Produced by David Widger
[Illustration: Titlepage]
[Illustration: Henry Howard]
"The portrait of Surrey which is now at Hampton Court, and which is
attributed to Holbein, though probably by his imitator, Guillim Stretes,
apparently dates from a period when he was a very young man. It is a
valuable and highly interesting picture; especially in regard to the
dress, which, except for the white shirt, embroidered with Moresque
work, is entirely red, and with the flat red cap, red shoes ornamented
with studs of gold, the richly chased dagger and sword, is an admirable
example of the gorgeous style of costume prevalent at Court at the
latter end of the reign of Henry VIII, 'Law's History of Hampton Court
Palace in Tudor Times.'"
THE VNFORTUNATE TRAVELLER OR THE LIFE OF JACK WILTON: WITH AN ESSAY ON
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THOMAS NASH BY EDMUND GOSSE
London Printed And Issued By Charles Whittingham & Co At The Chiswick
Press MDCCCXCII
Contents.
An Essay on the Life and Writings of Thomas Nash
The Dedication to the Earl of Southampton
To the Gentlemen Readers
The Induction to the Pages of the Court
The Unfortunate Traveller
AN ESSAY ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THOMAS NASH.
It is mainly, no doubt, but I hope not exclusively, an antiquarian
interest which attaches to the name of Thomas Nash. It would be
absurd to claim for a writer so obscure a very prominent place in the
procession of Englishmen of letters. His works proclaim by their extreme
rarity the fact that three centuries of readers have existed cheerfully
and wholesomely without any acquaintance with their contents. At the
present moment, the number of those living persons who have actually
perused the works of Nash may probably be counted on the fingers of
two hands. Most of these productions are uncommon to excess, one or two
exist in positively unique examples. There is no use in arguing against
such a fact as this. If Nash had reached, or even approached, the
highest order of merit, he would have been placed, long ere this, within
the reach of all. Nevertheless, his merits, relative if not positive,
were great. In the violent coming of age of Elizabethan literature,
his voice was heard loudly, not always discordantly, and with an accent
eminently personal to himself. His life, though shadowy, has elements of
picturesqueness and pathos; his writings are a storehouse of oddity and
fantastic wit
It has been usual to class Nash with the Precursors of Shakespeare, and
until quite lately it was conjectured that he was older than Greene and
Peele, a contemporary of Lodge and Chapman. It is now known that he
was considerably younger than all these, and even than Marlowe and
Shakespeare. Thomas Nash, the fourth child of the Rev. William Nash, who
to have been curate of Lowestoft in Suffolk, was baptized in that
town in November, 1567. The Nashes continued to live in Lowestoft, where
the father died in 1603, probably three years after the death of his son
Thomas. Of the latter we hear nothing more until, in October, 1582, at
the age of fifteen, he matriculated as a sizar of St. John's College,
Cambridge. Cooper says that he was admitted a scholar on the Lady
Margaret's foundation in 1584. He remained at Cambridge, in unbroken
residence, until July, 1589, "seven year together, lacking a quarter,"
as he tells us positively in "Lenten Stuff."
Cambridge was the hotbed of all that was vivid and revolutionary in
literature at that moment, and Robert Greene was the centre of literary
Cambridge. When Nash arrived, Greene, who was seven years his senior,
was still in residence at his study in Clare Hall, having returned from
his travels in Italy and Spain, ready, in 1583, to take his degree as
master of arts. He was soon, however, to leave for London, and it is
unlikely that a boy of sixteen would be immediately admitted to
the society of those "lewd wags" who looked up to the already
distinguished Greene as to a master. But Greene, without doubt, made
frequent visits to his university, and on one of these was probably
formed that intimate friendship with Nash which lasted until near the
elder poet's death. Marlowe was at Corpus, then called Benet College,
during five years of Nash's residence, but it is by no means certain
that their acquaintance began so early. It is, indeed, in the highest
degree tantalizing that these writers, many of whom loved nothing better
than to talk about themselves, should have neglected to give us the
information which would precisely be most welcome to us. A dozen whole
"Anatomies of Absurdity" and "Supplications of Pierce Penniless"
might be eagerly exchanged for a few pages in which the literary life of
Cambridge from 1582 to 1589 should be frankly and definitely described.
It has been surmised that Nash was ejected from the university in 1587.
His enemy, Gabriel Harvey, who was extremely ill-informed, gives this
account of what occurred:--
"[At Cambridge], (being distracted of his wits) [Nash] fell into diverse
misdemeanours, which were the first steps that brought him to this
poor estate. As, namely, in his fresh-time, how he flourished in all
impudency towards scholars, and abuse to the townsmen; insomuch that to
this day the townsmen call every untoward scholar of whom there is great
hope, _a very Nash_. Then, being bachelor of arts, which by great labour
he got, to show afterwards that he was not unworthy of it, had a hand in
a show called _Terminus et non terminus_; for the which his partner in
it was expelled the college; but this foresaid Nash played in it (as I
suppose) the Varlet of Clubs.... Then suspecting himself that he should
be stayed for _egregie dunsus_, and not attain to the next degree, said
he had commenced enough, and so forsook Cambridge, being bachelor of the
third year."
