 172, 176, 178, 179, 182, 183, 184, 187–8, 190, 192–3, 193, 194, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 207, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 218, 218–19, 220, 221, 225, 232, 236, 243, 245, 246, 252, 253, 254, 259, 285, 287, 288, 289, 293, 297, 300, 301, 304, 305, 306, 309, 314, 317, 324, 330, 332, 333, 357, 362, 378, 379, 395, 408, 412, 413, 414, 422, 423, 436, 439, 444, 445, 449, 464, 466, 472, 474, 481, 482, 487, 490, 513, 514, 516, 518, 524, 527 Manager II 4, 9, 446, 466 Richardson, E. W. Moreton II 168 Richmond, Oliffe Legh I xlvi, 536; II 96–7

Ridley, Maurice Roy I xlvi; II 176 Riverside Press Ltd I 514 Robb, Ellis D. II 351, 360, 390, 439 Robbins, Frank Egleston I xlv; II 40–1, 154, 405, 409–12, 415, 420–1 Roberts, Mr II 350 Roberts, Denys Kilham I xlvi; II 365 Roberts, J. G. II 357 Roberts, Molly (?) II 446 Roberts, Richard Ellis I xlvi, 111 Roberts, Sydney Castle I xlvi–xlvii, 609, 623, 630, 632, 635, 640–1, 641, 642; II 5–6, 13, 21, 22–3, 24, 26, 83–4, 128, 135, 138, 187, 189, 212, 222, 222–3, 223, 224–5, 249, 274, 276–7, 278, 279, 279–80, 301, 315, 339, 358, 371, 423, 503, 531 Robertson, Donald Struan I xlvii, 457, 563, 620; II 239, 260–1, 462, 531 Robertson, Petica Coursolles, n´ee Jones I xlvii; II 233, 352, 368, 463, 488 Robinson, Oliver I xlvii; II 390 Rose, J. M. II 504 Ross, Edward Denison I xlvii, 131 Rothenstein, Alice Mary, n´ee Knewstub I xlvii, 200, 203, 214, 217, 224–5, 232, 236, 236–7, 238, 240, 242, 244, 245, 246, 248–9, 250, 253–4, 261, 265, 270–1, 295, 296, 304, 309, 311, 364–5, 381, 390, 391, 431–2, 569–70; II 5, 231 Rothenstein, William I xlvii, 192, 202, 205–6, 233, 249–50, 314, 363, 364, 435–6, 461; II 55, 59, 61, 292, 343 Rouse, William Henry Denham I xlvii, 436–7, 462; II 457 Royal Literary Fund, Committee of the II 52–3 Rubin, Arnold II 138, 148, 152, 153–4, 175, 237, 246, 246–7, 315–16, 535–6 Rudge, William Edwin I xlvii, 584 Rutherford, Ernest I xlvii, 579 Ryan, Mary Clare I 595 Sampson, John I xlvii; II 125 Sanders, Gerald de Witt II 36–7 Sassoon, Siegfried I xlviii, 408

548 Saul, George Brandon II 42 Savory, Gundred Helen I xlviii; II 242 Sayle, Charles Edward I xlviii, 340, 384–5, 406, 473, 475, 476 Scholfield, Alwyn Faber I xlviii, 456, 483, 616, 620, 623, 625; II 29–30, 40, 41, 81, 83, 88, 95, 117, 123, 127, 137, 150, 152, 166, 174, 216, 223, 226, 294, 308, 335, 352, 432, 505, 506–7 Scott-James, Rolfe Arnold I xlviii; II 532 Secker, Martin (formerly Percy Martin Secker Klingender) I xlviii, 381, 392–3, 441; II 11, 79, 398 Semple, William Hugh I xlviii; II 27–8, 205–6 Seton, Walter Warren I xlviii, 184, 204 Shafer, Robert II 189 Shankar, Bhawani I xlix; II 530 Sheppard, John Tressider I xlix; II 387 Shewring, Walter Hayward Francis I xlix, 534; II 177 Simpson, Percy I xlvix, 537, 538 Skutsch, Otto I xlix; II 425–7 Slater, David Ansell I xlix, 257, 311–12, 316; II 272–3 Smith, Mr I 509 Souter, Alexander I xlix; II 457–8 Smith, Mrs Owen II 256 Sparrow, John Hanbury Angus I xlix–l, 573; II 12, 430–1, 433–4, 444 Spicer-Simson, Theodore I l, 503, 504, 507, 510–11, 564 Squire, John Collins I l, 412; II 279 Stamfordham, Lord, Arthur John Bigge I l; II 113 Standard, Editor I 76–7 Steinman, Karl II 464 Stevens, Paul Pearman I l, 520; II 101 Stewart, Hugh I l; II 267–8 Stewart, William I l, 171 Sugden, F. B., and R. G. Martin I 327 Sutcliffe, George I 548, 549 Sutherland, Duchess of I 154 Symons, Arthur Denis I l; II 281–2, 303, 508–9 Symons, Edward William I l; II 43–4

Index of Recipients Symons, Katharine Elizabeth, see under Housman, Katharine Elizabeth Symons, Phyllis I l; II 304 Taylor, J. Cameron C. I 338 Thicknesse, Lily I l–li, 121–2, 238–9, 304–5, 331, 338, 560 Thompson, Mr I 235 Thompson, D’Arcy Wentworth I li, 254, 293, 392, 405, 481, 628; II 150–1, 170, 297, 308, 319, 336, 437, 481 Thompson, Edward John I li; II 257–8, 260 Thomson, Joseph John I li, 585–6; II 119 Thomson, Rose Elizabeth Paget, Lady II 67 Thring, George Herbert I li, 547–8, 548, 581, 582 Tillotson, Geoffrey I li; II 460, 463, 468, 471, 481, 483 Times, Editor I 571, 571–2; II 316, Sunday Times II 456–7 Times Literary Supplement I 562–3; II 97–8 Tonks, Henry I li; II 191, 475–6 Torrence, Frederick Ridgely I li, 449, 591 Trevelyan, George Macaulay I li; II 93, 148–9, 455 Trollope, Blanche I li; II 421 Trotter, Jacqueline Theodora I 417 Tyrrell, Robert Yelverton I 60–1 University College, London: Appointments Committee I 587 Council I 72–3 Fellowship Committee I 75 Privateer, Editors I 74 Unknown Correspondents I 110–11, 137, 245, 255–6, 318, 429, 437, 466, 485, 526, 540, 590, 600, 614, 624, 634; II 30, 40, 43, 50, 110–11, 132, 206, 214, 254, 305, 309–10, 353, 356, 389, 393, 406, 414, 443, 467, 469, 470, 472, 506, 520, 525, 529, 535, 537, 538, 539

549

Index of Recipients Untermeyer, Louis I lii, 424 Van Doren, Irita I lii; II 454 Van Doren, Mark I lii; II 73–4, 78 Varney, John II 21 Vollmer, Friedrich Karl I lii, 226, 231, 235 Walston, Charles (formerly Walston) I lii, 414, 514 Walters, Lettice d’Oyly I lii; II 238 Warren, Thomas Herbert I lii, 261, 478–9 Webb, Philip George Lancelot I lii, 87–8, 116, 288 Wellesley, Kenneth I lii; II 278, 280 Wells, J. R. II 8, 11 Wemyss, Lady, n´ee Mary Constance Wyndham I lii; II 506 Wethered, Geoffrey II 377, 394 Wharton, Edith I liii; II 192 Wheelock, John Hall I liii; II 312 Wiggins, G. H. I liii; II 184, 189, 220 Wilkinson, Marguerite Ogden Bigelow I liii, 402 Wilensky, Harold II 248 Williams, Charles Walter Stansby I liii; II 143–4, 147, 174–5 Williamson, George Charles I 455, 476 Wilson, Miss II 522–3 Wilson, Mrs A. F. II 390 Wilson, Charles I liii; II 4, 6, 10, 15, 24, 26, 29, 31, 32, 87, 112, 132, 145, 166, 176, 177, 204, 216, 233, 247, 262, 277, 287, 317, 331, 346, 379, 384, 394, 400, 415, 418–19, 446, 461, 463, 468, 491, 497, 512, 532

Wilson, Mrs Charles (?) II 101 Wilson, Edmund I liii; II 28, 31 Windle, R II 487 Windsor Press II 108 Winstanley, Denys Arthur I liii, 465 Wise, Edith I liii, 270 Wise, Elizabeth Mary I liii, 17–18, 18, 29–31, 40–2, 43–4, 64, 105, 175; II 134 Wise, Thomas James II 455 Withers, Audrey I liii; II 370 Withers, Mary Wolley I liii, 387, 494, 565; II 15, 74, 198, 303, 429, 482 Withers, Percy I liv, 386, 403–4, 428, 439–40, 461, 466–7, 475, 484–5, 490, 495, 498, 513, 529–30, 542, 549–50, 554–5, 564, 578, 590, 605, 615–16, 622, 625–6, 642–3; II 16, 44, 66, 102–3, 106, 119–20, 130, 133, 158, 163, 185, 207, 227, 244, 270, 291, 318–19, 320–1, 342–3, 352–3, 369–70, 385–6, 396–7, 417, 417–18, 425, 434, 450–1, 458–9, 469–70, 471, 477, 478–9, 480, 485–6, 493, 507, 508, 518, 519, 520, 530 Wood, Edward Frederick Lindley see Halifax, Viscount Woods, Margaret Louisa Daisy, n´ee Bradley I liv, 229, 591 Woollright, Elizabeth Mary I liv, 13–16 Wrench, John Evelyn Leslie I liv; II 61 Wright, William Aldis I liv, 61 Yeats, William Butler I liv; II 499, 501 Young, William Siddons I liv, 77

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GENERAL INDEX

Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire I 161 n. 1 Abercrombie, Lascelles II 26; II 217 n. 3, 251 n. 1 Acad´emie Franc¸aise II 479 Academy I 488; II 174 Achilles, son of Peleus II 276 n. 2 Adair, Arthur Henry II 180 n. 1 Adams, F. L. II 114 Addison, Joseph I 337, 388 Adeane, Charles Robert Whornwood II 161 Adie, Walter Sibbald II 282 n. 3 Æ, see George William Russell Aeacus II 276 n. 2 Aegisthus I 577 aeroplanes I 443, 445, 446, 450, 453–4, 451, 459, 470, 471, 546, 547, 596; II 35, 139, 140, 188, 295, 299–300, 371, 376, 378, 437, 489, 492, 493; cf. II 535 Aeschines I 468 Aeschylus I 47, 60–1, 62, 73, 157, 167, 167–8, 258, 356, 359, 377, 378, 539, 562 n. 2; II 45, 56, 99, 246 n. 1, 326, 329, 413, 494 n. 2; cf. II 237 Africanus, Iulius II 441 Agar, Thomas Leyden I 539 Agate, James I 447 Aidan, Francis, Cardinal Gasquet, see Francis Aidan Cardinal Gasquet Ainley, Henry Hinchcliffe II 189 n. 1 Akhmatova, Anna II 470 Aladdin I 584 Albatross Press II 311, 314

Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Consort I 419 n. 4, 530 n. 2; II 451 Alcaeus I 342 Alcestis I 424 Aldine Press I 551 All Blacks (New Zealand rugby team) I 579 Allen, Ellen (Mrs Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen) I 364 n. 1; II 293 Allen, Grant cf. I 463, 464 Allen, H. S. I 300 Allingham, William I 9 n. 5 Allison, William I 407 n. 2 Amberley, John Russell, Viscount I 304 n. 1 American Journal of Philology I 73 Americans I 147, 234, 251, 279, 314, 356, 463, 469, 472, 520, 527, 569; II 115, 284, 435, 496, 522; cf. I 451 Ampelius, Lucius I 405 Anderson, Hugh Kerr I 497; II 461 n. 1 Andrea (gondolier) I 129, 132, 225, 246, 247, 617, 619, 620, 622; II 221 Annuaire Gastronomique II 25 Annunzio, Gabriele d’ I 156 n. 1 Anstice, Joseph I 63, 67 anthologia Graeca I 215, 384, II 326, 329 anthologia Latina ed. Alexander Riese II 164 anti-vivisectionists I 148 aphaeresis II 169 appendix Vergiliana I 186, 226, 231, 235, 628 Apuleius Madaurensis I 563 Aratus I 116

552 Archer, William I 109 Archimedes I 403 Architecture, I 98, 123, 124, 124–5, 126, 127, 128, 132–3, 230–1, 428, 475, 626; II 102–3, 145, 146, 158, 171, 286, 416, 440, 489 Argei I 612 Aristarchus of Samos I 386 Aristippus of Cyrene I 570 n. 4; II 326; cf. II 329, 528 Aristophanes I 60, 62, 243, 316, 636; II 13, 20 n. 2, 60 Aristotle I 146, 613; II 160, 537 Armenians I 163 Armstrong, Terence Ian Fytton, see John Gawsworth Armstrong, Thomas Henry Wait I 409, 433; II 404 Arne, Thomas I 26 Arnold, Edward Vernon I 533, 632 Arnold, Matthew I 90, 570 n. 3; II 345, 395 Arnold, Thomas I 45; II 345 Ashburner, Walter I 147 Ashford, Daisy I 409 Asquith, Herbert Henry, see Oxford and Asquith Asquith, Margot I 477 Aston, John I 256 n. 1 astrology or astronomy I 116, 144, 254, 303, 386, 387, 543–4, 599, 610, 613; II 40–1, 42, 154, 228 n. 1, 255, 292, 325, 335, 409–12, 415, 420–1 Athenaeum I 94 Athene, Pallas II 19 ‘Atticus’ II 456 Auberges et Hostelleries II 28 Aurelius Antoninus, Marcus I 92 Ausonius Magnus, Decimus I 465; II 309 Austen, Jane II 114 n. 2 Austin, Alfred I 26, 27 Avebury, Sir John Lubbock, first Baron I 131 n. 1 Ayloff, Captain I 389 n. 1 Aynsley family II 34

General Index Aytoun, William Edmonstoune I 80, 530 n. 2; II 11 Bacchylides I 100–1, 104, 105 Bacon, Miss II 488 Badham, Charles I 574 Baehrens, Emil I 58; II 284 Baehrens, Wilhelm Adolf II 150 n. 1 Bagehot, Walter II 60 n. 2 Bainbrigge, Philip Gillespie II 45 Baldwin, Stanley I 579 n. 3, 618; II 55 n. 1 Balfour, Arthur James Balfour, first Earl of I 437, 527–8 Ballads I 506; II 326, 329, 490 Balzac, Honor´e I 264; II 338 Banting, Frederick Grant I 542 n. 1 Banville, Th´eodore Faullain de II 74, 175 Barber, Eric Arthur II 193 n. 1, 265 n. 10 Barker, Edmund I 377 n. 13 Barker, Harley Granville I 203 n 2, 330 n. 1 Barnes, William II 84 Barrie, James Matthew I 330 n. 1, 529; II 55 n. 1, 59 n. 1, 60, 61, 217 n. 3, 505 n. 2 Barth, Caspar von II 365 Baudelaire Charles I 391 n. 1 Baumann, Arthur Anthony I 25 Baumeister, August I 216 Bax, Ernest Belfort I 340, 403, 477 n. 3; II 51 n. 1 Beach, Michael Edward Hicks, see St Aldwyn Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli, Lord I 23, 25, 26, 28, 47, 262–3, 516; II 316, 346, 349 Beale, Dorothea II 34 Beauclark, Lord Osborne I 323 n. 1 Becker, Sophie I 14, 30, 41, 43–4, 64, 148, 511 n. 1 Beckett, Joe I 458 Beddoes, Thomas Lovell I 95 Bede, Venerable II 87 n. 1 Beerbohm, Max I 161 n. 1, 399 n. 1, 432, 472; II 78 n. 4, 293

