ABSTRACT
What of things German in Crabtree studies hitherto? There is very little indeed. The only reference of any insight (it must have been one of those intuitive perceptions with which Crabtree orators are sometimes blessed) came right at the end of Tancock’s oration in 1960, and I find it amazing that 21 years should have to pass before its true significance was realised. Tancock finished his revelations concerning Crabtree in France between 1791 and 1800 with the words:
I end with a little known and seldom quoted remark of a grossly overrated contemporary of Crabtree named Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Light, more light!