But, even in this poor gossip, we find nothing about ejection. Nash's
extraordinary abuse of language is probably the cause of that report. In
1589, in prefacing his "Anatomy of Absurdity," he remarked:--
"What I have written proceeded not from the pen of vainglory, but from
the process of that pensiveness, which two summers since overtook me;
whose obscured cause, best known to every name of curse, hath compelled
my wit to wander abroad unregarded in this satirical disguise, and
counselled my content to dislodge his delight from traitors' eyes."
That the young gentleman meant something by these sentences, it is only
charitable to suppose; that he could have been intelligible, even to
his immediate contemporaries, is hardly to be believed. This "obscured
cause" has been taken to be, by some, his removal from the University,
and, by others, his entanglement with a young woman. It is perhaps
simpler to understand him to say that the ensuing pamphlet was written,
in consequence of an intellectual crisis, in 1587, when he was twenty
years of age.
At twenty-two, at all events, we find him in London, beginning his
career as a man of letters. His first separate publication seems to have
been the small quarto in black letter from which a quotation has just
been made. This composition, named an "Anatomy" in imitation of several
then recent popular treatises of a similar title, is only to be pardoned
on the supposition that it was a boyish manuscript prepared at college.
It is vilely written, in the preposterous Euphuism of the moment;
the style is founded on Lyly, the manner is the manner of Greene, and
Whetstone in his moral "Mirrors" and "Heptamerons" has supplied the
matter. The "absurdity" satirized in this jejune and tedious tract is
extravagant living of all kinds. The author attacks women with great
vehemence, but only in that temper which permitted the young Juvenals
of the hour to preach against wine and cards and stageplays with intense
zeal, while practising the worship of all these with equal ardour. "The
Anatomy of Absurdity" is a purely academic exercise, interesting only
because it shows, in the praise of Sidney and the passage in defence of
poetry, something of the intellectual aptitude of the youthful writer.
In the same year, and a little earlier, Nash published an address "to
the gentlemen students of both universities," as a preface to a romance
by Greene. Bibliographers describe a supposititious "Menaphon" of 1587,
which nobody has ever seen; even if such an edition existed, it is
certain that Nash's address was not prefixed to it, for the style
is greatly in advance of his boyish writing of that year. It is an
interesting document, enthusiastic and gay in a manner hardly to be met
with again in its author, and diversified with graceful praise of St
John's College, defence of good poetry, and wholesome ridicule of those
who were trying to introduce the "Thrasonical huffsnuff" style of which
Phaer and Stanihurst were the prophets.
Still in 1589, but later in the year, Nash is believed to have thrown
himself into that extraordinary clash of theological weapons which is
celebrated as the Martin Marprelate Controversy. As is well known, this
pamphlet war grew out of the passionate resentment felt by the Puritans
against the tyrannical acts of Whitgift and the Bishops. The actual
controversy has been traced back to a defence of the establishment of
the Church, by the Dean of Sarum, on the one hand, and a treatise by
John Penry the Puritan, on the other, both published in 1587. In 1588
followed the violent Puritan libel, called "Martin Marprelate," secretly
printed, and written, perhaps, by a lawyer named Barrow. Towards the
close of the dispute several of the literary wits dashed in upon the
prelatical side, and denounced the Martinists with exuberant high
spirits. Among these Nash was long thought to have held a very prominent
place, for the two most brilliant tracts of the entire controversy,
"Pap with an Hatchet," 1589, and "An Almond for a Parrot," 1590, were
confidently attributed to him. These are now, however, clearly perceived
to be the work of a much riper pen, that, namely, of Lyly.
It is probable that the four anonymous and privately printed tracts,
which Dr. Grosart has finally selected, do represent Nash's share in
the Marprelate Controversy, although in one of them, "Martin's Month's
Mind," I cannot say that I recognize his manner. The "Countercuff,"
published in August, 1589, from Gravesend, shows a great advance in
power. The academic Euphuism has been laid aside; images and trains of
thought are taken from life and experience instead of from books. In
"Pasquils Return," which belongs to October of the same year, the author
invents the happy word "Pruritans" to annoy his enemy, and speaks,
probably in his own name, but perhaps in that of Pasquil, of a visit
to Antwerp. "Martin's Month's Mind," which is a crazy piece of fustian,
belongs to December, 1589, while the fourth tract, "Pasquil's Apology,"
appeared so late as July, 1590. The smart and active pen which
skirmishes in these pamphlets adds nothing serious to the consideration
of the tragical controversy in which it so lightly took part. It amused
and trained Nash to write these satires, but they left Udall none the
worse and the Bishops none the better. The author repeatedly promises to
rehearse the arguments on both sides and sum up the entire controversy
in a "May-Game of Martinism," of which we hear no more.
During the first twelve months of Nash's residence in London he
was pretty busily employed. It is just conceivable that six small
publications may have brought in money enough to support him. But after
this we perceive no obvious source of income for some considerable
time. How the son of a poor Suffolk minister contrived to live in
London throughout the years 1590 and 1591, it is difficult to imagine.