General Index Belger, Christian I 470 Bell & Sons, Messrs George II 213 Bellini, Giovanni I 128 Belloc, Hilaire II 350 Benedict XV (Achille Ratti), Pope 485 n. 2 Bengelius, Johannes Albertus II 263 Benham, William Gurney II 160 Benn, Ernest II 257 n. 1 Benner, Allen Rogers II 302 n. 1 Benner Greek (fount) II 302 Bennett, Birdie Bywater (or Bywaters) I 171 Bennett, Enoch Arnold I 256, 300 n. 1; 279 n. 1, 478–9, 479 Benson, Arthur Christopher I 255, 256, 320, 418, 511 n. 1, 557 n. 1, 592; II 419 Benson, Edward Frederic I 256 Benson, Godfrey Rathbone, see first Baron of Charnwood Benson, Olive I 298 Bentham, Jeremy I 148 n. 5 Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish- I 535 Bentley, Richard I 112 n. 1, 152, 167 n. 3, 186 n. 6, 386 n. 1, 392 n. 1; II 268, 522; cf. II 39 Benturich, Mr II 253 Bergk, Wilhelm Theodor I 462, 470 Bergson, Henri I 462 Berichten des X Internationalen Kunsthistor. Kongresses in Rom (1912) II 88, 95 Berliner Klassikertexte II 81, 83 Best, Charles Herbert I 542 n. 1 Best & Co. I 594 Bevan, Anthony Ashley II 333, 386 Beyle, Marie-Henri, see Stendhal Bible I 28, 40 n. 3, 48 n. 12, 50 n. 15, 55, 56, 65, 79 n. 4, 7, 8, 81 n. 17, 100, 119, 120, 153 n. 3, 229, 236, 259, 359, 371, 408, 421, 489, 490, 610; II 93, 260 n. 8, 377, 389, 430, 440, 452 bibliophilia I 439, 515, 519, 520, 550, 600, 634; II 132, 337 bicycles I 122, 286; II 33

553 Bidder, Henry Jardine I 223 n. 3, 261–2 n. 3, 513 n. 2 Bierce, Ambrose I 256 Billings, Josh II 337 Billings, Miss I 43 Binyon, Laurence I 550; II 210, 217 n. 3 Birch, Francis Lyall I 321 Birmingham Post II 299 Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold I 41 Blackett, Spencer I 85 Blackwell, Benjamin Henry I 266, 595; II 225 Blake, William I 186, 198; II 125, 196 n. 1, 349 n. 2, 353, 436 n. 1 Bland, Hubert I 86 n. 1, 88, II 528 Bland, Mrs Hubert, see Edith Nesbit Blaydes, Frederick Henry Marvell I 70 Blomfield, Charles James I 61 Blount, Mr I 388 n. 1 Blunden, Edmund Charles I 519; II 52, 52–3, 59, 217 n. 3, 230 Blunderbuss I 492 Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen I 323 n. 1, 407, 472–3 Boas, Guy II 334 n. 1 Boden, Frederick Cecil II 229 Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus I 186 Boll, Franz I 254 Bolsheviks I 578 Bona Dea I 362 Bongers, Mr II 310–11 book design I 66, 85–6, 92, 93, 119, 135, 136–7, 138–9, 140, 150, 187, 210, 216, 231, 325, 491, 502, 514, 549, 582–3, 592; II 58, 130, 155, 158, 199, 225, 274, 302 Bookman I 92, 452, 453, 546 n. 7; II 291 bookplates I 117, 542, 595; II 175 Boosey (latterly, Boosey & Hawkes), Messrs I 427, 546; II 306, 414 Booth, Miss II 190 Boswell, Charles Stuart I 84 Botteril, Denis II 461 n. 1 Botticelli, Sandro II 163 n. 1 Bottomley, Emily I 494 Bottomley, Gordon I 490, 495

554 Boulestin, Xavier Marcel II 180, 183 Bowes & Bowes, Messrs I 297, 370 Bradley, Andrew Cecil I 399 n. 1 Bradley, Katherine II 292 n. 4 Bradshaw Railway Guide I 246 Braithwaite, William Stanley II 288 n. 2 Braley, Berton II 35 Bramah, Ernest, see Ernest Bramah Smith Brandin, Louis Maurice I 150 Breiter, Theodor I 392 n. 1; II 335 Bresci, Gaetano I 125 Brettell family II 362 Brettell, Joseph H. II 100, 116, 144 Breysig, Alfred II 115 Bridges, Elizabeth (Mrs Ali Akbar Daryush) I 297 n. 3, 622 n. 5 Bridges, George I 621 n. 4 Bridges, Harriet Fanny (Butler) I 621 n. 4 Bridges, Robert I 317, 330 n. 1, 396 n. 1, 434–5, 495, 511 n. 1, 518 n. 1, 546, 548–9, 556, 561, 569, 572 n. 1 578, 611, 621; II 16, 26, 133, 144 n. 7, 156 n. 3, 158, 181, 185 n. 4, 233, 242, 474, 507 Bright, John I 528 Brighter London Society I 534 British Academy I 268 British Broadcasting Corporation I 547, 548; II 10, 111 n. 1, 113, 120, 121, 189, 232, 397 British School at Rome I 138; cf. I 137 British Weekly I 86, 493 Broadbent, Henry I 587 Brodrick, William St John Freemantle, see first Earl of Midleton Bromsgrove and vicinity I 3–18, 90 n. 4, 196; II 19, 65, 81 n. 1, 206, 272 Brooke, Leonard Leslie I 343 Brougham and Vaux, Henry Peter, first Baron I 148 n. 5 Brown, Horatio Festing I 134, 135, 168, 180, 225, 247, 511 n. 1, 617; II 174 n. 1

General Index Brown, Thomas I 388 n. 1 Browne, Charles Farrar (‘Artemus Ward’) II 337 Browning, Oscar II 433 n. 6 Browning, Robert I 66–7, 78; II 345, 538 Bruyne, Norman Adrian de II 510 Brydone, Alfred I 166 Buchan, John II 475 n. 1 Buckle, George Earle II 316 n. 3, 349 Budgell, Eustace I 337 Buecheler, Franz I 406; II 91, 310 n. 1, 392, 426–7 Buhrer, Albert II 107 n. 4 builders I 88, 461; II 469 Bunting, William Louis I 223 Burdon, Richard, see first Viscount Haldane Burlington House II 163 Burman, Pieter, the elder I 333, 386 n. 1 Burman, Pieter, the younger I 386 n. 1 Burnaby, John I 321 Burnaby, William I 388, 389 Burne-Jones, Edward Coley II 393, 475 n. 1 Burrows, Frank Robert I 25 Burton, Edmund I 552 Bury, John Bagnell II 536 Butler, Gordon I 365 Butler, Harold Edgeworth I 434, 630; II 24 n. 1, 265 Butler, Henry Montagu I 264, 301, 310, 465, 599 Butler, James Ramsay Montagu I 264 Butler, Samuel (author of Erewhon) I 255, 431, 621 butterflies I 129 Butterworth, George I 266, 279, 289 Bynner, Harold Witter I 182 n. 4, 212, 478, 511 n. 1, 534, 535, 536, 589 Bynogen (medication) I 643 Byrne, Mr I 294 Byron, Lord George Gordon I 64; II 71, 154 Bywater, Ingram I 223, 399 Bywater or Bywaters, Birdie I 171 n. 1

General Index Cabell, James Branch II 208 n. 1, 250, 262, 319, 463 Cadmus of Thebes II 276 Cagnat, Ren´e Louis Victor I 579 Caine, Thomas Henry Hall II 96 Cairncross, Andrew L. II 334 n. 1 Calder, William Moir I 582 n. 1 Calderon, George I 472 n. 1; II 327 n. 1, 330 Caldwell, Thomas II 22; cf. II 21 n. 2 Callimachus I 614, 631; II 25, 536 Calverley, Charles Stuart I 530 Cambridge Chancellor’s Medals I 498 Clark Lectureship I 499, 579, 585–6; II 511 Classical Reading Society I 465, 490; II 276 Classical Tripos, second part, Group A II 117, 123, 135, 137 Davies Jackson Scholarship II 461 examiners I 563, 601, 609; II 500 Fitzwilliam Museum I 266, 267, 268, 376 French chair II 108 Greek and Latin Book Club II 523 Hare Prize I 457, 563 inaugural lectures I 267; II 143, 151, 344 Italian chair II 108 Latin chair (later, Kennedy Professorship of Latin) I 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 267, I 600 lectures I 265; 281, 361, II 4, 6, 48, 50, 235, 260, 261, 386, 494 n. 2, 495, 500, 502, 504, 507, 517, 519, 521, 532 n. 3, 533 only under compulsion I 626; II 206; cf. II 328 Library Extension Subsyndicate I 383 Members’ Classical Prize I 457 Memorials Committee I 624 Montagu Butler prize II 278, 280 Public Oratorship I 426–7, 439 Queens’ Society I 612 Trinity College examiner cf. I 457

555 fellowship, I 260 oaths I 575 wine committee I 280 n. 2, 373 University Commission I 428 University Library II 166, 308, 440, 453 University Scholarships II 98, 263, 304, 498 Cambridge History of English Literature I 423 Cambridge Readings in Literature I 522 Cameron, David Young I 215 Cameron, John Forbes II 340 n. 2 Camo˜es, Lu´ıs Vaz de II 383 Campbell, Archibald Young II 437 Campbell, Ignatius Roy Dunnachie II 311 Campbell, Lewis I 67, 69, 70, 71, 72 n. 1 Campbell-Bannerman, Henry I 222 n. 2 Cannan, Gilbert I 387 Canning, George I 567; II 149 n. 2 Cape, Messrs Jonathan II 289 Capel, John Mais II 121 Carault, Augustin I 456 Carlyle, Thomas I 397 Caroline, Queen I 262–3, 269, 270, 384 Cardwell, Edward, Viscount I 26 Carpaccio, Vittore I 128 Carpenter, Edward II 399 n. 1 Carrington, H. V. II 191 Carroll, Lewis II 328 n. 5 Cartault, Augustin I 456 Carte Gastronomique II 244 Carter, John II 83–4, 397, 444, 449, 455, 495, 519 Carter, Mr I 328 Cartwright family I 40 Cassagnac, Paul de II 180 n. 4 Cassell, Messrs II 88 Cassell’s Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words II 160 Casson, Stanley II 482 Castiglione, Luigi II 166 Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum II 411 Cather, Willa I 181 Catullus, Gaius Valerius I 113–14, 179, 180, 181, 186, 360, 483, 530

556 Catullus, Gaius Valerius (cont.) n. 2, 585, 630; II 83–4, 114 n. 2, 284 Cave, George Cave, Viscount I 583 Cave, Miss II 378 Cavendish, Spencer Compton, see Devonshire Cavendish-Bentinck, Lord Henry, see Bentinck Cayme Press II 82, 152 n. 2 Cecil, Lord Edward Christian David Gascoyne- I 241 n. 1; II 475 n. 1 Celsus, Aulus Cornelius I 322 Cervantes, Miguel de I 359, 635 Chadwick, Hector Munro II 3 Chamberlain, Austen II 316 n. 2 Chamberlain, Joseph I 190, 527–8; II 316 Chamberlain, Neville II 270 n. 2 Chambers, Raymond Wilson I 87, 639; II 49, 511 Channel Tunnel I 451 Chapman, May II 212 n. 1 Charlesworth, Martin Percival I 601 Charnwood, Godfrey Rathbone Benson, first Baron of II 503 Charrington, John II 116 Chateaubriand, Franc¸ois-Ren´e, Vicomte de I 544 Chatterton, Thomas II 196 Chaucer, Geoffrey I 331, 556 Chester Ltd, J. and W. II 486 Chesterton, Gilbert Keith I 297–8, 330 n. 1 Child Education II 275 n. 1 Chinese poetry II 215–16 Chippindall, William Harold I 230 Chitty, Joseph William I 49 Church, Richard William I 28 Churchill, Lord Randolph Henry Spencer I 528 Churchill, Winston Spencer II 238 Cicero, Marcus Tullius II 39, 62, 389, 456, 522 Clark, Albert Curtis II 173 Clark, Henry II 167

General Index Clark, R. & R. I 174, 176, 185, 220, 274, 335, 336, 449 Classical Association I 384 n. 1, 422, 469, 614; II 143, 151 Classical Quarterly I 449, 452, II 214, 239, 416 Classical Review I 69, 72, 115, 147, 274, 449; II 214 265 Claudianus, Claudius I 341 Clear, Claudius, see William Robertson Nicoll Cleland, John I 340 Clemenceau, Georges II 255 Clemens, Cyril II 227–8, 284 Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, see Mark Twain Clement I 508 Clerc, Jean le II 263 n. 1 Clifford, Lord II 199 Clodd, Edward I 122 n. 1; II 51 n. 1 Cobet, Charles Gabriel I 422 Cockerell, Sydney Carlyle I 88 n. 7, 309 n. 1, 323 n. 1, 418; II 51, 174 n. 2, 475 Cocteau, Jean I 494 Coleridge, John Duke, first Baron I 63 Coleridge, John Taylor I 63 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor I 63; II 119 Coleridge, Sara I 256 Coleridge, Stephen William Buchanan I 148 Collamore, Harry Bacon II 469 n. 1 Collette, Sidonie-Gabrielle I 474 n. 3; II 178 Collie, John Norman II 20 n. 4 Collins, Messrs II 179 Collins, Mr II 198 Collins, Wilkie II 63 Colonna family II 107 Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus II 232 Comte, Auguste I 90 Conegliano, Cima da I 128 Congreve, Richard I 90 Conington, John I 530; II 289, 323, 456 Connard, Philip I 541 n. 2 Constable and Co., Messrs I 447

General Index Consolatio ad Maecenatem II 535 Continental Daily Mail II 378 Conway, Robert Seymour II 239 n. 1 Cook & Sons, Thomas I 339, 360, 412, 446 Cooper, Edith II 292 n. 4 Copp, William II 167 n. 1 Copp Clark Co. II 167, 439 Corbett, Richard II 490 Cordelia (daughter of King Lear) I 378 Cornford, Frances Crofts I 249–50, 304; II 5, 292 Cornford, Francis Macdonald I 249 n. 1, 304; II 5 Cornforth, Fanny (Sarah Cox) I 480 n. 1–2 Cornish, Francis Warre I 256 Cornwallis, Admiral William II 113 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum I 384, 406 Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum I 259 Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum Paravianum II 166 Cortius, Gottlieb I 431 Corvo, Baron, see Frederick William Rolfe Cory, William (formerly Johnson) I 256 Cotton, Charles I 234 Coulson, Charles Alfred II 500 n. 1 Coulton, George Gordon I 493 Country Life II 162 Cowell, Philip Herbert I 543 n. 1 Cowper, William I 337, 625 Cox, Arthur Gill II 272 Cox, Sarah, see Fanny Cornforth Crace, John Foster II 481 Cranmer, Thomas I 49 n. 7 Crawford and Balcarres, Earl of II 475 n. 1 Creech, Thomas I 552, 559, 587 Creighton, Louise I 384 Cripps, Alfred Redgrave I 305 n. 1 Crockford, John II 313 Croix-Saint-Ouen II 295 n. 2 Crosland, Thomas William Hodgson I 229 n. 3, 245–6 n. 1 Cross, Victoria I 402 n. 1

557 Croze, Austin de II 258 Cruikshank, A. M. I 463, 464 Cruikshank, J. W. I 463, 464 Ctesias II 20 Cumberland & Westmorland Herald II 301 Cumont, Franz II 76, 154 Cunliffe, John William II 487 Cunningham, William, Archdeacon of Ely I 301 n. 5 Curtis, Brown, Messrs II 314 Curwen & Sons, Messrs I 458 n. 4; II 61, 148, 287, 288, 403 cutting services, see press-cutting services Cynan II 18 Daily Mail II 184 Daily Sketch I 302 Dandin, George II 255 Daniel, Pierre I 319 n. 1 Dante Alighieri I 84 n. 4, 530 n. 2; II 260 n. 9 Darley, George I 94–5 Darling, W. Y. II 269 Darrow, Clarence Seward II 48 Darwin, Charles I 184 n. 1, 249 n. 1 Darwin, Elinor Mary (Mrs Bernard Darwin) I 304 n. 4 Darwin, Erasmus I 567; II 148–9 Daryush, Ali Akbar I 621 n. 5 Daryush, Elizabeth, see Elizabeth Bridges Dauber, J. H. I 342 Davenport, Basil II 416 Davey, Norman II 269 David, Mrs Kington I 318 David (King) II 119 Davidson, John I 89, 208 Davies, F. W. H. I 65 Davies, Peter II 114 n. 2, 234 de la Mare, Walter I 211, 505; II 217 n. 3, 477 De Quincey, Thomas I 196 Defoe, Daniel II 139 Deighton, Bell & Co., booksellers I 430; II 225, 226 Delisle, L´eopold I 572 Demosthenes II 228

