The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton | Page 3

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