Certainly not on the proceeds of a single pamphlet. It is not credible
that Nash published much that has not come down to us. Perhaps a tract
here and there may have been lost.{1} He probably subsisted by hanging
on to the outskirts of education. Perhaps he taught pupils, more likely
still he wrote letters. We know, afterall, too little of the manners of
the age to venture on a reply to the question which constantly imposes
itself, How did the minor Elizabethan man of letters earn a livelihood?
In the case of Nash, I would hazard the conjecture, which is borne out,
I think, by several allusions in his writings, that he was a reader to
the press, connected, perhaps, with the Queen's printers, or with those
under the special protection of the Bishops.
1 One long narrative poem, the very name of which is too
coarse to quote, was, according to Oldys, certainly
published; but of this no printed copy is known to exist.
John Davies of Hereford says that "good men tore that
pamphlet to pieces." I owe to the kindness of Mr. A. H.
Bullen the inspection of a transtript of a very corrupt
manuscript of this work.
His only production in 1591, so far as we know, was the insignificant
tract called "A Wonderful Astrological Prognostication," by "Adam
Fouleweather." This has been hastily treated as a defence of "the
dishonoured memory" of Nash's dead friend Greene against Gabriel
Harvey. But Greene did not die till the end of 1592, and in the
"Prognostication" there is nothing about either Greene or Harvey. The
pamphlet is a quizzical satire on the almanac-makers, very much in the
spirit of Swift's Bickerstaff "Predictions" a hundred years later.
Of more importance was a preface contributed in this same year to Sir
Philip Sidney's posthumous "Astrophel and Stella." In this short essay
Nash reaches a higher level of eloquence than he had yet achieved, and,
in spite of its otiose redundancy, this enthusiastic eulogy of Sidney is
pleasant reading.
In 1592, doubtless prior to the death of Greene, Nash published the
earliest of his important books, the volume entitled "Pierce Penniless
his Supplication to the Devil." This is a grotesque satire on the vices
and the eccentricities of the age. As a specimen of prose style it is
remarkable for its spirit and "go," qualities which may enable us to
forget how turbid, ungraceful, and harsh it is. Nash had now dropped
the mannerism of the Euphuists; he had hardly gained a style of his
own. "Pierce Penniless," with its chains of "letter-leaping metaphors,"
rattles breathlessly on, and at length abruptly ceases. Any sense of
the artistic fashioning of a sentence, or of the relative harmony of the
parts of a composition, was not yet dreamed of. But before we condemn
the muddy turbulence of the author, we must recollect that nothing
had then been published of Hooker, Raleigh, or Bacon in the pedestrian
manner. Genuine English prose had begun to exist indeed, but had not
yet been revealed to the world. Nash, as a lively portrait-painter in
grotesque, at this time, is seen at his best in such a caricature as
this, scourging "the pride of the Dane":--
"The most gross and senseless proud dolts are the Danes, who stand so
much upon their unwieldy burly-boned soldiery, that they account of
no man that hath not a battle-axe at his girdle to hough dogs with, or
wears not a cock's feather in a thrummed hat like a cavalier. Briefly,
he is the best fool braggart under heaven. For besides nature hath lent
him a flab-berkin face, like one of the four winds, and cheeks that sag
like a woman's dug over his chinbone, his apparel is so stuffed up with
bladders of taffaty, and his back like beef stuffed with parsley, so
drawn out with ribbands and devises, and blistered with light sarcenet
bastings, that you would think him nothing but a swarm of butterflies,
if you saw him afar off."
On the 3rd of September, 1592, Greene came to his miserable end, having
sent to the press from his deathbed those two remarkable pamphlets, the
"Groatsworth of Wit" and the "Repentance." For two years past, if we may
believe Nash, the profligate atheism of the elder poet had estranged his
friend, or at all events had kept him at a distance. But a feeling of
common loyalty, and the anger which a true man of letters feels when a
genuine poet is traduced by a pedant, led Nash to take up a very strong
position as a defender of the reputation of Greene. Gabriel Harvey,
although the friend of Spenser, is a personage who fills an odious place
in the literary history of the last years of Elizabeth. He was a scholar
and a university man of considerable attainments, but he was wholly
without taste, and he concentrated into vinegar a temper which must
always have had a tendency to be sour. In particular, he loathed the
school of young writers who had become famous in direct opposition to
the literary laws which he had laid down.
Harvey's wrath had found a definite excuse in the tract, called "A Quip
for an upstart Courtier, or a quaint dispute between Velvet-Breeches
and Cloth-Breeches," which Greene had published early in the year
1592. Accordingly, when he heard of Greene's death, he hastened to his
lodgings, interviewed his landlady, collected scurrilous details, and,
with matchless bad taste, issued, before the month was over, his "Four
Letters," a pamphlet in which he trampled upon the memory of Greene. In
the latest of his public utterances, Greene had made an appeal to three
friends, who, though not actually named, are understood to have been
Marlowe, Peele, and Nash.
Of these, the last was the one with the readiest pen, and the task of
punishing Harvey fell upon him.