558 Denniston, John Dewar II 239 n. 4 Dent & Sons, Messrs II 163 n. 1 Deutsch, Babette II 516, 524 n. 2 Devonshire, Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington and eighth Duke of I 528; II 316 Dickens, Charles I 256, 264–5, 345, 556, 578; II 204, 205, 239 Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes I 172, 198, 200, 538 n.; II 208 Diogenes Laertius I 508 Dimsdale, Elsbeth (Mrs Marcus Southwell Dimsdale) II 347 Dimsdale, Marcus Southwell II 347 n. 1 Dindorf, Karl Wilhlem I 70 Dioscuri (Grenfell & Hunt) II 150 Disraeli, Benjamin, see Lord Beaconsfield Dixon, Grace II 356, 362–3, 367, 382, 397, 398, 407, 453, 467, 473, 484, 520 Dixon, Matthew II 271 n. 1, 277 Dixon, Mrs Hugh II 371 Dobell, Sydney II 142 Dobree, Peter Paul II 103 Dodd, Francis I 622, 625, 629; II 3, 5, 55, 138 Dodd, Mead & Co., Messrs II 182, 240 Dogana I 301 dogs I 43, 162–3, 175 n. 1, 227; II 68, 221, 224, 302, 338 n. 3, 418; cf. I 80 Donatello (Donato di Niccol`o di Betto Bardi) II 163 n. 1 Donatus, see Servius-Danielis Doughty, Charles Montagu II 499, 501 n. 1 Douglas, Lord Alfred Bruce I 477; II 78 Douglas, Norman I 441 n. 1–2, 481 Doumergue, Gaston I 569 n. 1 Downing, L. J. I 325 Dowson, Ernest II 136, 454 Doyle, Arthur Conan I 330 n. 1 Drakes of Devon II 328 n. Draper, William Henry I 553 n. 1 Dreiser, Theodore I 339; II 51 n. 1, 208 n. 1, 262

General Index Dreyfus, Alfred I 324 Drinkwater, John I 491, 511 n. 1, 518; II 44, 126 n. 1, 217 n. 3 Drummond, William I 187 Dryden, John I 264; II 184 n. 2 Duckworth, Gerald I 421 n. 2 Duff, Charles II 93 Duff, James Duff I 342, 511 n. 1, 595; II 515; cf. II 263 Duke, John II 370 ´ Dulac, Edouard II 131 Dumas, Alexandre II 336–7 n. 5 Dunn, Arthur I 270 Dunsany, Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron II 539 Duse, Eleanora I 156 ‘Dwarf of Blood’ I 324 n. 1 Dymock, H. M. II 461 n. 1 Edward VII, King I 224 Edwardian I 346 n. 2, 493, 531 Ehrmanns (wine & spirit merchants) I 383 Ehwald, Rudolf II 284, 535 Einstein, Albert II 246 Elgar, Edward II 217 n. 3 Eliot, George II 326, 329, 528 Eliot, Thomas Stearns II 97, 382 Ellingham, Cecil John II 245 Ellis, Henry Havelock I 256; II 264 n. 1 Ellis, Robinson I 72 n. 1, 74, 113, 151, 179–80, 226, 559; II 284; cf. I 262 Elmsley, Peter I 430 Elter, Anton Friedrich II 264 Elwes, Gervase Henry I 369 n. 1, 546 n. 6 Emerson, Ralph Waldo II 396 Engledow, Frank Leonard II 219 English Association I 521 Engstr¨om, Einar I 384, 406 Ennius, Quintus I 88 Epistle to Diognetus I 610 n. 1 Erasmus, Desiderius I 614 Erinna II 265 n. 1 Ernesti, Johann Christian Gottlieb II 315, 369 Ernout, Alfred 456, 468

General Index Escott, Ernest Bickham Sweet- II 272 Estac¸o, see Achilles Statius Eton College, Windsor I 374, 400, 467, 483, 587, 592; II 123–4, 148 Ettrick, Henry Havelock I 149 Euripides I 62, 63, 66–7, 69, 70–1, 73, 120, 121, 157, 166, 166–7, 167, 378, 423, 430, 543 n. 1, 610, 614; II 45, 56, 99, 157, 246 n. 1, 297 n. 2, 302, 336, 413, 494 n. 2 Evans, Benjamin Ifor II 89 ‘Eva’ I 108 Eve II 106 Everett, B. C. S. II 104 ‘Evil’ II 377 Ewing, Robert I 19, 20, 45, 48 Faber & Faber, Messrs II 516, 524 Fabricius, Georgius II 74 Fairbank, Alfred John I 621 n. 1 Fane, Violet I 47 Farnese Globe I 386; cf. 431 Farrar, [Ernest?] I 354 Farrer, Reginald John I 513 n. 2 Faure, Elie II 225 n. 2, 264 n. 1 Festugi`ere, Andr´e-Jean II 290 n. 2 Feuchtwanger, Lion II 11 Few & Wild (J. E. Few & A. H. Wild), solicitors I 640; II 314 Field, Michael, see Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper Fielding, Henry I 195, 337 Finberg, Herbert Patrick Reginald II 106 n. 2 Firbank, Ronald I 494, 499, 500 Firmicus Maternus II 255 Fisher, Herbert Albert Laurens I 390 n. 1 Fishmongers’ Hall II 270 FitzGerald, Edward I 239; II 18 n. 1, 327 n. 1 Fitzpatrick, Thomas Cecil I 362 Flaccus, Kimball II 489 Flecker, James Elroy I 528

559 Fletcher, Arthur George Murchison II 467 n. 1 Fletcher, Derek George Murchison II 467 n. 1 Fletcher, George I 223; II 409, 467 Fletcher, John I 9, 468; II 345 Fletcher, Walter Morley I 322 Florence Press I 573 Florio, John I 234 Fobes, Francis II 118 Forbiger, Albert II 306 Forcellini, Egidio II 368 Ford, Ford Madox (formerly Ford Madox Hueffer) II 268 Forman, Harry Buxton II 143 Forster, Edward Morgan I 537–8 n. 2 Forster, William Edward I 24 Foss, Hubert James II 379 Foster, Joseph I 604 Foster, Thomas Gregory I 566 Fothergill, John Rowland II 29, 268 Fotheringham, John Knight II 151 Fowler, Eileen, see Eileen Rutherford Fowler, Ralph Howard II 227 n. 1, 229 Fowler, Thomas (‘Tommy’) II 456 n. 2 Fox, Miss [?Charlotte Milligan] I 299 Fraenkel, Eduard II 447–8, 449, 456, 457–8 Francken, Cornelis Marinus II 17 Franklin, Benjamin I 601 Franks, Bobbie II 48 n. 2 Fraser, Claud Lovat I 458–60, 534, 572–3; II 69 Fraser, James I 28, 29, 30 Frazer, James George I 439, 455, 511 n. 1, 612; II 318, 322, 355, 362, 494, 495 Frazer, Lilly, Lady I 258, 579; II 422 Frederick the Great II 179 n. 2 French, Herbert Stanley I 469 Frere, John Hookham I 67 Frick, R. O. I 623 n. 1 Friedlaender, Ludwig I 196, 388 Frith, William Powell II 292 Fromentin, Eug`ene II 292 Frood, Hester (later Mrs Gwynne Evans) I 215–16, 353 n. 3

560 Frost, Robert II 276 n. 1 Fry, Charles Burgess II 23–4 Fry, Roger I 538 n., 621 n. 1; II 23 Funke, Max I 571–2 Gadd, Cyril John I 282 Gadd, Kathleen Mary II 466 Galsworthy, John I 251, 330 n. 1; II 55 n. 1, 133, 217 n. 3; cf. II 474 Gardiner, Mrs II 203 Gardiner, Henry Balfour I 199 Gardner, Ernest Arthur I 216 Garrod, Heathcote William I 277, 392 Garvin, James Louis II 316 n. 13 Gaselee, Stephen II 261, 294, 335 Gasquet, Francis Aidan, Cardinal I 493 Gathorne-Hill, Mrs I 308 n. 4 Gawsworth, John (Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong) II 251 Geikie, Alexander I 579 Gellius, Aulus II 58, 425, 426 Geminus of Rhodes II 420, 421 George III, King II 113 n. 3, 391 George IV, King I 262 n. 1, 269 n. 3, 395 n. 4 George V, King I 270, 296, 317, 324; II 116, 184, 364 n. 1, 401, 465, 469 n. 1, 484, 485 George VI, King II 116 n. 1 German language, Germans and Germany I 30, 39, 64, 87, 148, 304–5, 422; II 39–40, 42 National Socialism II 457 n. Germanicus Caesar I 116, 152, 319; II 115 Gibson, Elizabeth I 193 Gide, Andr´e I 391 Giel, Ch. I 144 Gildersleeve, Basil Lanneau I 72 n. 1 Giles, Peter I 455 Giussani, Carlo I 462 Gladstone, William Ewart I 23, 24, 26, 27, 30, 50, 57, 395, 476; II 346 Glaisher, James Whitbread Lee I 339, 340 Gleadowe, Reginald Morier York I 624; II 3, 5, 55 Glover, Terrot Reaveley I 426 n. 1, 574

General Index Goad, Caroline Mabel I 429 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang I 166, 288, 530 n. 2 Goetz, Georg I 405 Gold Medal for Poetry II 364 Golden Book of Modern English Poetry 1870–1920 II 21 n. 1, 22, 23 Goldschmidt & Co., Ernst Philip (booksellers) II 29 Goldsmith, Oliver I 377 n. 13 Goodford, Charles Old I 50 Goodhart-Rendel, Harry Stuart I 341, 373 Goodson & Tabb, Messrs I 219 Goodwin, Alfred I 72 n. 1 Gordon, George Stuart II 425, 482 n. 1 Goschen, George Joachim I 190 n. 2 Goss, John I 5 Gosse, Edmund William I 297, 299, 375–7, 377–8, 511 n. 1, 519, 566; II 51, 55 n. 1, 72, 109, 464 Gosse, Philip Henry George I 567 Gow, Andrew Sydenham Farrar I 508, 434, 592, 620; II 123, 188, 217, 261, 432, 501 health I 321 Gowans & Gray, Messrs I 221 Grattan, John Henry Grafton II 236 Gray, James II 472 Gray, Thomas I 248, 387, 554 n. 1; II 504 Great Thoughts, editor II 304 n. 1, 305 Greece and Rome II 285, 336 Green, Thomas Hill I 23 n. 5 Greene, Maurice I 5 Greening, Miss I 37 Grenfell, Bernard Pyne I 196; II 150 n. 1, 536 Grey, Edwin II 81 Grey, Mrs II 354 n. 1 Grierson, Herbert John Clifford I 536 Griffin, Mr I 431 Griggs, Frederick Landseer Maur II 106, 114, 202 n. 3 Grose, Thomas Hodge I 223 n. 3 Grotius, Hugo I 385 Guards I 5, 7; II 340

General Index Guide Michelin II 295 Gunn, William (‘Billy’) II 23 G¨unther, R. T. I 483 Gurney, Ivor Bertie I 219, 566 Haber, Tom Burns II 380 n. 2 Hackforth, Reginald II 239 Hacking, Miss I 332 Hagley Hall, Hagley, Worcestershire I 606 n. 4 Haldane, Richard Burdon, first Viscount I 419 Haldeman-Julius, Emanuel I 606 n. 2 Hall, Alexander William I 26–7, 48, 49 Hall, Frederick William I 572 n. 1 Hallam, Henry II 342 n. 2 Hamilton, James S. II 134 Hamilton, Mr I 44 Hanbury, Robert William I 27 Handley Page I 546 Harben brothers I 374 Harcourt, Robert de I 545 n. 1 Harcourt, Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon I 26, 48, 49, 50, 545 Hardy, Emma Lavinia I 122 n. 2, 299–300 Hardy, Florence I 419, II 495 Hardy, Godfrey Harold I 398 Hardy, Thomas I 122 n. 2, 309, 332, 408, 418, 420, 432 n. 2, 435, 487, 492, 503, 511 n. 1, 519 n. 2, 562; II 51, 55, 59 n. 1, 72, 84, 326, 327 n. 1, 330, 337, 495 Harmon, Charles Eustace I 321 n. 6 Harrap & Co., Messrs George C. II 423 Harris, Frank I 256, 305, 328, 472, 546; II 141, 170, 273, 293, 296, 537 Harris, L. C. II 514 Harrison, Ernest I 508, 619 n. 1, 632; II 5, 135, 260 Harrison, Frederic I 89 Hartington, see Devonshire Hartman, Jacobus Johannes I 405 Hartmann, Karl Robert Eduard von II 327 n. 1 Hase, Carolus II 265 n. 2

561 Haupt, Moriz I 156, 292, 368, 470; II 284, 522 Havet, Louis I 456 Hawkes, Peter II 100 Hawkins, Maude M. II 65 n. 1 Hawthorne, Nathaniel II 464 Hawthornden Prize II 364 Haydn, Joseph I 6 Haydon, Benjamin Robert II 292 Hayn, Hugo, and Alfred N. Gotendorf II 308 n. 1 Haynes, Edmund Sidney Pollock I 374; II 51 n. 1, 350 Head, Michael Dewar II 126 Headlam, Walter George I 217, 632 Healy, Maurice II 79 Heath & Co., Messrs A. M. II 203 Hecuba I 577 Hedges, Frank I 49 Heenan, John Carmel (‘the Benicia Boy’) I 399 Heffer, W. (booksellers) I 487, 612 Heiberg, Johan Ludvig II 31 Heine, Heinrich I 87, 88 n. 1, 198, 288, 530 n. 2; II 46, 68, 326, 329 Heinemann, Messrs I 636; II 266 Heinsius, Nicolaas I 333; II 361 Heinze, Richard I 462; II 25 Heitland, William Emerton II 320 Helena, Princess (wife of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein) I 50 H´el`ene (Grant Richards’s step-daughter) I 345 n. 1; II 33, 51, 162, 166, 170, 191, 433 Heliodorus I 173 Helv´etius, Madame I 601 n. 1 Hemmerde, Pauline I 362, 489 n. 2; II 45 Hemsley, William John I 256 Henderson, Polly White (Mrs A. M. Henderson) II 252 Henley, William Ernest I 211 Hephaestion the Astrologer I 342 Hephaestion the Grammarian II 411 Heptameron II 338 Heracles (Hercules) II 19

562 Heraclitus philosophus I 508 Heraeus, Karl Wilhelm II 228, 268 Herbert, Alan Patrick II 279 n. 1 Herodotus I 468 Hermann, Karl Friedrich II 91 Hermathena II 150 Hermes I 113–14; II 239 n. 1 Hermetica II 290 Herringham, Christiana Jane I 246 n. 2 Herringham, Wilmot Parker I 246 Hertzberg, Wilhelm Adolf Boguslaw I 58 Heseltine, Michael I 388 Heseltine, Philip Arnold (‘Peter Warlock’) II 165 Hesiod I 582 Hewlett, Maurice Henry I 251; II 154, 317 Hickerton, J. P. II 475 n. 1 Hicks, Maxwell I 640 Hicks, Peggy Glanville II 474 Hicks, Robert Drew I 596, 616 Higgin family II 44, 46 Higgins, Alexander Pearce I 577 n. 2 Higgs, M. K. II 444 Hilberg, Isidor I 430 Hill, Edwin B. II 107 n. 2 Hill, Micaiah John Muller I 144; II 510 Hillman, Mrs I 404 Hills A, A. E. [error for A. E. Housman] II 530 Hippocrene I 500 Historia Crowlandensis I 445 n. 1 Hodges, Francis William I 65 Hodgson, Ralph II 405 Hogrefe, Pearl II 408 Holden, Ann (Mrs Joseph Brettell) II 100 Holden family I 350 Holden, Henry II 100, 115 Holiday, Mrs Ensor, see Betty Rothenstein Hollond, Henry (‘Harry’) II 356 Holt & Co., Messrs Henry I 523, 531, 546, 558, 564, 580, 581, 584, 590; II 64, 415 Home, Percy I 501 n. 1

