A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) | Page 2

Actaeon was worried of his own hounds, so is Tom Nash of his 'Isle of Dogs.' Dogs were the death of Euripides; but be not disconsolate, gallant young Juvenal; Linus, the son of Apollo, died the same death. Yet God forbid, that so brave a wit should so basely perish!--Thine are but paper dogs; neither is thy banishment like Ovid's eternally to converse with the barbarous Getes. Therefore comfort thyself, sweet Tom, with Cicero's glorious return to Rome, and with the council Aeneas gives to his sea-beaten soldiers." Lib. I. Aeneid.
"Pluck up thine heart, and drive from thence both fear and care away: To think on this may pleasure be, perhaps, another day."
--_Durato, et temet rebus servato secundis_. (fol. 286.)
This was in part verified in the next year, for when Nash published his "Lenten Stuff," he referred with apparent satisfaction to his past troubles in consequence of his "Isle of Dogs."[9]
So much has been said, especially by Mr D'Israeli in his "Quarrels of Authors," on the subject of this dispute between Nash and Harvey, that it is unnecessary to add anything, excepting that it was carried to such a length, and the pamphlets contained so much scurrility, that it was ordered from authority in 1599 that all the tracts on both sides should be seized and suppressed.[10]
As with Greene, so with Nash, an opinion on his moral conduct and general deportment has been too readily formed from the assertions of his opponents; and because Gabriel Harvey, to answer a particular purpose, states, "You may be in one prison to-day and in another to-morrow," it has been taken for granted, that "after his arrival in London, he was often confined in different jails." No doubt, he and his companions Greene, Marlowe, and Peele, led very disorderly lives, and it is singular that all four died prematurely, the oldest of them probably not being forty years of age. It is certain that Nash was not living at the time when the "Return from Parnassus" was produced, which, though not printed until 1606, was written before the end of the reign of Elizabeth: his ashes are there spoken of as at rest, but the mention of him as dead, nearest to the probable date of that event, is to be found in [Fitzgeoffrey's "Affaniae," 1601, where an epitaph upon him is printed. His name also occurs in] an anonymous poem, under the title of "The Ant and the Nightingale, or Father Hubbard's Tales," 1604, where the following stanza is met with--
"Or if in bitterness thou rail like Nash: Forgive me, honest soul, that term thy phrase _Railing_; for in thy works thou wert not rash, Nor didst affect in youth thy private praise. Thou hadst a strife with that Tergemini;[11] Thou hurt'dst them not till they had injured thee."[12]
The author of a MS. epitaph, in "Bibl. Sloan," Pl. XXI. A. was not so squeamish in the language he employed--
"Here lies Tom Nash, that notable _railer_, That in his life ne'er paid shoemaker nor tailor."
The following from Thomas Freeman's Epigrams, 1614, is not out of its place--
OF THOMAS NASH.
"Nash, had Lycambes on earth living been The time thou wast, his death had been all one; Had he but mov'd thy tartest Muse to spleen Unto the fork he had as surely gone: For why? there lived not that man, I think, Us'd better or more bitter gall in ink."
It is impossible in the present day to attempt anything like a correct list of the productions of Nash, many of which were unquestionably printed without his name:[13] the titles of and quotations from a great number may be found in the various bibliographical miscellanies, easily accessible. When he began to write cannot be ascertained, but it was most likely soon after his return from the Continent, and the dispute between John Penry and the Bishops seems then to have engaged his pen.[14] There is one considerable pamphlet by him, called "Christ's Tears over Jerusalem," printed in 1593, which, like some of the tracts by Greene, is of a repentant and religious character; and it has been said that, though published with his name, it was not in fact his production. There is no sufficient ground for this supposition, and Nash never subsequently disowned the performance: the address "To the Reader" contains an apology to Gabriel Harvey for the attack upon him, in terms that seem to vouch for their own sincerity. "Nothing (says Nash) is there now so much in my vows as to be at peace with all men, and make submissive amends where I most displeased; not basely fear-blasted, or constraintively overruled, but purely pacificatory: suppliant for reconciliation and pardon do I sue to the principallest of them 'gainst whom I professed utter enmity; even of Master Doctor Harvey I heartily desire the