Nash's first attack on Harvey took the form of a small volume, entitled,
"Strange News of the Intercepting of Certain Letters," published
very early in 1593. It was a close confutation of the charges made in
Harvey's "Four Letters," the vulgarity and insolence of the pedant
being pressed home with an insistence which must have been particularly
galling to him as coming from a distinguished man of his own university,
twenty years his junior. Harvey retorted with the heavy artillery of his
"Pierce's Supererogation," which was mainly directed against Nash, whom
the disappearance of Peele, and the sudden death of Marlowe in June, had
left without any very intimate friend as a supporter. Nash retired,
for the moment, from the controversy, and in the prefatory epistle to a
remarkable work, the most bulky of all his books, "Christ's Tears over
Jerusalem," he waved the white flag. He bade, he declared, "a hundred
unfortunate farewells to fantastical satirism," and complimented his
late antagonist on his "abundant scholarship." Harvey took no notice of
this, and for four years their mutual animosity slumbered. In this same
year, 1593, Nash produced the only play which has come down to us
as wholly composed by him, the comedy of "Summer's Last Will and
Testament."
Meanwhile "Pierce Penniless" had enjoyed a remarkable success, and had
placed Nash in a prominent position among London men of letters. We
learn that in 1596, four years after its original publication, it had
run through six editions, besides being translated in 1594 into French,
and, a little later, into Macaronic Latin. In "Christ's Tears" the young
writer, conscious of his new importance, deals with what the critics
have said about his style. He tells us, and we cannot wonder at it, that
objections have been made to "my boisterous compound words, and ending
my Italianate coined verbs all in _ize_." His defence is not unlike
that of De Quincey; we can imagine his asking, when urged to be simple,
whether simplicity be in place in a description of Belshazzar's Feast He
says that the Saxon monosyllables that swarm in the English tongue are a
scandal to it, and that he is only turning this cheap silver trash into
fine gold coinage. Books, he says, written in plain English, "seem
like shopkeepers' boxes, that contain nothing else save halfpence,
three-farthings, and two-pences." To show what sort of doubloons he
proposes to mint for English pockets, we need go no further than the
opening phrases of his dedication of this very book to that amiable
poet, the Lady Elizabeth Carey:--
"Excellent accomplished court-glorifying Lady, give me leave, with the
sportive sea-porpoises, preludiately a little to play before the storm
of my tears, to make my prayer before I proceed to my sacrifice. Lo, for
an oblation to the rich burnished shrine of your virtue, a handful of
Jerusalem's mummianized earth, in a few sheets of waste paper enwrapped,
I here, humiliate, offer up at your feet."
These, however, in spite of the odd neologisms, are sentences formed in
a novel and a greatly improved manner, and the improvement is sustained
throughout this curious volume. Probably the intimate study of the
Authorized Version of the Bible, which this semi-theological tractate
necessitated, had much to do with the clarification of the author's
style. At all events, from this time forth, Nash drops, except in
polemical passages where his design is provocative, that irritating
harshness in volubility which had hitherto marked his manner of writing.
Here, for example, is a passage from "Christ's Tears" which is not
without a strangely impressive melody:--
"Over the Temple, at the solemn feast of the Passover, was seen a comet
most coruscant, streamed and tailed forth, with glistering naked swords,
which in his mouth, as a man in his hand all at once, he made semblance
as if he shaked and vambrashed. Seven days it continued; all which time,
the Temple was as clear and light in the night as it had been noonday.
In the Sanctum Sanctorum was heard clashing and hewing of armour, while
flocks of ravens, with a fearful croaking cry, beat, fluttered and
clashed against the windows. A hideous dismal owl, exceeding all her
kind in deformity and quantity, in the Temple-porch built her nest. From
under the altar there issued penetrating plangorous howlings and ghastly
deadmen's groans."
He tells us, in the preface, that he takes an autumnal air, and in truth
there is a melancholy refinement in this volume which we may seek for
in vain elsewhere in Nash's writings. The greater part of the book is
a "collachrimate oration" over Jerusalem, placed in the mouth of our
Saviour; by degrees the veil of Jerusalem grows thinner and thinner,
and we see more and more clearly through it the London of Elizabeth,
denounced by a pensive and not, this time, a turbulent satirist.
In 1594 Nash's pen was particularly active. It was to the Lady Elizabeth
Carey, again, that he dedicated "The Terrors of the Night," a discourse
on apparitions. He describes some very agreeable ghosts, as, for
instance, those which appeared to a gentleman, a friend of the author's,
in the guise of "an inveigling troop of naked virgins, whose odoriferous
breath more perfumed the air than ordnance would that is charged with
amomum, musk, civet and ambergreece." It was surely a mock-modesty which
led Nash to fear that such ghost-stories as these would appear to his
readers duller than Holland cheese and more tiresome than homespun. To
1594, too, belongs the tragedy of "Dido," probably left incomplete by
Marlowe, and finished by Nash, who shows himself here an adept in
that swelling bombast of bragging blank verse of which he affected to
disapprove. A new edition of "Christ's Tears" also belongs to this busy
year 1594, which however is mainly interesting to us as having seen the
publication of the work which we are here introducing to modern readers.