General Index Home and Country II 514, 527 Homeman, S. E. [error for A. E. Housman] I 345 Homer I 582; II 332 Hopkins, Albert Matilda I 52–3 Hopkins, Frederick Gowland II 475 Hopkins, Gerard Manley I 396–7, 621; II 499, 501 n. 1 Hopp´e, Emil Otto II 409 Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) I 72, 168, 186, 342, 357, 384, 400, 424, 429 n. 1, 430, 437, 456 n. 5, 530, 599, 614; II 25, 36, 38, 45–6, 83, 131, 213, 264 n. 1–4, 267, 268, 359, 368, 425, 426, 427, 437, 452, 467, 522 Horsburgh, James MacDonald II 510 Hosius, Karl II 265, 309, 392 Horton, Reginald I 20 Hougland, Willard II 469, 493 n. 1 Houghton, Richard Monckton Milnes, first Baron I 400, 562 Houseman, A. E. II 486 Houseman, A. E. [error] I 529 n. 1 Houseman, Richard I 448 Housmam, A. E. [error] II 530 Housman, Agnes I 215, II 100, 431 Housman, Alfred Edward I 3 adversaria I 625; II 217 autograph albums, refusal to sign II 31 bibliography I 613–14, 619, 620 clothing, shoes and boots I 131; II 15, 115, 116, 131 umbrella II 146, 282 curiosa and erotica I 195, 340, 377 n. 15, 17, 18, 378, 399, 487, 494, 495, 499, 500, 617 n. 4; II 45, 64 n. 1, 67, 93, 111–12, 141, 166, 170, 177, 228, 236, 239, 273, 293, 308 diaries I 63 n. 12; II 66 gastronomy dining clubs Arcades I 407, 454; II 151 Family I 557, 623; II 266, 341, 460, 515, 531, 536

General Index University College, London, Professors’ Dining Club I 246, 597 dinners Fishmongers’ Hall II 270 Girdlers’ Company dinner II 281, 282 Oxford Dinner I 473, 475, 476 drink I 67, 109, 184, 192, 193, 244, 256, 280, 300, 336, 373, 383, 420, 421, 443, 461, 487, 531, 554, 555, 575, 637; II 9, 38, 44, 51, 67, 79, 125, 131, 142, 169, 180, 191, 219, 227, 234, 258, 261, 296, 298, 438, 458, 471, 474, 486, 509 beverages ale I 542, 554 beer II 163 brandy II 166 burgundy I 459; II 9, 38, 296 Camastra I 192, 193, 207 Chambolle-Musigny II 296 champagne I 484 Chateau Grillet (1915) II 234 Chateau Haut Brion II 180 Chateau Lafite Rothschild (1900) II 142 Clos de Vougeot (1915) II 142 coffee II 296 Corton (1898) I 336 hock I 320 Madeira I 280 Montrachet Aˆın´e II 38, 131 Moselle II 191 port I 280 n. 1, 459, 550, 626 Pouilly-Fuiss´e I 325 sherry I 531, 575; II 219 sloe gin I 298; II 163, 169 stout I 460, 643; II 162, 163, 270, 271, 436 n. 1; cf. II 375 Tokay I 383 see also Ehrmanns; E. Lacon & Co. Ltd food I 246, 305, 459 n. 6, 477, 484, 508, 598, 605; II 25, 38, 44, 47, 53, 55, 114, 125, 128, 141–2, 158, 180, 183, 191,

563 203, 219, 231, 243–4, 258, 269, 286, 294, 295, 296, 298, 300, 310–11, 388, 438, 486, 513, 533 barbue Housman II 441 oysters I 460, 578, 643; II 47, 162, 163, 270, 271, 436 n. 1; cf. II 375 Colchester Oyster Feast II 440, 454 menus r´egionales I 551 see also Xavier Marcel Boulestin restaurants II 287 Albert Galen II 300 Belle Aurore (Paris) II 141 Boeuf a` la Mode II 298 Caf´e Royal (London) I 135 n. 2, 148, 169, 202, 206, 233, 234, 258, 282, 326, 354, 365, 413, 449, 472, 494 n. 3; II 57 Chˆateaubriand (Dijon) II 53 n. 2 Cheshire Cheese I 234 Claret II 258 Dupon (successeur Rolland) I 598 ´ de France II 296 Ecu Escargot II 142 Foyot I 324 Gaschy II 298 Gastronome (Clermont Ferrand) II 141 Giorgione [bis] I 247 Gorges des Loup I 51, 55 Grand Veneur II 141 Holborn I 182 Kettner’s (Soho) I 134; II 243 n. 1 Korniloff II 298 L’ Homme (Chartres) II 298 La Providence (Jouy) II 298 Le Progr`es II 298 Les Tilleuls (Bouvigal) II 296 Marins II 298 Mon Pays II 298 Montagn´e I 450 Moulin de Bicherel II 294 Nine II 300 Pascal’s I 324

564 restaurants (cont.) Place St. Michel II 141 R´eserve, La I 325 Restaurant La Presse (Bordeaux) II 286 R¨otisserie P´erigourdine (Paris) I 128 n. 1 Royal Monceau Hotel II 33 Sorret (Lyons) II 51 Tour d’Argent I 297 Vanne Rouge (Montigny-sur-Loing) II 295 Vapore I 247 geographer II 242 gifts, clothing II 115, 116 gifts and loans, monetary I 90, 203, 215, 220, 328, 350, 411 n. 1, 457, 469, 473–4, 474, 593, 595, 604, 633; II 46, 48, 100, 116, 144, 302; cf. I 359, 392 handwriting I 3 n. 4 health cf. I 140, 353, 439, 497, 539, 540, 547, 550, 551, 555, 583, 605, 617 n. 1, 642–3; II 16, 35, 66, 141, 145, 320, 331, 371, 379, 394, 450, 461, 463, 465, 478, 483, 485, 493 anxiety, nerves or depression II 352, 354, 356, 359–60, 362, 363, 364, 367, 369, 372, 382, 385, 386, 387, 388, 391, 465, 470, 473, 487, 492, 508, 509, 519 boils I 539 breathing (Cheyne-Stokes) II 366, 470, 478–9, 480, 486, 509, 528 bronchitis I 587, 588 carbuncles I 539, 541, 542 colds I 66, 185, 371, 383, 416 corns II 16, 470 dentistry II 291, 334 digestion I 230, 450, 454, 519, 528; II 35, 141 dropsy II 473, 502, 503 eyes I 593 gout I 484, 556; cf. II 16

General Index heart II 145, 320, 352, 354, 363, 367, 369, 376, 378, 386, 470, 476, 486, 492, 494, 500 influenza II 376, 385, 421 injuries finger II 303, 525, 526 head II 490, 491, 492, 493, 494 wrist, sprained I 557, 560 lassitude I 469, 587 lumbago II 167 medications II 479, 513, 530 noise, oversensitity to II 386, 430, 431 Ptomaine poisoning II 35 sciatica I 439, 568; II 16 throat, catarrh of the II 373, 374, 380, 385–6 sore throat, relaxed I 88, 259; II 71, 261, 326, 329 honours accepted I 260; II 8, 109, 365 dedications, accepted or permitted II 51, 246, 280, 368 n. 1, 384, 438 declined I 171, 268, 306, 485–6, 585–6; II 69–70, 70–1, 113, 133 n. 1, 249, 419, 450; cf. I 536, II 422, 456, 525 inscriptions I 465, 574–5, 591; II 54, 218, 242, 507 interviews, refused I 258, 473; II 252; cf. I 529 library, re-arrangement II 307 numismatics I 144, 145 orthography I 72–3, 259 -cque I 368 Clytaemestra, Hypermestra I 61 coniux / coniunx I 624 conventions in prose and verse I 13 n. 4 i, j, u, v I 136, 273, 465, 591; II 54, 242 iota diminished adscript II 302 Roman numerals II 218 shew / show I 79 n. 3 sigma I 137; II 302 parodies I 489, 597

General Index philosophies and religions I 208, 423–4, 487, 570–1, 633; II 326, 329, 504 atheism I 122, 148; II 325, 328, 504 Christianity I 120, 205, 208, 220, 238, 302, 325, 604; II 81, 504 Catholicism I 10, 17–18, 28, 29, 30–1, 41, 42, 422, 485 Church of England II 325, 328 Congregationism I 81 Salvation Army I 100 deism II 325, 328 Epicureanism II 326, 327 n. 1, 329 Islam I 400 Judaism I 45–6, 162, 222, 236, 324 n. 3 meliorism / pejorism II 326, 329 paganism II 328 pessimism II 326, 327 n. 1, 329 Stoicism II 326, 327 n. 1, 329 pictures caricatures I 514 photographs I 379, 393 n. 3, 498, 502, 547, 629; II 138 Hopp´e, Emil Otto I 452 n. 1, 453, 493 Van der Weyde I 382, 452, 453; II 17, 49, 148, 152, 278, 287, 291, 318, 337, 409, 446 portraits Dodd, Francis I 622, 625, 629; II 3, 5, 138, 148 Gleadowe, Reginald Morier York I 624; II 3, 5, 55 Lamb, Henry I 241, 242, 243 Rothenstein, William I 204, 214, 313, 452–3, 461, 503, 510, 625; II 3, 5, 259, 434 Spicer-Simson, Theodore I 503, 510, 511 royalties and fees, accepted or declined I 106, 109, 115, 158, 191, 208, 237, 313, 404, 531, 546, 558, 564–5, 641; II 14, 25, 27, 31, 34, 46, 57, 61, 63, 82, 83, 95, 126, 127, 143, 148,

565 176, 210, 241, 245, 288, 293, 305, 404, 414, 424 signatures I 3 n. 4 testimonials and references I 87, 91, 102–3, 118–19, 587; II 27–8, 205–6, 447–8; cf. I 72–3 travels, considered, planned or completed, outside England: I 200 Algeria II 402, 417 Austria cf. I 234 Belgium I 253, 271 France I 97–8, 123, 154, 155, 160, 182, 193, 195, 199, 205, 225, 238, 255, 266, 271, 274, 275, 288, 294, 296–7, 302, 310, 311, 312, 314, 323, 324, 335–6, 337, 338, 353, 354, 358, 359, 360, 362, 363, 364, 380, 381, 401, 403, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416, 428, 440, 443, 448, 450, 451, 453–4, 455, 459, 469, 471, 471–2, 493, 494–5, 495, 496, 498, 517, 535, 545, 546–7, 550, 564, 567, 578, 596, 619; II 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 44, 47, 65, 66, 72, 76, 76–7, 81, 102, 128, 131, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144–5, 158, 179, 185, 186, 188, 191, 192, 195, 203, 242, 243–4, 244, 293, 294, 295–6, 296, 297, 298, 299, 348, 352, 366, 367, 369–70, 371, 372–3, 373, 374, 374–5, 375, 376, 376–7, 379, 380, 385–6, 437, 438, 440, 450, 465, 472, 476, 479, 485, 487, 490–1, 491, 492, 493, 494, 507; cf. I 313 Germany cf. I 148 Italy I 97–8, 121, 124–5, 125–7, 127–9, 131, 132–3, 155, 156, 165, 182, 207, 225, 230–1, 246, 246–7, 263, 288, 307, 334, 362, 433, 463, 477, 564, 617, 619, 620–1

566 travels (cont.) Scotland II 248, 255, 255–6, 256, 257, 270 Switzerland I 123–4, 225; II 492 Turkey I 161, 161–2, 162–4; cf. I 165 will II 217 n. 1, 314 writings A Shropshire Lad I 6 n. 10, 85, 169, 172, 186, 314, 318, 324, 389, 402, 403, 479 n. 3, 490, 505, 513, 520, 523, 524, 531, 573, 576, 584, 634, 636, 638; II 3, 16, 21, 30, 32, 33, 49, 57, 64, 68, 69, 73, 85–6, 108, 132, 152, 158, 159, 164, 167, 171, 178, 180, 206, 261, 269, 297, 300, 326, 327 n. 1, 329, 337, 360, 402, 406, 416, 433, 467, 487, 491, 523, 528, 529 1896 (London) I 85–6, 86, 105–6, 131, 142, 185, 187 n. 1, 208, 439, 482, 502 n. 3, 516–17, 590, 594, 603, 605; II 58, 77, 85, 105, 112, 283, 289, 439, 444, 472, 529 1897 (New York) I 85 n. 1, 187 n. 1; II 529 1898 (London) I 105–6, 109, 110, 114, 117, 131, 142, 205 n. 3, 502 n. 3, 594; II 85, 58, 400, 424, 430, 495, 523 1900 (London) I 114, 119, 131, 136, 142, 187 n. 1, 208, 209; II 523 n. 2 1900 (New York) I 187 n. 1 1903 (London) I 142, 194, 502 n. 3; II 523 n. 2; cf. I 136 1904 (London) I 159, 198–9, 199, 205 n. 3, 223, 338, 394; II 523 1906 (London) I 194 1906 (New York) I 209, 210 1906 (Portland, Maine) I 209 1907 (London) I 208–9, 210, 479 1908 (London) I 188 n. 2, 209, 220, 221, 223, 228, 232,

General Index 325, 424; II 68, 199, 357 [1911 (London)] I 278 1912 (London) I 325; II 90 1914 (New York) I 402 1914 (Riccardi Press) I 323, 327, 489, 600; II 106, 241 1916 (London) I 367 1918 (London) I 389, 394, 513; II 304 n. 1 1919 (Boston) II 288 1920 (London) I 425, 457 1921 (London) I 513 1922–1925 (Girard, Kansas) I 606 1922 (London) I 490 n. 4, 521, 523, 531; II 69 1923 (London) II 303–4, 430, 524 1924 (New York) I 580, 581, 582, 582–3 1925 (London) II 13 1926 (London) II 80, 81, 523 n. 2 1927 (London) II 15, 17, 30; II 57, 77, 79, 80, 81, 86, 105, 523 n. 2 1928 (London) II 63, 67, 69, 85, 90, 94 1929 (Alcuin) I 580 n. 1; II 106, 110, 114, 129–30, 155, 158, 159, 202, 226, 241, 430, 433; cf. II 69 1929 (London) II 153, 159 1930 (London) II 210 1932 (London) II 293 1932 (New York) II 415 n. 1 1933 (London) II 362 1935 (London) II 464, 466 alterations I 490, 583; II 303 anthologies or reprints allowed (not copyright in America) I 327, 372, 402, 404, 497, 510, 526, 581, 636; II 14, 22, 25, 28, 36, 39, 42, 43; II 40, 50, 73, 88, 126, 182, 202, 241, 252, 307, 355, 480, 499, 516, 520

General Index permitted I 142, 145, 170, 178, 256, 328, 344–5, 372, 390, 526, 540, 541, 548–9, 603; II 25, 99, 117, 150, 189, 253, 268, 275, 288, 436, 441, 445, 482 presumed I 211, 212, 302, 447, 501; II 252, 304 refused I 211–12, 214, 221, 240, 245, 300, 310, 329, 335, 343, 402, 445, 504, 505, 558, 559, 461, 600, 611; II 4, 9, 35, 36, 50, 87, 88, 89, 93, 125, 167, 198, 213, 246, 252, 289, 307, 307–8, 311, 314, 338–9, 355, 412, 423, 439, 487, 499, 516, 527; cf. II 395, 444, 490, 502 bindings II 58, 63 bound with Last Poems, not to be II 106, 109–10, 241 copy poems, agrees to I 439, 482, 624; II 245, 389; declines to II 4, 58, 148, 171, 245, 280, 317, 350, 522 dramatizations, proposed II 26, 40 echoes II 430 ‘filthiest book I ever read’ II 112; cf. II 370 gramophone recordings I 369, 464, 633, 636; II 89 Hughley I 90, 221; II 111, 325, 328 influence I 485; II 168 manuscript I 525, 612; II 281, 389 musical settings I 149, 171, 199, 211, 219, 229, 234, 239, 242, 243, 255, 266, 279, 294–5, 289, 298, 299, 305, 313, 318?, 320, 325, 326, 329, 332, 338, 341, 354?, 369, 373, 380, 382, 388, 409, 427, 433, 437, 445, 458, 464, 467, 509, 537, 547–8, 566, 570, 596, 637; II 10, 24, 25, 35, 62 n. 1, 69, 94, 98, 104, 121, 126, 134,

