The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton | Page 8

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