An eminent French critic, M. Jusserand, whose knowledge of English
sixteenth-century literature is unsurpassed, was the first to draw
attention to the singular interest which attaches to "The Unfortunate
Traveller, or the Life of Jack Wilton," 1594. In his treatise, "Le Roman
au Temps de Shakespeare," 1887, M. Jusserand insisted upon the fact
that this neglected book was the best specimen of the _picaresque_ tale
written in English before the days of Defoe. He shows that expressions
put in the mouth of Nash's hero, which had been carelessly treated as
autobiographical confessions of foreign travel and the like, on the part
of the author, were but features of a carefully planned fiction. "Jack
Wilton" describes the career of an adventurer, from his early youth as
a page in the royal camp of Henry VIII. at the siege of Tournay, to his
attainment of wealth, position, and a beautiful Italian wife.
The first exploit of the page is an encounter with a fraudulent
innkeeper, which is described with great spirit, and M. Jusserand
has ingeniously surmised that Shakespeare, after reading these pages,
determined to fuse the two characters, mine host and the waggish
picaroon, into the single immortal figure of Falstaff. After this point
in the tale, it is probable that the reader may find the interest of
the story flag; but his attention will be reawakened when he reaches
the episode of the Earl of Surrey and Fair Geraldine, and that in
which Jack, pretending to be Surrey, runs off with his sweet Venetian
mistress, Diamante. It will be for the reader of the ensuing pages to
say whether Nash had mastered the art of narrative quite so perfectly
as M. Jusserand, in his just pride as a discoverer, seems to think. The
romance, no doubt, is incoherent and languid at times, and is easily led
aside into channels of gorgeous description and vain moral reflection.
It will doubtless be of interest, at this point, to quote the words
in which, in a later volume, M. Jusserand has reiterated his praise of
"Jack Wilton" and his belief in Nash as the founder of the British novel
of character:--
"In the works of Nash and his imitators, the different parts are badly
dovetailed; the novelist is incoherent and incomplete; the fault lies in
some degree with the picaresque form itself. Nash, however, pointed out
the right road, the road that was to lead to the true novel. He was
the first among his compatriots to endeavour to relate in prose a
long-sustained story, having for its chief concern: the truth.... No
one, Ben Jonson excepted, possessed at that epoch, in so great a degree
as himself, a love of the honest truth. With Nash, then, the novel of
real life, whose invention in England is generally attributed to Defoe,
begins. To connect Defoe with the past of English literature, we must
get over the whole of the seventeenth century, and go back to 'Jack
Wilton,' the worthy brother of 'Roxana,' 'Moll Flanders,' and 'Colonel
Jack.'"
It is to be regretted that Nash made no second adventure in pure
fiction. "Jack Wilton," now one of the rarest of his books, was never
reprinted in its own age.
How Nash was employed during the next two years, it is not easy to
conjecture. When we meet with him once more, the smouldering fire of his
quarrel with the Harveys had burst again into flame. "Have with you to
Saffron Walden," 1596, is devoted to the chastisement of "the reprobate
brace of brothers, to wit, witless Gabriel and ruffling Richard." No
fresh public outburst on Harvey's part seems to have led to this
attack; but he bragged in private that he had silenced his licentious
antagonists. Nash admits that his opponent's last book "has been kept
idle by me, in a bye-settle out of sight amongst old shoes and boots
almost this two year." Harvey was known to have come from Saffron
Walden; Nash invites his readers to accompany him to that town to see
what they can discover, and he retails a good deal of lively scandal
about the rope-maker's sons. "Have with you" is perhaps the smartest and
is certainly the most readable of Nash's controversial volumes. It gives
us, too, some interesting fragments of autobiography. Harvey had accused
him of "prostituting his pen like a courtisan," and Nash makes this
curious and not very lucid statement in selfdefence:--
"Neither will I deny it nor will I grant it. Only thus far I'll go with
you, that twice or thrice in a month, when _res est angusta domi_, the
bottom of my purse is turned downward, and my conduit of ink will no
longer flow for want of reparations, I am fain to let my plough stand
still in the midst of a furrow, and follow some of these newfangled
Galiardos and Senior Fantasticos, to whose amorous _villanellas_ and
_quipassas_, I prostitute my pen in hope of gain.... Many a fair day ago
have I proclaimed myself to the world Piers Penniless."
Gabriel Harvey must have felt, on reading "Have with you to Saffron
Walden," that his antagonist was right in saying that his pen carried
"the hot shot of a musket." Unfortunately, while Harvey was smarting
under these insulting gibes and jests, the jester himself got into
public trouble. Little is known of the circumstance which led the
Queen's Privy Council, in the summer of 1597, to throw Nash into the
Fleet Prison, but it was connected with the performance of a comedy
called "The Isle of Dogs," which gave offence to the authorities. This
play was not printed, and is no longer in existence. The Lord Admiral's
Company of actors, which produced it, had its licence withdrawn until
the 27th of August, when Nash was probably liberated. Gabriel Harvey was
not the man to allow this event to go unnoticed. He hurried into
print with his "Trimming of Thomas Nash," 1597, a pamphlet of the most
outrageous abuse addressed "to the polypragmatical, parasitupocritical
and pantophainoudendecontical puppy Thomas Nash," and adorned with a
portrait of that gentleman in irons, with heavy gyves upon his ankles.