567 148, 161, 165, 172, 176, 209, 212, 243, 287, 288, 304, 306, 309, 370, 378, 381, 388, 390, 398, 399, 413, 414, 422, 432, 462, 490, 497, 513 reception I 86, 107, 109, 110, 117, 130–1, 146 n. 1, 149 sign or inscribe copies, willingness to I 102 n. 1, 229, 381, 439, 548, 553, 586, 603; II 4, 24, 32, 34, 49, 132, 138, 152, 171, 178, 199, 254, 317, 319, 324, 360, 366, 403, 424, 443, 469, 487, 517, 529; unwillingness to I 229; II 407, 442 titles II 233 translations I 200, 256, 294, 429, 499, 560, 566, 586; II 18, 53, 54, 209 n. 1, 254–5, 258–9, 285, 290, 481 Braille I 347, 390, 423, 533 Additional Poems I 153 n. 1, 158, 428 n. 2, 505 n. 4, 522 n. 2; II 107, 442, 444 Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, The II 143, 151 ‘Breathe, my lute, beneath my fingers’ II 452 Cambridge Inaugural lecture I 267; II 143 Death of Socrates, The II 246 n. 1 ‘Fragment composed in a dream’ II 444 Hypermnestra II 246 n. 1 Introductory Lecture II 12, 143, 151, 169, 385, 391, 396, 398, 449, 451, 455, 495, 519 Juvenal (Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis) cf. I 115–16, 231, 438, 486, 538–9, 614; II 268, 306, 309, 449 D. Iunii Iuvenalis saturae ed. AEH (1905): I 150 n. 1, 160, 161, 161–2, 164–5, 168, 169, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 183, 185, 208, 265, 274, 275, 335, 423, 516, 576, 600, 633;

568 D. Iunii Iuvenalis saturae ed. AEH (cont.) II 62, 85, 90, 90–2, 105, 128, 212, 216, 269 —ed. 2 (1931) II 62, 128, 187, 189, 206, 212, 222–3, 224, 224–5, 236, 238, 249, 256, 269, 276, 280 Last Poems 153 n. 1, 158, 315, 346, 408 n. 1, 418, 428 n. 2, 439, 449, 463, 478, 488, 489, 491, 492, 498, 499–500, 501, 502, 503–4, 504, 505–7, 507–8, 509, 512, 513, 514, 515, 516, 516–17, 518, 519, 520, 523–4, 529, 534, 536, 540, 541, 545 n. 1, 565, 580, 580 n. 1, 581, 584, 595, 610, 614, 633, 636 n. 1, 638; II 16, 28, 45, 54, 56, 57, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 72–3, 73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 80, 85, 106, 120, 132, 153, 159, 160, 175, 199, 269, 282, 285, 303, 311, 317, 340, 351, 377, 390, 402, 407, 430, 432, 433, 444, 494 n. 2, 499, 525, 527 alterations I 610; II 73 anthologies or reprints, agrees to I 154, 346, 417, 548–9, 559, 589, 590; II 4, 9, 23 n. 1, 36–7, 42, 57, 117, 125, 126–7, 140, 176, 189, 238, 240–1, 245, 339, 362, 436, 466, 472, 499, 501; permission, declined II 42, 281, 288, 311, 334, 339, 379, 514; presumed II 184 Alcuin Press (1929) II 114, 137, 155, 158, 202, 226 ‘continuous excitement’ II 10 copy poems, agrees to I 315; declines to II 282; cf. II 245 echoes II 430 manuscripts I 525–6; II 389; cf. II 174 musical settings II 61, 62 n. 1, 126, 161, 515, 526, 596

General Index sign or inscribe, willingness to I 520, 548, 550, 594, 634, 638; II 24, 29, 34, 49, 132, 245, 254, 282, 305, 317, 351, 357, 403 titles II 233 translations I 566; II 51, 515 Braille I 533; II 332 light prose and verse I 8–12, 13–16, 31, 33–40, 43, 95–6, 100, 105, 106–7, 108, 206, 249–50, 376, 438, 484–5; II 148–9, 162, 246 n. 1, 292, 328 n. 5, 331–2 n. 1, 382, 429, 431, 497–8 A Morning with the Royal Family II 241 n. 1, 271 n. 2, 272–3 Fragment of a Greek Tragedy I 121, 266, 466, 526, 534, 558, 592, 636 n. 1; II 27, 28, 31, 43, 46, 118, 127, 136, 246 n. 1, 393, 414 manuscripts II 118, 122, 124 ‘Fragment of an Afternoon with the Royal Family’ II 271 n. 2 ‘See on the cliff fair Adjectiva stand’ I 567; II 148–9 Three Poems: The Parallelogram The Amphisbæna The Crocodile II 460, 463, 458, 471, 481, 483, 492–3 Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) cf. I 141, 341, 431, 470, 610; II 200, 216, 266, 537 M. Annaei Lucani de bello civili libri X ed. AEH (1926): I 543 n. 1, 574, 576, 584, 595, 596, 605, 608, 617 n. 4, 627–8, 642; II 3, 15, 17, 24, 64, 96, 106, 216, 232, 315, 360, 266, 447 Manilius (Marcus Manilius) cf. I 116, 207, 224, 241, 252, 263, 277, 290, 359, 361, 551, 551, 552, 559, 572, 588, 615, 616, 627, 633; II 29–30, 152, 361, 411, 494, 536

General Index M. Manilii astronomicon liber I ed. AEH (1903): I 135–6, 137, 138, 138–9, 140, 142, 143, 144, 147, 149, 150, 151, 151–3, 154, 155, 160, 162, 164–5, 172, 173, 174, 191, 192, 193, 196, 208, 220, 275, 286, 392, 415, 423, 516 n. 3, 576, 588; II 38, 57, 62, 85, 105, 168, 194, 201, 216, 221, 335, 416, 495 —II ed. AEH (1912): I 155, 236, 271–2, 272–3, 274, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 291–3, 344, 415, 423, 576; II 62, 85, 94, 194, 216, 95, 105, 201, 221, 225 —III ed. AEH (1916): I 343, 344, 345, 346, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 354, 357, 358, 360, 361, 372–3, 412, 415, 423, 442, 449, 452, 576, 602; II 62, 85, 94, 95, 105, 122, 194, 201, 203, 216, 221, 225, 420 —IV ed. AEH (1920): I 411, 414, 415, 416, 421, 426, 431, 433, 433–4, 436, 440, 441, 443, 449, 452, 454, 456, 459 n. 6, 466, 467, 483, 576; II 62, 85, 94, 95, 105, 122, 182, 194, 203, 214, 216, 219, 221, 225, 226 —V ed. AEH (1930): I 277 n. 1–2, 431, 584, 602; II 97, 102, 104, 118, 122, 123, 128, 130, 140, 146–7, 147, 151, 154, 156, 157, 158–9, 165, 169, 171–2, 172, 178, 182, 183, 187–8, 188, 190, 192–3, 193, 194, 196, 197, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 207, 209, 211, 213, 214, 215, 218, 218–19, 220, 221, 226, 227, 229, 232, 237, 245, 267–8 —editio minor II 223, 224, 272, 274, 276–7, 278, 279, 279–80, 288, 289, 301, 315

569 More Poems II 129 n. 1, 246 n. 1, 442, 474 n. 1, 494 n. 2, 505 n. 3–4, 544, 612; II 311 agrees to copy poem I 519 Name and Nature of Poetry, The II 334, 338, 339, 340, 341, 344, 345, 347, 348, 349–10, 351, 354, 357, 358, 366, 371, 382, 383, 397, 403, 407, 416, 436; cf. II 68 declines to sign II 360, 366, 403, 529 ‘Praefanda’ II 239 ‘Prosody and Method’ I 369 n. 1 Sir Walter Raleigh I 7 Ye Rounde Table I 23, 30, 31, 32; II 246 n. 1 Housman, Ann Brettell II 116, 299 Housman, Arthur II 107 Housman, A. W. II 107 Housman, Basil Williams I 3, 47, 56, 90, 531, 539, 638; II 19, 47, 121, 139, 144, 146, 162, 195, 198, 226, 227, 248, 256, 257, 271, 277, 310, 318–19, 320, 321, 322, 397, 452, 534 Housman, Clemence Annie I 3, 8, 46, 55, 56, 251 n. 6, 275 n. 2, 314, 511 n. 1; II 120, 438, 452, 467, 473, 485, 489, 534 Housman, Edward I 3, 8, 350 n. 1; II 65, 120, 207 n., 246 n. 1, 299, 304, 325, 327, 328 n. Housman family chart I 230 Housman, Fanny Ellwood II 257 Housman, Felicia I 3 Housman, George Herbert I 3, 46, 60, 85; II 534 Housman, Helen Agnes (Mrs William Smith) I 3, 215 Housman, Henry I 6, 96, 106, 107, 107–8; II 304 Housman, Jeannie II 19, 47, 120, 144, 186, 195, 229, 271, 320, 321, 354, 362, 382, 397, 428, 434, 438, 440, 454, 458, 465, 467, 470, 477, 480, 484, 521 Housman, John, the Elder II 134

570 Housman, John, the Younger II 134 Housman, Joseph Brettell I 380 n. 1; II 100 n. 2 Housman, Katharine (Katherine) Elizabeth I 3, 32, 60, 86, 230, 238, 271, 343, 364, 511 n. 1, 576, 605; II 195, 277, 467, 534 health I 531; II 299, 366, 473, 516 Housman, Laurence I 3, 45–6, 47, 55, 56, 105, 169, 175, 178, 221, 234 n. 1, 235, 275 n. 2, 313, 511 n. 1, 605, 619, 638; II 34, 114, 120, 121, 208, 277, 331, 334, 398, 407, 431, 434, 442, 467, 473, 485, 485–6, 487, 488, 489, 493, 497–8, 501 writings Advocatus Diaboli I 228 All-Fellows I 92 An Englishwoman’s Love letters II 526 Angels and Ministers I 527 Articles of Faith in the Freedom of Women I 251 Chinese Lantern, The I 222; II 321 Dethronements: Imaginary Portraits of Political Characters, Done in Dialogue I 527 Gammer Garu I 91 Gods and their Makers I 94, 227 Green Arras I 78–81, 82–4, 88–90, 92, 93 King John of Jingalo. The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties I 314, 373 Life of H. R. H. The Duke of Flamborough, The II 100 Little Plays of St Francis I 494 n. 5 ‘Nunc Dimittis’ II 287, 321, 324, 391 Love Concealed II 95 Odd Pairs: A Book of Tales I 606 Pains and Penalties I 262, 266, 269, 270 Palace Plays II 451, 454, 476, 526; II 379 Return of Alcestis I 373 Royal Runaway and Jingalo in Revolution, The I 328, 373 Selected Poems I 227, 231

General Index Spikenard I 100, 215, 218 Uncle Tom Pudd II 47 Venture, The II 153, 206, 351 Vicar of Wakefield, The I 203 n. 2 Wheel, The: a Dramatic Trilogy I 423 Housman, Lucy I 3, 60, 90, 151 n. 1, 203, 308; II 304, 534 Housman, Mary Brettell I 3, 9, 215, 227 Housman, Mary Theophania I 5, 99, 230 Housman, Robert II 327 n. 2, 529 n. 3 Housman, Robert Fletcher II 529 Housman, Robert Holden I 3, 90, 220; II 322, 534 Housman, Sarah Jane I 3, 90, 270; II 325, 327 Housman, Susan White (Mrs Henry Housman) II 304 Housman, Thomas II 65, 116, 299, 313, 327 n. 2 Housman, Thomas Brettell II 313 n. 4 Housman, William I 270; II 134 Housman, William Bradshaw II 47 Hudd, Miss I 11 Hudson, William Henry I 205 Hueffer, Ford Madox, see Ford Madox Ford Huggett, Henry Edgar Vaux II 161 n. 1 Hunt, Arthur Sturridge I 196, 631; II 150, 536 n. 2 Hunt, George W. I 26 Hunt, Robert Nicholas II 195 n. 1 Hunt, William I 493 Hunt, William Holman II 475 Hunter, Mrs I 184 n. 1; II 328 n. 9 Huntingdon, Alice I 438 Huxley, Aldous II 220, 247, 345 Huxley, Leonard II 345 Huxley, Matthew II 345 Huxley, Thomas Henry II 345 Hyde, William I 188, 209, 220, 221 Hyginus astronomicus II 538 Iambenk¨urzung II 260 Ibsen, Henrik I 156 n. 1 Ibycus II 536 ‘Ida’ II 186 Ilias Latina II 426, 427

General Index Imperial Airways II 295 India I 314 Ingpen, Roger II 177 Innes, Hugh McLeod I 342 Ireland, John I 464; II 62 Irish I 57; II 170 Irving, Henry I 45 n. 7, 46, 47 n. 5 Ishill, Rose Freeman- II 225 n. 2, 264 n. 1 Isidorus II 58 Jackson, Adalbert James II 129 n. 2 Jackson, Gerald Christopher Arden I 516 n. 3, 517; II 3, 129, 359 Jackson, Henry I 190, 264–5, 301, 388, 409–10, 427, 475 n. 1, 485 Jackson, Moses John I 63, 75, 482; cf. I 151, 154, 232, 516–18, 533–4; II 129, 325, 328 n. 6 Jackson, Oscar Adalbert Edmund I 517 Jackson, Rosa Julia Chambers, n´ee Kingston I 63 n. 12, 232 n. 4 Jackson, Rupert W. P. I 232, 517 Jackson, Victor Herbert II 129 Jacoby, Felix II 216 Jahn, Otto II 91, 289 James, Henry I 330 n. 1 James, Montague Rhodes I 255, 301, 316, 391, 444, 571; II 188 James II, King II 100 ‘Janet’ I 531 Japanese II 37 Jebb, Richard Claverhouse I 62, 70, 136–7, 190 n. 1, 226–7, 593 n. 1 Jenkinson, Francis John Henry I 616 ‘Jerry’ see Noel Victor Housman Symons Jessel, Frederic II 51 n. 1 Jesus Christ I 120 Jewell, Lucina I 234 Job I 550 John o’ London I 492 Johnson, Dr Samuel I 147 n. 2, 357, 472 n. 1; II 23 n. 4 Johnson, William II 521 Jones, Stanley Vernon II 533

571 Jones, W. Paul II 408 Jonson, Ben I 46 n. 10, 321, 392, 537; II 184 n. 2, 204 n. 1 Joseph, Mrs I 40 Journal of Philology I 61 n. 1, 73, 180 n. 2, 194, 235 n. 2, 241 n. 1, 585 n. 2 Jowett, Benjamin I 226 Joyce, James I 499, 500; II 170 Joynes, James Leigh I 400 n. 5 Julian II, Emperor I 635; II 13 Kahane, Jack II 273 n. 1–2 Kains-Jackson, Charles I 223 n. 5 Kant, Immanuel II 327 n. 1 Kate, Aunt see Mrs Basil Williams Keating, Mr I 603 Keats, John I 396, 455, 476, 561, 562–3, 614, 624; II 4, 68, 126 n. 1, 144, 528 Keighley, Thomas I 637 Keller, Otto I 186 Kelly, Walter Keating I 388 Kettner’s (restaurant) I 134 Kelvin, William Thomson, Baron I 148 Kempis, Thomas a` I 44 n. 5 Kenealy, Edward Vaughan Hyde I 10, 395 n. 4 Kennedy, Benjamin Hall I 438, 600 Kennerley, Mitchell I 189 n. 1, 402, 403 Ker, William Paton I 204, 263, 498 n. 1, 499, 506, 507, 511 n. 1, 566; II 511 Key, Thomas Hewitt I 77 Keynes, Geoffrey II 401 n. 1 Keynes, Margaret II 401 n. 1 Kidd, Gerald Patrick I 96 n. 2 Kidd, Hugh Cameron I 96 Kidd, Leonard I 96 n. 2 Kiessling, Adolf II 25 King, Edward I 27–8 Kingsmill [Lunn], Hugh I 597 Kipling, John Lockwood II 292 Kipling, Rudyard II 55 n. 1, 210, 217 n. 3, 330 n. 1, 345 n. 3, 350 Kitty (imaginary twin of Queen Victoria) I 395 n. 4 Knight, Joseph I 482

