His remonstrances seem to have had very indifferent success, and Nash, to our great loss, did not again. attempt novel writing. But the vein was in him, and it constantly reappears in the variety of pamphlets he has left behind him. Fine scenes of comedy, good portraits of ridiculous characters to be met in everyday life, amusing anecdotes, nearly all the elements of a sound comic novel are scattered through his writings. The familiar portraits of the upstart, of the false politician, of the inventor of new sects, portraits at which many observers of human nature in the time of Shakespeare tried their hand, are to be seen in the gallery Nash painted in his "Pierce Penilesse." Conformably to the fitness of things, Nash described himself under the name of Pierce,2 as Sidney had given his high moral tone, his melancholy and loving soul to the shepherd Philisides, as Greene had told his own miseries under the name of poor Roberto. Here is Nash's portrait of the upstart who has travelled abroad and has brought back from his journey nothing more valuable than scorn for his own country: "Hee will bee humorous forsooth and have a broode of fashions by himselfe. Somtimes, because Love commonly wears the liverie of wit, hee will be an Inamorato poeta, and sonnet a whole quire of paper in praise of Ladie Manibetter, his yeolowfac'd mistres. vol. iv. p. 5. He recurs again to the same topic in his "Lenten Stuffe "(1599), and complains that when he talks of rushes it is taken to mean Russia, &c.

"Pierce Penilesse his supplication to the Divell" (1592), "Works," vol. ii.

2 Nash speaks of himself as being Pierce: "This is a predestinate fit place for Pierse Pennilesse to set up his staff on." "Lenten Stuffe "Works," vol. v p. 201.

All Italionato is his talke, and his spade peake [i.e., his beard] is as sharpe as if he had been a pioner before the walls of Roan. Hee will dispise the barbarisme of his owne countrey, and tell a whole legend of lyes of his travayles unto Constantinople. If he be challenged to fight... hee objects that it is not the custome of the Spaniard or the Germaine to looke backe to everie dog that barks. You shall see a dapper Jacke that hath beene but once at Deepe, wring his face round about, as a man would stirre up a mustard pot and talke English through the teeth, like Jaques Scabdhams, or Monsieur Mingo de Moustrapo; when, poore slave, he hath but dipt his bread in wylde boares greace and come home againe, or been bitten by the shinnes by a wolfe; and saith he hath adventured uppon barricadoes of Gurney or Guingan, and fought with the yong Guise hand to hand."

Like Ben Jonson, Nash met on his way some Politick Would-Bes that "thinke to be counted rare politicians and statesmen, by beeing solitarie: as who should say, I am a wise man," I-" and when I ope my lips," would have added Shakespeare, "let no dog bark!" He has met inventors of sects, and has heard of preDarwinian "mathematicians" who doubt the fact that there were no men before Adam and are inclined to think there are no devils at all. Nash Nash strongly con

I

"Works," vol. ii. Cf. Ben Jonson: "Sir Politick (speaking to Peregrine):

"First for your garb, it must be grave and serious,
Very reserv'd and lock'd; not tell a secret

On any terms, not to your father; scarce

A fable, but with caution" ("The Fox," act iv. sc. 1).

demns these inventors and mathematicians, drawing at the same time a curious picture of the state of confusion ⚫ in religious matters which was then so conspicuous in England: "They will set their self love to study to invent new sects of singularitie, thinking to live when they are dead, by having their sect called after their names: as Donatists of Donatus, Arrian[s] of Arrius, and a number more of new faith founders, that have made England the exchange of innovations and almost as much confusion of religion in everie quarter, as there was of tongues at the building of the Tower of Babel. . .

"Hence atheists triumph and rejoyce and talke as prophanely of the Bible as of Bevis of Hampton. I heare say there are mathematicians abroad that will proove men before Adam; and they are harboured in high places, who will maintayne to the death that there are no divells." I

Scenes of light comedy abound in Nash; they are especially numerous in his "Lenten Stuff," 2 a queer little book, his last work, and one which he seems to have written con amore. Never was he in better humour than when, the year before his death, he betook himself to singing "the praise of the red herring,' Monsieur Herring, Solyman Herring, Sacrapant Herring, Red Herring of Red Herring hall, Pater Patriæ, as he is fond of calling him, inventing on each page a new title for his hero. There is no event in ancient or modern history where he does not discover that

I "Works," vol. ii.

2 "Nashe's Lenten Stuffe, containing the description . . . of Great Yarmouth . . . with a . . praise of the Red Herring," 1599, "Works," vol. v.

"Cæsarean Charlemaine Herring" has had a part to play; no person of however mean or exalted rank who has not had to deal with "Gentleman Jacke Herring." The fishes made him their king, and the Pope made him a saint. The first time he appeared at the Pope's court was a great event in Christendom. An English sailor had sold him for three hundred ducats to the purveyor of the papal kitchen, and "delivered him the king of fishes, teaching hym to geremumble it, sauce it, and dresse it, and so sent him away a glad man. All the Pope's cookes in their white sleeves and linnen aprons met him middle way to entertaine and receyve the king of fishes, and together by the eares they went, who shoulde first handle him or touch him. But the clarke of the kitchin appeased that strife, and would admit none but him selfe to have the scorching and carbonadoing of it, and he kissed his hands thrice, and made as many humblessos before he woulde finger it; and, such obeysances performed, he drest it as he was enjoyned, kneeling on his knes, and mumbling twenty Ave Maryes to hymselfe, in the sacrifizing of it on the coales, that his diligent service in the broyling and combustion of it, both to his kingship and to his fatherhood might not seeme unmeritorious." 1

However careful Thomas Nash had been to act according to the views attributed to Dr. Andrew Borde concerning the cultivation of mirth as a preservative of health, he reached what this authority calls "the" mirth of heaven," with much more rapidity than might have been expected. His mirth diet was obviously adulterated and mingled with wrath and sorrow.

He

had been born in 1567, and we read about him in a comedy performed at Cambridge in 1601, these verses which are friendly if not very poetical:

BE

1

"TOM NASH HIS GHOST.

"Let all his faultes sleepe with his mournfull chest,
And there for ever with his ashes rest,

His style was wittie, though it had some gall,
Some things he might have mended, so may all,
Yet this I say, that for a mother witt,

Few men have ever seen the like of it." 1

"The Returne from Pernassus," ed. W. D. Macray, Oxford,

1886, p. 87.