According to Nash, however, the part of "The Isle of Dogs" which was
his composition was so trifling in extent that his imprisonment was
a gratuitous act of oppression. How the play with this pleasing title
offended has not been handed down to us.
Nash was now a literary celebrity, and yet it is at this precise moment
that his figure begins to fade out of sight For the next two years he is
not known to have made any public appearance. In 1599 he published the
best of all his books; it was unfortunately the latest "Nash's Lenten
Stuff; or, the Praise of the Red Herring" is an encomium on the
hospitable town of Yarmouth, to which, in the autumn of 1597, he had
fled for consolation, and in which, through six happy weeks, he had
found what he sought The "kind entertainment and benign hospitality"
of the compassionate clime of Yarmouth deserve from the poor exile a
cordial return, and, accordingly, he sings the praise of the Red Herring
as richly as if his mouth were still tingling with the delicate bloater.
In this book, Nash is kind enough to explain to us the cause of some of
the peculiarities of his style. His endeavour has been to be Italianate,
and "of all styles I most affect and strive to imitate Aretine's."
Whether he was deeply read in the works of _il divino Aretino_, we may
doubt; but it is easy to see that this Scourge of Princes, the very type
of the emancipated Italian of the sixteenth century, might have a vague
and dazzling attraction for his little eager English imitator.
Be that as it may, "Lenten Stuff" gives us evidence that Nash had now
arrived at a complete mastery of the fantastic and irrelevant manner
which he aimed at. This book is admirably composed, if we can bring
ourselves to admit that the _genre_ is ever admirable. The writer's
vocabulary has become opulent, his phrases flash and detonate, each
page is full of unconnected sparks and electrical discharges. A sort
of aurora borealis of wit streams and rustles across the dusky surface,
amusing to the reader, but discontinuous, and insufficient to illuminate
the matter in hand. It is extraordinary that a man can make so many
picturesque, striking, and apparently apposite remarks, and yet leave us
so frequently in doubt as to his meaning. If this was the result of the
imitation of Aretino, Nash's choice of a master was scarcely a fortunate
one.
Thomas Nash was now thirty-two years of age, and with the publication of
"Lenten Stuff" we lose sight of him. His old play of "Summers' Last Will
and Testament" was printed in 1600, and he probably died in that year.
The song at the close of that comedy or masque reads like the swan-song
of its author:--
Autumn hath all the summer's fruitful treasure;
Gone is our sport, fled is poor [Nash's] pleasure!
Short days, sharp days, long nights come on apace;
Ah! who shall hide us from the winter's face?
Cold doth increase, the sickness will not cease,
And here we lie, God knows, with little ease:
From winter, plague and pestilence,
Good Lord, deliver us!
London doth mourn, Lambeth is quite forlorn,
Trades cry, Woe worth that ever they were born;
The want of term is town and city's harm.
Close chambers we do want, to keep us warm;
Long banished must we live from our friends:
This low-built house will bring us to our ends.
From winter, plague and pestilence,
Good Lord, deliver us!
Whether pestilence or winter slew him, we do not know. In 1601
Fitzgeoffrey published a short Latin elegy on Nash in his "Affaniae,"
alluding in happy phrase to the twin lightnings of his armed tongue
and his terrible pen; and Nash had six lines of tempered praise in "The
Return from Parnassus." But all we know of the cause or manner of Nash's
death has to be collected from a passage in "A Knight's Conjuring,"
1607, written by the satirist on whom his mantle descended, Thomas
Dekker. Nash is seen advancing along the Elysian Fields:--
"Marlowe, Greene, and Peele had got under the shades of a large vine,
laughing to see Nash, that was but newly come to their college, still
haunted with the sharp and satirical spirit that followed him here
upon earth; for Nash inveighed bitterly, as he had wont to do, against
dry-fisted patrons, accusing them of his untimely death, because if they
had given his Muse that cherishment which she most worthily deserved, he
had fed to his dying day on fat capons, burnt sack and sugar, and not
so desperately have ventured his life and shortened his days by keeping
company with pickle herrings."
This looks as though Nash died of a disease attributed to coarse and
unwholesome cheap food. His fame proved to be singularly ephemeral. So
far as I am aware, no book of his was reprinted after his death, with
the single exception of "Christ's Tears over Jerusalem," which was
issued again in 1613. His name was mentioned and some interest in his
writings was awakened at the close of the next century by Winstanley and
by Langbaine, but Oldys, the celebrated antiquary, was the first person
who seriously endeavoured to trace the incidents of his life.
Dr. A. B. Grosart saved the works of Nash from all danger of destruction
by printing an issue of them, in six volumes, for fifty private
subscribers, in 1883-85. But he still remains completely inaccessible to
the general reader.
Edmund Gosse.
THE VNFORTVNATE TRAVELLER.
The Life of Iacke Wilton.
LONDON.
[Illustration: Dedication]
To THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD Henrie Wriothsley,
Earle of sovthhampton,
and baron OF TICHFEELD.