572 Knoblock, Edward I 300 n. 1 Knopf, Alfred A. II 404 n. 1 Knowles, Guy II 180 n. 4 Knowles, James Sheridan I 63 Knox, Ronald Arbuthnott II 420 Korn, Karl Peter Otto I 311; II 284, 535 Kroll, Wilhelm I 442; II 83, 228, 284 Krupp, Friedrich Alfred I 334 n. 6 Labriolle, Pierre de II 306 Lachmann, Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm I 137, 156 n. 2, 168, 355, 430; II 92, 294, 333, 522 Lacon & Co. Ltd, E. (brewers) I 542 n. 2 Laing, Alexander Kinnan II 478 n. 1 Lake, Miss I 215 Lamb, Charles I 337, 561 Lamb, Henry Taylor I 241, 243 Lamb, Mary Montgomerie, see Violet Fane Lamb, Walter Rangeley Maitland I 599 Lambert, Edward Frank I 243 Lambert, Richard Stanton II 232 Landi, Carlo II 166 Landor, Walter Savage I 585; II 186, 452 Lane, Hugh Percy I 346; II 51 n. 1 Lane, John I 82 n. 1, 85 n. 1, 91 n. 8, 94, 161, 186–7, 188, 189, 190, 201, 209, 314 n. 1, 402 n. 1 Lang, Andrew II 339 Lang, Cosmo, Archbishop of Canterbury II 475 n. 1 Lapsley, Gaillard Thomas I 341 n. 1; II 192 Latham, Francis Law I 376 n. 6 Latimer, Hugh I 49 n. 7 Latini, Brunetto II 260 n. 9 ‘Laura Matilda’ I 505, 604 Laurence, Reginald Vere I 557 n. 1; II 116, 185, 451, 453 Lawrence, David Herbert I 402 n. 1; II 166, 170 Lawrence, Pat II 234 n. 2f Lawrence, Thomas Edward I 171 n. 1 Le Gallienne, Richard Thomas I 82, 83, 166 le Strange, Guy I 618, 637; II 90, 109

General Index Leader, Benjamin Williams I 253 League of Nations II 162, 263 Lear, Edward II 328 n. 5 Leavis, Frank Raymond II 347 n. 2, 382 n. 1 Lecky, William Edward Hartpole II 386 Ledoux, Louis I 589 n. 1 Lee, George Mervyn II 461 n. 1 Lee and Russell I 90 Lee, Lieut. I 492 Lehmann, Liza I 203 n. 2 Leighton, Messrs I 173, 191 Leitch, Jeane K. II 413 Lejay, Paul I 456 ´ Lemaire, Nicolas Eloi I 470; II 369 n. 3 Lemmens-Sherrington, Helen I 6 Lempri`ere, John II 325, 328 Lendrum, William Trevor, see William Trevor Vesey Leo, Friedrich II 310 Leonardo da Vinci II 475 Leopardi, Giacomo II 326, 327 n. 1, 329 Leopold, Nathan Freudenthal, Jr II 48 Lesage, Alain-Ren´e I 384 Leslie, Shane II 80, 85 Leverson, Ada I 299 Levey, Mr I 214 Lewis, Sinclair I 549; II 250 Lewis, Thomas Crompton I 616 Lewis, William James I 529, 605, 615–16, 626, 643 Ley, Henry George I 467 Libanius I 595 n. 1 Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon II 150 n. 2, 228 n. 1, 265 Liddon, Mr II 313 Liddon, Henry Parry I 28–9, 42 Lindsay family, see Crawford and Balcarres Lindsay, Wallace Martin II 260; cf. I 141, 180 Listener II 232 Literary Fund I 588 Liverpool, Professorship of Latin I 434 Livy (Titus Livius) I 571, 571–2; II 177, 365

General Index Lloyd George, David I 322, 370 n. 1; II 217 n. 3 Lockyer, Norman II 421 Loeb, Richard Albert II 48 Loewe, Gustav I 207 London II 206 British Museum I 6, 113–14, 145, 617; II 109, 169, 262, 325, 328, 395 Coroner’s Jury I 56–7 Highgate Wood I 76–7 London Library I 447, 448, 493, 496, 576, 607 Panyer Stone I 5 Patent Office I 55–6, 63 n. 12, 65, 87; II 19, 325, 436 Tower of London I 10 Tussaud’s, Mme I 7 University College, London II 248, 510–11 application for Professorship I 72–3 committee to select new Headmaster I 110–11 Committee of Management I 143, 148 conversazione accounts I 143 Latin epistles I 184 Literary Society I 74, 521, 608 students II 248, 324, 387–8 tankard I 520 Union Society I 74 University of London bazaar I 235 Waterloo Bridge I 618 Londoner I 121 Long, George I 437 Longman (gardener) II 115, 116 Longmans, Green, Messrs I 548; II 87, 281 Lot II 93 Louis (driver) II 76, 77, 79, 141 Lowe, Elias Avery I 621 Lowe, W. D. I 388 Loyd, Lady Mary I 256 Lubbock, John, see Avebury

573 Lucas, Edward Verrall I 196 n. 1, 211, 212, 541 n. 2, 567 n. 1; II 517 n. 1 Lucas, Frank Laurence I 570 Lucian of Samosata I 635; II 13, 20, 111 Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) I 292, 303, 319, 430, 436–7, 456, 462, 468; II 48, 117 n. 1, 123, 135, 137, 138, 323 n. 1, 336 n. 4, 418 Lucy, Sir Henry II 316 n. 2 Lulham, Edwin Percy Habberton I 159 Lunn, Arnold Henry Moore I 597 n. 2 Lunn, Hugh Kingsmill I 597 Lutyens, Edward I 541 n. 2 Lyde, Lionel William II 511 Lyke-Wake Dirge II 490 Lyle, Watson I 546 n. 7 Lymington, Newton Wallop, Viscount I 25 Lynd, Robert Wilson I 480 Lynn, William Thynne I 303 Lyte, Henry Francis I 46 n. 9 Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer (‘Owen Meredith’), first Earl of Lytton I 244 Macan, Reginald Walter I 223 n. 3; II 393 Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, first Baron I 260; II 42, 93 Macbeth, Lady II 3 MacCarthy, Charles Otto Desmond II 279 n. 1 McClure, Phillips & Company I 157, 188, 190, 315 Macdermott, Gilbert Hastings I 26 MacDonald, Ramsay II 55 n. 1, 270 Macdonnell, Annie I 92 Mace, Cecil Alec II 384 McEvoy, Arthur Ambrose I 311 Machen, Arthur Llewellyn Jones I 459, 487 n. 1 Mackail, Denis II 269 n. 2 Mackay, Donald James, see 11th Baron Reay

574 McKenna, Justin I 371 n. 2 Mackenzie, Compton I 333 n. 1, 334 Maclagan, Eric I 241 n. 3, 250, 252, 253 Macleane, Arthur John I 437–8; II 171, 313, 409 MacLehose & Co., Messrs Robert I 274, 278, 281 n. 1, 344, 456, 576; II 118, 122, 123, 147, 192–3, 194, 200, 221 Mackail, Denis I 432 Mackail, John William I 149, 150, 168, 186, 498 n. 1, 501, 503 n. 1, 511 n. 1; II 149, 217 n. 3, 243, 345, 498 n. 1, 511 n. 1; cf. II 161 n. 1 Macmillan, Frederick I 642 n. 1 Macmillan & Co., Messrs I 58, 215, 576; II 326, 329, 436 Macrobius, Ambrosius Theodosius II 91 Madvig, Johan Nicolai I 137 n. 2, 156, 195, 197, 292, 368, 422, 614; II 62 Magnus, Hugo II 535 Mahaffy, John Pentland I 69 Mair, Alexander William I 593 Mais, Stuart Petre Brodie I 515, 594; II 9 n. 1 Malalas, Ioannes I 617 Malfatti, Vittorio II 107 mandarins I 617 Mandeville, Sir John II 20 Manson, Willie Braithwaite I 427 Map, Walter I 419 n. 1 Marguerite, Queen of Navarre II 338 n. 1 Marie Louise Victoria, Princess I 540, 541 Marillier, Henry Currie I 313 Marillier, Winifred Christabel I 313, 458 n. 4, 546 Markham, Edwin I 172 Markland, Jeremiah I 112–13, 167 n. 3 Marleyn, A. I 373 Marlow, Louis, see Louis Wilkinson Marlowe, Christopher I 11 n. 12, 375 n. 3 Marsh, Edward I 297–8, 490 n. 1

General Index Marsh, Howard I 297 n. 1 Marsh, Richard I 297 n. 2 Marshall, H. P. II 87 Marston, Philip Bourke I 91 Martha (Wise family servant) I 64 Martialis, Marcus Valerius I 112, 134, 141, 180–1, 194 n. 1, 195–6, 340, 405; II 58, 483 Martin, Houston II 431, 442–3 Martin, Stephen Staffurth I 282 n. 2 Martin, Theodore I 530 Martin, Thomas Lyttle I 282 n. 2 Martino-Fusco, Mario di I 571 Marx, Friedrich I 431 n. 3 Mary, Queen I 540, 541 Mary Tudor, Queen II 16 Masaroon, Mr II 441 Masefield, John I 241, 250, 252, 330 n. 1, 402 n. 1, 511 n. 1, 518 n. 1, 529; II 64, 87 n. 1, 160, 184–5, 185, 186, 210, 217, 474 Mathews, Elkin I 82 n. 1; II 234, 235, 285 n. 1 Matin´ees du Roi de Prusse II 179 Mattaire, Michel I 616 Maugham, William Somerset I 153 n. 1, 299; II 199 n. 3, 351 Mawer, Allen II 344 Maycock, Henry Vize I 55–6 Maycock, John I 55 n. 2, 294 n. 1 Maycock, Mrs John I 511 n. 1 Mayor, John Eyton Bickersteth I 72 n. 1, 281; II 91 n. 3 Mayor, Joseph Bickersteth I 72 n. 1 Meakin, Annette Mary Budgett II 39 Medusa (Gorgon) II 19 n. 3 Megaw, Arthur Stanley II 412, 413, 445; cf. II 446 Meineke, Johann Albrecht Friedrich August I 430 Melville, Herman II 464 menagerie I 482–3 n. 4 Menander comicus I 217 Menken, Adah Isaacs I 399 Meredith, George I 153, 482; II 464 ‘Meredith, Owen’, see Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton

General Index Merrill, William Augustus I 147 n. 2, 319, 356, 462 Messageries Aeriennes I 471 Methuen Publishing Ltd II 517 n. 1 Mew, Charlotte I 392 Meynell, Alice I 92, 408, 439 n. 2 Meynell, Francis Meredith Wilfrid I 278 n. 1, 308, 309 n. 1, 439 Michelangelo Buonarroti II 163 n. 1 Midleton, first Earl of, William St John Freemantle Brodrick I 24 Millay, Edna St Vincent II 273, 276 Miller, William Hallowes I 605 Millerand, Alexandre I 569 n. 1 Millington, Herbert I 17, 45, 46, 85, 96, 223, 511 n. 1, 532, 594; II 272 Millington, Herbert Ashlin I 45; II 409 Milman, Henry Hart I 67 Milne, Richard Monckton, see first Baron Houghton Milton, John I 19, 81, 89, 189 n. 2, 331, 334, 506, 617; II 26 n. 3, 101, 106, 156, 181, 281, 340, 436 n. 1 miners I 287 n. 1, 411; II 115; cf. I 425 Minka (dog) I 43 n. 2, 175 n. 1 Mitford, Algernon Bertram Freeman-, see first Baron Redesdale Moli`ere (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) II 255 n. 3 Molson, Hugh II 475 n. 1 Moncrieff, H. A. I 295 Montaigne, Michel de I 234 Monypenny, William Flarelk II 349 n. 2 Moore, George I 562 n. 2 Moore, G. V. II 516 Moore, Thomas Sturge II 97 Moore, W. D. H. II 461 n. 1 Moran, Frank I 458 n. 3 Morea (P. & O. liner) II 123 Morgan, J. Dickson I 87 Morgan, Pope [or Pott] & Co., Mm. II 141, 187, 371 Montagn´e, Prosper I 450 Moring, Alexander (De La More Press) I 199, 295 n. 3

575 Morley of Blackburn, John Morley, Viscount I 58 n. 1, 527; II 326, 329, 464 Morris, Edgar Freeman I 203 Morris, William I 91; II 393, 475 n. 1 Morshead, Edmund Doidge Anderson I 67 Mosher, Thomas Bird I 209 Moss, Richard I 50 Moule, Charles Walter I 419 Moult, Thomas I 444 Mueller, Lucian I 341, 369; II 7 M¨uller, Hermann Johannes II 284 M¨uller, Johann, see Regiomontanus M¨uller, Karl Otfried I 255 Muir, Edwin II 11 Muir, Willa II 11 Mulock, Dinah Maria I 442 n. 2 Munro, Hugh Andrew Johnstone I 180, 369, 462, 585; II 323 n. 1, 361 Muretus, Marcus Antonius (Marc Antoine Muret) II 261 Murillo, Bartolom´e Esteban I 42 Murray, George Gilbert Aim´e I 223 n. 4, 226, 261 n. 2, 330 n. 1, 423, 511 n. 1, 541 n. 3, 561 Murry, John Middleton I 562 Museum I 466, 470 music-halls I 26 n. 18, 134, 156, 166, 169 n. 2, 202 Mussolini, Benito Amilcare Andrea II 163 n. 1, 227 Myers, Ernest II 257 n. 1, 258 Mylius, Edward Frederick I 263 n. 3 Nairne, Alexander I 621 Napoleon I, Emperor I 53, 183, 417 n. 2, 422 n. 5 Nash, Thomas II 526 National Institute for the Blind II 332 Nauck, August I 70, 574 Navarro, Jos´e Mar´ıa de I 386, 643 Navarro, Madame de II 507 Nelson, Horatio Nelson, first Viscount I 183 Nelson & Sons, Messrs II 246 Nemi, lake of II 107

576 ‘Nero, Emperor and Empress’ II 436 Nesbit, Edith (Mrs Hubert Bland) I 206 Nettleship, Henry I 72 n. 1; II 289 n. 2, 522 Nevinson, Christopher Richard Wynne I 374, 375 New Age I 86 New Republic II 56 New Statesman I 416 New York Herald Tribune II 360 Newbolt, Henry John II 185, 210 Newnham-Davis, Nathaniel I 272, 324, 325, 326 Newton, Isaac I 419 Nicholls, Dr II 490 Nicoll, William Robertson I 86, 88 n. 1, 181 n. 1, 360 n. 2 Nightingale, Florence II 283 n. 2 Noble (dog) II 221 Nock, Arthur Darby II 149, 290 Nodot, Franc¸ois I 388 ‘Noli me tangere’ (Alice Rothenstein) II 292 n. 4 Nonnus II 196–7 Norris, William Foxley I 606 n. 3 Northcote, Ida I 3 Noyes, Alfred I 390 O., O., see William Robertson Nicoll O’Connor (or O’Conor) II 197 Obelisk Press, Paris II 273 n. 1 Olive, Edyth I 167 Oldmeadow, Ernest James I 237, 353, 409, 416 Ombiaux, Maurice des II 67 Onocrene I 500 Oppenheim, Lassa Francis Lawrence I 4 Oppian I 77 n. 1 Order of Merit I 222, 579; II 113, 133, 188 Oriole Press II 225 Orr, Charles Wilfred I 546 n. 7; II 24; II 165, 209, 304, 399 Osborn, Edward Bolland I 463 Osma, Don Guillermo de I 252, 253 Outlook I 183 n. 1 Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) I 71, 73, 74, 77 n. 1, 152, 235, 292,

General Index 311–12, 316, 333, 341, 368, 419, 430, 436–7, 483, 610, 612 n. 3; II 39, 123–4, 124, 259, 266, 268. 268, 284, 295, 348–9, 361, 419, 422, 425, 426, 427, 535 Owen, Sidney George I 183; II 535 Owen, William C. M. II 469 n. 1 Owtram, Gioia Vivian, see Gioia Richards Oxford and Asquith, Herbert Henry Asquith, Earl of I 317, 370 n. 1, 587 Oxford Magazine I 183; II 199 Oxford I 19–54, 461 Bodleian Library II 152 Christ Church I 444–5 Hertford Scholarship I 32 Litterae Humaniores I 223 n. 3 matriculation, ceremony of I 19 Newdigate Prize I 47 Oxford Union Society I 21, 23, 27, 29, 33, 40, 41, 51, 553 Oxford University Press II 62, 379 St John’s College I 261 bursar I 54 classical scholarships I 54 rock garden I 513 St Mary’s I 27–8 Somerville College jubilee II 134 Union Society I 21, 23–6, 29, 41, 51, 553 Wolsey Hall I 265 Paley, Frederick Apthorpe I 170 Palgrave, Francis Turner I 94, 550 Pall Mall Gazette I 94 Pall Mall Magazine II 199 Palladio, Andrea I 18 Palmer, Arthur I 72 n. 1 Palmer, Herbert Richmond II 43, 47; II 257 Palmerston, Henry John Temple, third Viscount II 451 Pannonius, Ianus I 384 Paoli, Filippo Antonio Pasquale de II 23 Pape, Johann Georg Wilhelm II 306 Pappus of Alexandria I 403

