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

for an offence he gave by writing
a play (not now extant) called "The Isle of Dogs," and to this event
Francis Meres alludes in his "Palladia Tamia," 1598, in these terms:
"As 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