Ingenvovs honorable Lord, I know not what blinde custome methodicall
antiquity hath thrust vpon vs, to dedicate such books as we publish,
to one great man or other; In which respect, least anie man should
challenge these my papers as goods vncustomd, and so, extend vpon them
as forfeite to contempt, to the seale of your excellent censure loe here
I present them to bee seene and allowed. Prize them as high or as low as
you list: if you set anie price on them, I hold my labor well satisfide.
Long haue I desired to approoue my wit vnto you. My reuerent duetifull
thoughts (euen from their infancie) haue been retayners to your glorie.
Now at last I haue enforst an opportunitie to plead my deuoted
minde. All that in this phantasticall Treatise I can promise, is some
reasonable conueyance of historie, & varietie of mirth. By diuers of my
good frends haue I been dealt with to employ my dul pen in this kinde,
it being a cleane different vaine from other my former courses of
writing. How wel or ill I haue done in it, I am ignorant: (the eye that
sees roundabout it selfe, sees not into it selfe): only your
Honours applauding encouragement hath power to make mee arrogant.
Incomprehensible is the heigth of your spirit both in heroical
resolution and matters of conceit. Vnrepriueably perisheth that booke
whatsoeuer to wast paper, which on the diamond rocke of your iudgement
disasterly chanceth to be shipwrackt. A dere louer and cherisher you
are, as well of the louers of Poets, as of Poets themselues. Amongst
their sacred number I dare not ascribe my selfe, though now and then
I speak English: that smal braine I haue, to no further vse I conuert,
saue to be kinde to my frends, and fatall to my enemies. A new brain, a
new wit, a new stile, a new soule will I get mee, to canonize your
name to posteritie, if in this my first attempt I be not taxed of
presumption. Of your gracious fauor I despaire not, for I am not
altogether Fames outcast. This handfull of leaues I offer to your
view, to the leaues on trees I compare, which as they cannot grow of
themselues except they haue some branches or boughes to cleaue too,
& with whose iuice and sap they be euermore recreated & nourisht: so
except these vnpolisht leaues of mine haue some braunch of Nobilitie
whereon to depend and cleaue, and with the vigorous nutriment of whose
authorized commendation they may be continually fosterd and refresht,
neuer wil they grow to the worlds good liking, but forthwith fade
and die on the first houre of their birth. Your Lordship is the large
spreading branch of renown, from whence these my idle leaues seeke to
deriue their whole nourishing: it resteth you either scornfully shake
them off, as wormeaten & worthies, or in pity preserue them and cherish
them, for some litle summer frute you hope to finde amongst them.
Your Honors in all humble seruice: Tho: Nashe.
TO THE GENTLEMEN READERS,
Gentlemen, in my absence (through the Printers ouersight and my bad
writing) in the leaues of C. and D. these errours are ouerslipt:
C. pag. 2. lin. 33. for sweating read sneaking. Pag. 3. li. 1. for
hogges read barres, lin. 7. for Calipsus, read Rhæsus. Pag. 4. lin. 34.
for Liue read I liue. Pag. 5. li. 14. for vpon his read vpon him his.
Pag. 7. lin. 13. for drild read dyu'd. lin. 22. (for colour, read collar
nor his hatband).
D. Pag. 1. lin. 2. for blacke read cape. lin. 5. for fastens read
thirleth. lin. 7. for badge read budge, lin. 8. for shinne read chinne.
lin. 11. for in this begun read thinking in. Pag. 3. lin. 33. for
increased then read inclosed them. Pag. 5. lin. 8. for threed button,
read brest like a thred bottom. Pag. 8. lin. 3. for Essa read Ossa. lin.
4. for dissolution read desolation. lin. 13. betweene also, and but read
If you know Christianitie, you know the Fathers of the Church also. lin.
18. for quocunque read qua gente.
Other literall faults there are which I omit
Yours T. N.
[Note.--The foregoing corrigenda are printed as part of the original
edition, though they have been corrected in the text.]
[Illustration: To Pages of the Covrt]
THE INDVCTION TO THE DAPPER MOVNSIER PAGES OF THE COVRT.
Gallant squires, haue amongst you: at mumchance I meane not, for so I
might chaunce come to short commons, but at _nouus, noua, nouum_, which
is in English, newes of the maker. A proper fellow Page of yours called
_Iacke Wilton_, by mee commends him vnto you, and hath bequeathed for
wast paper heere amongst you certaine pages of his misfortunes. In any
case keep them preciously as a _Priuie_ token of his good will towards
you. If there be some better than other, he craues you would honor them
in their death so much, as to drie and kindle _Tobacco_ with them: for
a need he permits you to wrap veluet pantofles in them also, so they be
not woe begone at the heeles, or weather-beaten like a blacke head with
graye haires, or mangie at the toes like an ape about the mouth. But
as you loue good fellowship and ames ace, rather turne them to stop
mustard-pots, than the Grocers shuld haue one patch of them to wrap mace
in: a strong hot costly spice it is, which aboue all things hee hates.