General Index Pariscope. Une Semaine de Paris II 152 n. 1 Parry, Reginald St John I 384, 609, 616, 632; II 24 n. 1, 322, 425 Pascal, Blaise II 326, 327 n. 1, 329 Pascal, Carlo II 166 Passio SS Perpetuae et Felicitatis II 177 Pater, Walter II 111 Patmore, Coventry I 153, 290, 519 n. 2; II 283, 360, 377, 383 Pattison, Mark I 615 Paul, Kegan I 66, 106, 108, 109; II 326, 329, 399–400 Paul, St I 55, 359 Pauli, Charles Paine I 431 Paulus Alexandrinus I 552 Pauly’s Real-Encyclopaedie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft I 442 n. 1, 508; II 228, 306, 308 Pausanias II 422 Pearse, Percy James I 301 Pearson, Alfred Chilton I 475 n. 1, 478, 584, 593 n. 1; II 227, 229 Pearson, Edith Maud II 227, 229 Pearson, Karl I 122, 148 Pecksniff, Mr I 345, 556 n. 1; II 205, 239 Peel, Gerald Graham I 294–5, 369 n. 1 Peel, Sir Robert I 26 Peel, Sir Robert, the Elder I 26 n. 15 Peleus II 276 Pentheus II 276 n. 3 Perreau, Daniel II 23 n. 4 Perreau, Robert II 23 n. 4 Perseus II 19 n. 3 Persius Flaccus, Aulus I 331, 438, 456; II 289, 309, 336 n. 4 Petronius Arbiter, Titus I 388; II 42, 457 Phaedrus I 226, 456 n. 9; II 7 n. 1, 450 n. 4 Phillimore, John Swinnerton I 215, 630; II 265 Phillipps, Sir Thomas I 74 Phillips, Arthur II 462 Phillips, Stephen I 195 n. 1 Phipps, Mrs I 329 Pickard-Cambridge, Arthur Wallace II 97

577 Piccoli, Raffaelo II 108 Pictorial World I 40 Pindar I 554; II 173, 511, 536 Pingr´e, Alexandre Guy I 291 Pinkerton, Miss II 205 Pius IX, Pope I 17–18, 28, 29 Pius XI, Pope I 485 Plantagenet, Aubrey de Vere I 163 Plato I 196, 365 n. 1, 508, 607, 609, 615 n. 4–5, 635; II 336 n. 2, 377 n. 1 Platt, Dorothy II 6, 18, 23 Platt, Edward I 609; II 6, 21 Platt, John Arthur I 100–1, 104, 118, 146, 258, 260, 269, 301, 460, 475 n. 1, 477, 478, 511 n. 1, 589 n. 1, 607–8, 609, 632, 635, 639, 640, 641, 642; II 5, 12, 13, 18, 20, 21, 22–3, 23, 24, 48, 49, 60, 344 Platt, Mildred (Mrs Arthur Platt) I 359 n. 1, 359 n. 4, 609; II 21, 23 Plautus, Titus Maccius II 260, 305, 336 n. 4, 355, 448 Plessis, Fr´ed´eric Edouard I 341 Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) I 560, 615 n. 5 Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) I 197 Plutarch II 299 n. 1 Poe, Edgar Allan II 464 Pole, Sir William I 308 Pollard, Alfred William I 511 n. 1; II 56, 73, 99, 329 Odes from the Greek Dramatists I 62–3, 66, 73; II 45, 56, 157, 246, 336, 413, 494 n. 2 Pollard, Joyce Kempthorne I 63 n. 13 Pollard family I 46, 47–8 Pollet, Maurice II 327 n. 1, 330, 380 Pollock, Frederick I 122 n. 1; II 457 n. Polo, Marco II 20 Polson, James Ronald I 547 Polybius II 58 Pomfret, John I 357 Pomponius Sabinus, Iulius II 74 Pontius Pilatus I 413 Porphyrius I 552

578 Porson, Richard I 112 n. 1, 167, 410, 543; II 103, 302 Positivist Review I 89 Postgate, John Percival I 58, 59 n. 5, 62 n. 1, 66 n. 1, 116, 160 n. 1, 311, 342, 434 n. 1; II 265, 392 Postgate, Raymond William I 443 n. 6 Pott, Francis I 48 n. 1 Pound, Ezra I 323 n. 1 Powys, Llewelyn II 433 n. 6 Pratt, Shirley II 341 Pre-Raphaelites II 475 Prescott, Mr II 50 press-cutting services I 94, 150, 151, 302 n. 2, 457, 519, 528, 580; II 376, 452 Price, John Willis I 530 n. 1 Priestley, John Boynton I 489 n. 1–2, 570 n. 3 Prince, John I 308 Prinz, Karl I 628 Prior, Joseph I 465 Prior, Oliver Herbert Phelps II 344 Priscianus (Grammatici Latini, ed. Keil) I 624; II 425, 426 Procter-Gregg, Humphrey II 414 Proctor, Richard Anthony I 256 Proclus Diadochus I 552 Propertius (Sextus Propertius) I 58–9, 72, 186, 430, 456 n. 4, 630; II 97, 164, 193, 214, 255, 321, 361, 392, 425, 426–7, 427 Proust, Marcel I 418, 494, 496 Ptolemaeus, Claudius I 552; II 115 Pusey, Edward Bouverie I 41–2 Putnam, Messrs II 472 Putt, Samuel Gorley II 382 n. 1 Pye, Henry James II 184 n. 1 Pym, Thomas I 286 n. 1 Quarto II 20, 45, 494 n. 2 ‘Queen of air and darkness’ II 377 Quental, Antero Tarqu´ınio II 383 Quicherat, Louis II 306 Quiggin, Edmund Crosby I 329 Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas I 211, 389, 407; II 222 Quilter, Harry I 606 n. 2

General Index Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius II 97 Quixote, Don I 359 Rabelais, Franc¸ois I 487; II 338; cf. I 359 n. 1 Rackham, Harris II 285 n. 2 Raleigh, Walter I 330 n. 1, 344, 399 n. 1, 585 Ramsay, Mr I 565 Ramsay, Allan Beville I 483, 508, 626; II 55 n. 1, 60 Ramsay, Sir William (physicist) I 366; II 20 n. 4 Ramsford, W. I 477 n. 2 Raphael, archangel II 111 Rattenbury, Robert Mantle I 629 n. 2 Ratti, Achille, see Benedict XV Read, Herbert II 283 n. 1 Reay, Donald James Mackay, 11th Baron II 510 Rechnitz, Wilhelm II 506 Reclus, Elie II 264 n. 1 Reclus, Elis´ee II 399 Redesdale, Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, first Baron Redesdale I 377 Regiomontanus (Johann M¨uller) I 551–2, 616; II 29–30 Reinach, Th´eodore I 145 Reitzenstein, Richard II 150 Renan, Ernest II 494, 495 Rendall, Gerald Henry I 92 Rennie, John I 618 n. 1 Reynolds’s Newspaper I 588 n. 1 Rhys, Ernest I 82 n. 1 Ribbeck, Otto II 168 Richard I, King II 440 n. 1 Richard III, King I 46 Richards, Charles I 449, 458, 481, 499 Richards, Franklin Thomas I 155, 173, 174, 597 Richards, Franklin Thomas Grant I 91 n. 8, 105–6, 110, 137, 142, 145, 174, 441, 454, 466, 484 financial difficulties I 169, 457, 469, 473–4, 474, 558, 564, 595, 633, 638; II 302, 392

General Index health I 302, 394, 474; II 141 wedding I 345 n. 1 writings Author Hunting II 432–3, 441–2 Bittersweet I 343 Caviare I 293, 296, 312, 581 Coast of Pleasure II 51 Double Life I 420 n. 2, 442–3 Every Wife I 581 Valentine I 312, 313 Richards, Geoffrey I 481, 495 n. 1, 633; II 89, 433 Richards, Gerald I 366 n. 1–2 Richards, Gioia Vivian (Mrs T. C. Owtram) I 457; II 388 Richards, Herbert Paul I 223, 243, 330, 348, 355, 356, 357, 361, 365, 374 Richards, Ivor Armstrong II 347 n. 2 Richards, John I 357 n. 4 Richards, Maria Magdalena Csan´ady (Mrs Grant Richards) I 345–6, 358, 364 n. 1; II 33, 51, 197 Richards Ltd, Messrs Grant II 424 Richards Press Ltd II 15, 53, 79, 82, 84, 86, 104, 110, 113, 234, 236, 238, 370, 406, 408, 428 Richelieu, Cardinal de II 479 n. 4 Richmond, Oliffe Legh I 630; II 265 Ridgeway, William II 193 Ridley, Nicholas I 49 n. 7 Riese, Alexander II 164 Rigby, George Vernon I 6 Ritschl, Friedrich I 156 n. 2 Roberts, Cecil Edric Mornington I 459 Roberts, Paul E. I 532 Roberts, Sydney Castle I 557 n. 1; II 137 Robertson, Dennis Holme I 321 Robertson, Donald Struan I 538 n. 1, 619 n. 1; II 103, 239 n. 1, 263, 422 Robertson, Hugh Stevenson II 243 Robertson, Mrs I 320 Robinson, Agnes Mary Frances (Mme Darmesteter; Mme Duclaux) I 66, 81

579 Robinson, Edwin Arlington II 276 Rochefoucauld, Franc¸ois la II 12 Rodney’s Pillar, Admiral II 281–2 Rogers, James Edwin Thorold I 23 n. 5, 24 Rolfe, Frederick William (‘Baron Corvo’) II 44, 45, 47, 64 n. 1, 67 ‘Rosalie’ I 531 Roscher, Wilhelm Heinrich II 19 Ross, Colin Archibald II 432 Ross, Robert I 328 n. 1, 517 n. 6; II 77 Rossetti, Christina II 234 n. 2 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel I 78, 83, 480 n. 1, 482, 482–3 n. 4; II 96, 101, 418, 475 n. 1 Rossetti, William Michael I 399 n. 1, 480 n. 1, 482; II 143–4 n. 5, 147 Rothenstein, Alice I 231, 254, 292 n. 4 Rothenstein, Betty (Mrs Ensor Holiday) II 5 Rothenstein, John Knewstub Maurice I 238 Rothenstein, Michael II 55 Rothenstein, Rachel I 570 Rothenstein, William I 203, 222–3, 222, 225, 234, 246, 250, 253–4, 254, 261, 271, 313, 365, 390, 391, 432, 440, 511 n. 1, 531, 625; II 3, 5, 60, 231, 243, 259, 268, 292, 346, 475 n. 1 Rothstein, Max II 265 Rotton, John I 179, 618; II 65 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques I 400 Routh, Robert Gordon II 272 Royal Academy II 162, 180 Royal Literary Fund II 52 Royal Society of Literature I 306 Rubin, Arnold II 160 Rudd, Margaret Caroline II 23 Ruperti, Georg Alexander II 369 Ruskin, John I 21–2, 127 Russell, Bertrand Arthur William, third Earl Russell I 304, 398 Russell, George William (‘Æ’) I 168 Russell, John, see Amberley

580 Rutherford, Eileen (Mrs Ralph Howard Fowler) II 227 n. 1, 229 Rutherford, Ernest I 511; II 227, 229 Rutherford, William Gunion I 69 Ryan, Michael J. I 388 Ryle, John Alfred II 529 Sacher-Masoch, Leopold I 400 Sade, Marquis de I 400 Sadleir, Michael II 420 Saenger, Gregory E. I 288 Sainsbury, Philip II 51 n. 1 St Aldwyn, Michael Edward Hicks Beach, first Earl I 528 St Andrews, University of I 485–6 Saintsbury George Edward Bateman I 443, 578; II 26, 38, 131 n. 2 Sala, George Augustus I 400 Salisbury, Lord I 57 Sallet, Alfred von I 144 Sallustius Crispus, Gaius. I 67–8; II 355 Salmasius, Claudius (Claude Salmaise) I 405, 552 Sampson, George I 522 n. 3 Sand, George I 399 n. 2 Sanders, Edith I 50 Sanders family I 100 n. 4 Sanders, Mr I 100 Sanders, Robert I 50 n. 18 Sanders, Robert Coles I 50 n. 18 Sanderson, Frederick William I 382 n. 2 Sandys, Frederick I 376 n. 9, 482 n. 4 Sandys, George II 112 n. 1 Sandys, John Edwin I 426 n. 1, 476, 615 Sankey, G. M. I 32 n. 4 Sankey, Mrs I 32 Santley, Charles I 7 Sappho II 494 n. 2 Sarah (Wise family servant) I 64 Sassoon, Siegfried Louvain II 266 Satan I 307 Saumaise, Claude, see Claudius Salmasius Savory, Gundred II 242 n. 1 Sayce, Archibald Henry I 69 n. 2 Scaliger, Josephus Justus I 552, 613, 615; II 268

General Index Scaliger, Julius Caesar II 261 n. 10 Schneidewin, Friedrich Wilhelm I 70, 405 Scholastic II 157 Scholfield, Alwyn Faber I 619 n. 1; II 138 scholia ad Aratum II 115, 538 scholia ad Germanicum II 115 Schopenhauer, Arthur II 327 n. 1 Schr¨oder, Otto I 342 Sch¨ucking, Levin Ludwig II 252, 266 n. 2 Schulze, Karl Paul I 113 Schwabe, Ludwig von II 284 Scott, Christopher I 353 n. 2 Scott, Giles Gilbert II 453 n. 2 Scott, Robert Forsyth II 507 Scott, Walter II 31; II 153, 270 Scott, William Bell I 482 n. 3 Scottish Border ballads, see ballads Scrannel, Orpheus, see John Gawsworth Scudamore family II 100 Seaman, Owen II 438 Searancke family I 44, 50 Secker, Martin I 381 Sedgwick, Walter Bradbury II 261 n. 11 Selden, John II 483 Semaine a` Paris II 152 Semele II 276 n. 3 Semple, William Hugh I 623, 625; II 27–8, 205–6 Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) I 186 n. 4; II 426, 427 Serenus Sammonicus, Quintus I 263 n. 2 serpents I 368 Servius (Maurus Servius Honoratius) II 6 Servius-Danielis I 319, 628; II 6 Sewell, James Edwards I 19–20 Seymour, Albert Eden I 57 Shadwell, Thomas II 184 n. 2 Shakespeare, William I 11, 21, 29, 37, 45–6, 46, 89, 135, 166, 264, 375 n. 3, 376, 378, 432, 468, 614 n. 1; II 3, 114 n. 2, 142, 204, 326, 329, 345, 349 n. 2 Shankar, Bhawani II 516, 518, 530 n. 2

General Index Shaw, George Bernard I 86 n. 1, 115, 330 n. 1, 474 n. 1, 541 n. 2; II 55 n. 1, 60, 61, 217 n. 3, 444 Shaw, Henry Wheeler (‘Josh Billings’) II 337 Shelley, Percy Bysshe I 109, 503, 506, 561; II 4, 97–8, 142, 143–4, 174, 177, 259 Sheppard, Hugh Richard Laurie II 87 Sheppard, John Tressider II 56 Shorter, Clement King I 295 n. 3, 360 Sheridan, Mr I 409 Shillan, David II 213 n. 1 Shortland, Kingsford I 326 Shrewsbury, Arthur II 23 Shropshire (1811) II 52 Shylock I 45, 46 Sickert, Richard (‘Walter Richard Sickert’, ‘Richard Sickert’) I 47; II 294 n. 1 Sidgwick & Jackson, Messrs I 227 n. 6 Sidonius Apollinaris I 613, 623; II 27, 206 Siedow, Alfred II 534 Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius I 596; II 266–7, 312, 315, 323, 342, 359, 361, 363–4, 365, 368–9, 380, 381, 385 Simon, Andr´e I 420, 421 Simon, John II 475 n. 1 Simpkin, Marshall, Messrs II 259 n. 1 Simplicius I 403 Sinclair, Archdeacon I 131 n. 1 Sisam, Kenneth II 143 n. 2 Sitwell, Sacheverell I 511, 575 Sketch, The I 86 Slater, David Ansell I 257, 434 n. 1 slavery I 556 Sloan, ‘Tod’ (James Forman ‘Todhunter’) I 349 Slocombe, George II 293 n. 3, 295 Smith, Mr I 509 Smart, Christopher II 405 n. 1 Smith, Ernest Bramah II 85 Smith, Horace I 505 n. 4, 604 n. 3 Smith, James I 505 n. 4, 604 n. 3 Smith, Sir William I 125