To anie vse about meate or drinke put them too and spare not, for they
cannot doo their Countrey better seruice. Printers are madde whoresons,
allow them some of them for napkins. lost a little nerer to the matter
and the purpose. _Memorandum_, euerie one of you after the perusing of
this Pamphlet, is to prouide him a case of ponyards, that if you come in
companie with any man which shall dispraise it or speake against it, you
may straight cry Sic respondeo, and giue him the stockado. It stands not
with your honors (I assure yee) to haue a Gentleman and a Page abusde in
his absence. Secondly, whereas you were wont to sweare men on a pantofle
to bee true to your puissaunt order, you shall sweeare them on nothing
but this Chronicle of the King of Pages henceforward. Thirdly, it shalbe
lawfull for anie whatsoeuer to play with false dice in a corner on the
couer of this foresaid Acts and monuments. None of the fraternitie of
the minorites shall refuse it for a pawne in the times of famine and
necessitie. Euery Stationers stall they passe by whether by day or by
night they shall put off their hats too, and make a low leg, in regard
their grand printed Capitano is there entoombd. It shalbe flat treason
for any of this forementioned catalogue of the point trussers, once
to name him within fortie foote of an ale-house. Marry the tauerne
is honorable. Many speciall graue articles more had I to giue you in
charge, which your wisdomes waiting together at the bottome of the great
Chamber staires, or sitting in a porch (your parlament house) may better
consider of than I can deliuer: onely let this suffice for a tast to the
text & a bit to pull on a good wit with, as a rasher on the coales is
to pull on a cup of wine. Heigh passe, come aloft: euery man of you take
your places, and heare _Iacke Wilton_ tell his owne tale.
[Illustration: Titlepage2]
[Illustration: First Page]
THE VNFORTVNATE TRAVELLER.
Abovt that time that the terror of the world, and feauer quartan of
the French, _Henrie_ the eight, (the onely true subiect of Chronicles)
aduanced his standard against the two hundred and fiftie towers of
_Turney_ and _Turwin_, and had the Empereur and all the nobility of
Flanders, Holland, and Brabant as mercenarie attendants on his fulsailed
fortune, I _Jacke Wilton_ (a Gentleman at lest) was a certaine kinde of
an appendix or page, belonging or appertaining in or vnto the confines
of the English court, where what my credit was, a number of my creditors
that I coosned can testifie, _Cælum petimus stultitia_, which of vs all
is not a sinner. Be it knowen to as many as will paie monie inough to
peruse my storie, that I followed the campe or the court, or the court &
the camp, when _Turwin_ lost her maidenhead, & opened her gates to more
than _Iane Trosse_ did. There did I (soft let me drinke before I goe
anie further) raigne sole king of the cans and black iackes, prince
of the pigmeis, countie paltaine of cleane strawe and prouant, and to
conclude, Lord high regent of rashers of the coles and red herring cobs.
_Paulo maiora canamus_: well, to the purpose. What stratagemicall actes
and monuments do you thinke an ingenious infant of my age might enact?
you will saie, it were sufficient if he slurre a die, pawne his master
to the vtmost pennie, & minister the oath on the pantoffle arteficially.
These are signes of good education, I must confesse, and arguments of
In grace and vertue to proceed. Oh but _Aliquid latet quod non patet_,
theres a farther path I must trace: examples confirme, list Lordings
to my proceedinges. Whosoeuer is acquainted with the state of a campe,
vnderstands that in it be many quarters, & yet not so many as on London
bridge. In those quarters are many companies: Much companie, much
knauerie, as true as that olde adage, Much curtesie, much subtiltie.
Those companies, like a great deale of corne, doe yeeld some chaffe, the
corne are cormorants, the chaffe are good fellowes, which are quickly
blowen to nothing, with bearing a light hart in a light purse. Amongst
this chaffe was I winnowing my wits to liue merily, and by my troth so I
did: the prince could but command men spend theyr bloud in his seruice,
I coulde make them spend all the monie they had for my pleasure. But
pouerty in the end parts frends, though I was prince of their purses,
and exacted of my vnthrift subiects, as much liquid allégeance as anie
keisar in the world could do, yet where it is not to be had the king
must loose his right, want cannot be withstood, men can doe no more than
they can doe, what remained then, but the foxes case must help, when the
lions skin is out at the elbowes.
There was a Lord in the campe, let him be a Lord of misrule, if you wil,
for he kept a plaine alehouse without welt or gard of anie Iuibush, and
solde syder and cheese by pint and by pound to all that came (at that
verie name of syder, I can but sigh, there is so much of it in renish
wine now a dayes). Wei, _Tendit ad sydera virtus_, thers great vertue
belongs (I can tell you) to a cup of syder, and verie good men haue
solde it, and at sea it is _Aqua colestis_, but thats neither heere
nor there, if it had no other patrone but this peere of quart pots to
authorize it, it were sufficient This great Lorde, this worthie Lord,
this noble Lord, thought no scorne (Lord haue mercy vpon vs) to haue his
great veluet breeches larded with the droppings of this daintie liquor,
& yet he was an olde senator, a cauelier of an ancient house, as it
might appeare by the armes of his ancestrie, drawen very amiably in
chalke, on the in side of his tent doore.