581 Smith, Sir William (classical scholar) II 306 Smith, William Benjamin I 181 Smith & Sons, W. H. I 121–2, 296, 454 Smyth, Herbert Weir II 388 Smyth, Miss R. C. I 229 Snail’s Pace Press I 592 n. 1; II 118 Sniehotta, Ludovicus II 91 Snow, Thomas Collins I 261 n. 2, 511 n. 1 Society of Authors I 191, 547; II 365, 470 Solomon, King II 115 Solomon, Lawrence I 184, 204, 587, 639 n. 2 Somervell, Arthur II 439 n. 1 Sommer, Ferdinand I 370 Sophocles I 62, 70, 73, 136, 361, 430 n. 3, 574, 584, 593; II 45, 56, 99, 157, 246 n. 1, 413, 494 n. 2 Sotheby’s I 551 South, Martha II 362 Southey, Robert I 357 Sparrow, John Hanbury Angus II 169 n. 1, 385 n. 1, 397, 444, 449, 455 Spectator II 512 Spencer, John Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl II 113 n. 3 Spens, Will II 334 n. 1 Spenser, Edmund I 81 Spicer-Simson, Theodore I 503, 584 Spindler, Robert II 41 Squeers, Miss I 570 Squire, John Collings I 394, 412 n. 1; II 433 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn I 27, 28 Starrett, Vincent II 107 n. 2 Statius, Achilles (Estac¸o) I 585 Statius, Publius Papinius I 113, 224, 331, 35, 356, 369 n. 1; II 319 n. 1 Steele, Richard I 337 Steenstrup, H. Troller I 566 Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) I 256 Stephanus, Henricus, the elder II 265 n. 2 Stephanus Byzantinus II 267

582 Stephen, Leslie I 347 n. 3 Sterne, Laurence I 334 n. 2 Stevenson, Robert Louis II 107 Stevenson, William Henry I 625 Stewart, Alan Hay (‘Jock’) II 343 n. 1, 370 n. 1 Stewart, Hugh Fraser II 102 Stewart, William I 171 Stillman, William Beaufoy I 50 Stoeber, Elias I 151 Stonehenge Protection Committee II 279 n. 1 Storrs, Ronald II 433 n. 6 Story, Sommerville I 508 Stott, David I 66 Straumann, Heinrich II 362 Strachey, Lytton I 241 n. 1; II 433 n. 6 Stuart, Charles Erskine I 321; II 91, 267 Stuart, Mary I 377 Studio I 353 Sudermann, Hermann I 156 n. 1 Suetonius (Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus) I 196 Suez Canal II 316 suicides I 120; II 111 n. 1, 227, 416 n. 6 Sulpicius Severus I 571–2 Summers, Walter Coventry II 363 Sumsion, C. Corbett II 172, 176, 309 Sunday Times I 519 Sussex, SS I 358 Sutherland, Duchess of I 154, 155, 158, 168, 297 n. 6 Swanwick, Anna I 67 Swinburne, Algernon Charles I 46 n. 2, 47, 66, 68, 80, 83–4, 91, 375–7, 377–8, 392 n. 1, 395–6, 399–400, 480 n. 1, 482 n. 4, 517 n. 6, 519 n. 2, 550; II 143–4 n. 5, 147, 234 n. 2, 336 Swinnerton, Frank I 392–3 Symons, Alphonse James Albert II 45; II 53, 93, 107 n. 2 Symons, Arthur Denis I 331 n. 1, 445, 556, 593; II 19, 34, 65, 82, 120, 257, 304, 310, 363 Symons, Clement Aubrey I 331 n. 1, 346–7

General Index Symons, Edward I 22, 60, 282 n. 3, 347, 493 n. 4, 494, 531, 556; II 19, 43, 120, 121, 221, 226, 227, 275, 277 Symons, Gerald II 3 Symons, Katharine Elizabeth (Mrs Edward Symons), see Katharine Elizabeth Housman Symons, Michael I 448; II 3, 145 Symons, Noel Victor Housman (‘Jerry’) I 331 n. 1, 347, 447, 493, 496, 531, 539, 556, 587, 593, 604; II 19, 34, 46, 65, 171, 376, 484, 500 Symons, Robert Edward I 448; II 3 Tabb, John Bannister I 255 Tacitus, Cornelius II 39 Targa, Leonardo I 322 Tarrant, H. C. A. I 65 Tate, Nahum II 184 n. 2 Tauchnitz, Bernhard I 275 n. 1; II 252, 254, 266 Taylor, Charles II 162 n. 3 Taylor, Henry Martyn II 54 Taylor, Rachel Annand I 244, 541, 561 Taylor, Sedley I 465 Teasdale, Sara II 390 Teesdale Musical Tournament II 98 Temple, Henry John, see Palmerston Temple, William, Archbishop of York II 475 n. 1 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord I 257, 435, 517 n. 6, 519 n. 2, 530, 577; II 97, 126 n. 1, 281, 342 Terence (Publius Terentius Afer) I 410 n. 4 Terry, Ellen I 45 n. 7 Thackeray, William Makepeace II 142, 205 Theocritus I 530 n. 3, 599, 610, 631 Thicknesse, Lily I 511 n. 1 Thicknesse, Ralph (Ray) I 121, 238, 511 n. 1 Thirkell, Angela Mackail II 269 n. 2 Thomas, Bertram Sidney II 343 n. 1 Thomas, Edward I 211, 335

General Index Thomas, Harold Flower II 161 Thomas, Herbert Samuel (‘Bert’) I 514, 531 Thomas, Lewis William I 6 Thomas, Llewellyn Hilleth I 629 n. 3 Thompson, Bess (n´ee Dixon) II 397, 398 Thompson, Edward II 257 n. 1 Thompson, Francis I 309; II 135–6, 136 Thomson, James I 26 Thomson, Joseph John I 511, 557 n. 1; II 219 Thomson, William, see Baron Kelvin Thorp, Joseph I 458 n. 1 Tiberianus II 342 n. 1 Tiberius Caesar I 144; II 107 Tibullus, Albius I 186, 610; II 214, 267 Tickell, Thomas I 337 Tillotson, Geoffrey I 567 n. 1 Time: A Monthly Miscellany I 47 Times, London I 491, 516, 522, 534 n. 3, 639; II 378 Times Literary Supplement I 443; II 7, 360, 440 Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti) I 128 Tiransil, Hans II 51 Titian (Tiziano Vecelli) I 128 Tolstoy, Leo I 172 Tonks, Henry II 257 n. 2, 268 n. 2, 475 n. 1 Toulmin, Humphrey II 152 n. 2 Tour d’Argent, Paris I 297 Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society II 73 Travers, William Morris I 143 Tree, Beerbohm I 195 n. 1 Trench, Frederic Herbert I 202, 511 n. 1 Trevelyan, George Macaulay I 330 n. 1?, II 208 Trevelyan, George Otto II 455 n. 1 Trevelyan, Robert Calverley II 455 Trinick, J. B. I 503 Trinity Magazine I 579 n. 1 triremes I 216 Trollope, Anthony II 420 Trollope family I 593 Trotter, Jacqueline Theodora I 522

583 Tuckerman, Frederick Goddard II 358, 372, 381 Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques I 601 Turner, Joseph Mallord William I 21–2 Turner, Reginald II 78 Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) II 8; II 112, 485 Tyler, Royall I 237 Tyrrell, Robert Yelverton I 72 n. 1, 171 n. 1 Tyrtaeus II 328 Ueberlieferungsgeschichte II 260 Umberto I, King I 124 Universal Review I 606 University College Magazine I 639, 641 Untermeyer, Louis II 307; cf. II 307–8, 314 Vailliant, Ouida Mary II 237 n. 1 Vale, E. V. II 243 Val´ery, Paul II 38 Van Eyck, Hubert I 271 Van Eyck, Jan I 271 Van Vechten, Carl I 494 Vatican Glossary I 72 Venn, John II 116 n. 6 Venn, John Archibald I 604; II 116 n. 6, 529 Verbena Lodge (St John’s Wood) I 401 Verlaine, Paul II 327 n. 1, 330 Verne, Jules I 6 Vernon, Harry Foley I 50 Veronese, Bonifacio I 128 Veronese, Paolo I 128 Verrall, Arthur Woollgar I 167, 168, 574; II 264 Verrocchio, Andrea del II 163 n. 1 Vesey, William Trevor (formerly, Lendrum) I 515; II 368 n. 2 Vesuvius, Mount I 18–19 Vettius Valens II 115 Vickers, Mr I 526 Victoria, Queen I 50, 52, 96 n. 3, 395, 409, 577 Villars, Henri Gauthier I 474 n. 3; II 178, 179

584 Villon, Franc¸ois I 78 n. 2, 391 n. 1; II 327 n. 1, 330 Vinogradoff, Paul II 457 n. Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) I 120, 141, 153, 231, 292, 355, 369, 422 n. 6, 430, 432, 462, 478, 599; II 6, 74, 91, 111, 151 n. 5, 168, 173, 269, 280 n. 1, 295 n. 1, 333, 361, 363, 394, 418, 425–6, 426, 427, 434, 497, 537; see also Appendix Vergiliana Vit, Vincenzo de II 368 n. 1 Vize, George Henry I 294, 326 Vizetelly, Henry I 256; II 38 Vogt, Alfred II 355 Voigt, W. von I 144 Vollmer, Friedrich I 113; II 131 Voltaire (Franc¸ois-Marie Arouet Le Jeune) II 179 n. 2 Vreese, J. G. W. M. de II 42 Wageningen, Jakob van II 335 Wain, Louis I 79 n. 5 Walker, E. M. II 55 n. 1 Waller, Alfred Rayney I 630 n. 4 Wallop, Newton, see Viscount Lymington Walpole, Sir Robert II 233 Walter de Map I 419 n. 1 Waltzing, Jean Pierre I 182 Warburg, Aby II 88, 95 Ward, Adolphus William I 630 Ward, Artemus I 331; II 337 Ward, Edgar II 9 n. 1 Warlock, Peter, see Philip Arnold Heseltine Warner, Philip Lee I 323 n. 1, 327 n. 1 Warren, Edward Prioleau I 479 Warren, Thomas Herbert I 20, 72 n. 1, 511 n. 1; II 12 Warrender, Alice II 364 n. 2 Watson, Edward William I 511 n. 1, 516 n. 3; II 12, 397 Watson, William I 161, 511 n. 1, 577; II 208, 210, 213, 217, 381, 437, 512 Watts, Irene L. II 304 n. 1; cf. II 305

General Index Watts-Dunton, Theodore I 375 n. 3, 376 Waugh, Evelyn I 241 n. 1 Weale, Miss II 445 Weatherhead, Captain II 464 n. 1 Webb, Clement Charles Julian I 116 Webb, Edmund James I 116 Webb, Philip George Lancelot I 65 Webb, Philip Speakman II 292 Webb, Thomas Ebenezer I 66 Weber, Karl Friedrich I 470 Webster, Ben I 167 Webster, Noah I 273 Weckerlin, Jean-Baptiste II 175 n. 4 Wecklein, Nikolaus I 70, 72 n. 1; cf. I 168 Weekly Despatch I 492 Weekly Scotsman I 545 Weekly Westminster Gazette I 512, 539, 541, 545 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of I 618 Wellmann, Max I 508 Wells, Herbert George I 251, 265, 330 n. 1; II 268 n. 2 Wells, Joseph I 356 Wemyss, Lady II 505 n. 2, 507 West, Rebecca II 279 n. 1 Wetstenius, Johannes Jacobus (Wettstein) II 263 n. 1 Whall, John Clephane I 448 Wharton, Edith II 64, 160, 187 n. 2, 435 Whibley, Charles I 58 n. 1, 529 n. 1, 576 Whibley, Leonard I 529 Whistler, James McNeill I 376 n. 4 Whitaker’s Almanack I 639 Who’s Who I 107; II 237, 262, 381 Wicksteed, Philip Henry II 16 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich von I 217; II 39–40; cf. I 168, 261 n. 2 Wilde, Oscar I 47, 67, 328 n. 1, 517 n. 6; II 77–8 Wilhelm I, Kaiser I 331, 334, 422 n. 4 Wilhelm II, Kaiser II 42 Wilkins, David I 496 Wilkinson, Lancelot Patrick II 347 n. 2, 505 n. 2

585

General Index Wilkinson, Louis II 433 n. 6 Wilkinson, Winifred II 505 n. 2 Williams, Alwyn Terrell Petre I 610 Williams, Basil I 438 Williams, Mrs Basil (Aunt Kate) I 40, 41, 44 n. 4, 438 Williams, Charles II 151 Williams, John I 621; II 100, 328 n. Williams, Leonard I 234 n. 3 Williams, Mr I 570 Williams, Ralph Vaughan I 242, 243, 380, 458, 501, 546, 637 n. 1; II 24, 94, 148, 475, 502 Williams, William Emrys I 603 Willoughby, V´era II 114 Willy, see Henri Gauthier Villars Willy-Collette I 474 Wilmshurst, Mr II 19 Wilson, Edmund II 416 Wilson, Frank Percy II 143 n. 2 Wilson, Mr I 388 n. 1 Wilson, Stanley II 35, 94 Winchester College. Sixth Book. Lines Book (1926) I 610 Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, Mrs I 578, 643; II 162 Winstanley, Denys Arthur I 286 n. 1, 472, 480 Winthrop Rogers Ld, Messrs I 388 Wise, Edith Madeline (‘Edie’) I 14 n. 5, 105, 511 n. 1; II 82, 135 Wise, Edward Tuppen (‘Ted’) I 14 n. 4, 40; II 277, 421 Wise, Elizabeth Mary I 14 n. 4 Wise family I 593; II 34, 146 n. 4 Wise, Thomas James I 377 Wise, Wilhelmina Harriet (‘Minnie’) I 14 n. 4, 43, 105; II 135 Withers, Audrey (Mrs Alan Hay ‘Jock’ Steward) I 564; II 343, 370 Withers, Maria II 291 Withers, Michael II 418 Withers, Monica II 370 n. 2 Withers, Percy I 381, 390, 511 n. 1; II 202, 506

health I 439, 484, 495, 498, 513, 530, 542, 550, 554, 564, 565, 578, 590, 605,622, 625, 642; II 16, 66, 103, 106, 370, 471, 477, 508 Withof, Johann Hildebrand II 368 Wolff, Henry Drummond Charles I 27 Wolff, Lucien II 418 n. 1 Wollman, Maurice II 372 Women, The Rights and Wrongs of I 238–9 Women’s Employment Publishing Company’ I 348 women’s suffrage I 251; II 109 Wood, Nolan II 461 n. 1 Woodberry, George Edward I 181, 198 Woodchester pavement I 621, 637–8 Woodhouse, Richard I 562 Woods, Mrs H. G. I 511 n. 1 Woollright, John II 146 Woollright family II 146 n. 4 Woolsey, Gamel II 234 n. 2 Wordsworth, William I 109, 376, 480, 552, 561; II 18, 101, 154, 199, 210 Wortley, C. II 422 Wuensch, Marie II 216 Wunder, Eduard I 70 Wyatt, Mr II 146 Wyse, William I 72 n. 1 Yale Review II 27, 31, 43 n. 1, 46, 118, 413 Yano, Hojin II 37 n. 1 Ye Rounde Table II 246 n. 1 Yeats, William Butler I 82 n. 1, 323 n. 1, 330 n. 1; II 252, 353 n. 2 Yorke, Mrs I 509 Young, Alexander Bell Filson I 188, 216, 276 Young, Desmond I 371 n. 2 Young, Sir George I 63; II 26, 102 Zaehnsdorf, Messrs II 319 Zeitschrift f¨ur christliche Kunst II 127 Zwiener, Carolus Augustinus II 91