It was a prose book that applied to London the lament of Christ over Jerusalem; a Looking Glass for London, like the play by Greene and Lodge that applied to London warnings of the prophets against sin in Nineveh. It is young Juvenal setting forth its greater sins to London, on whom God had sent a plague.

In his Address to the Reader, Nash takes leave of "fantasticall satirisme." He says: "Nothing is there now so much in my vowes as to be at peace with all men, and make submissive amends where I haue most displeased. Not basely feare-blasted, or constraintiuely ouerruled, but purely pacyficatorie suppliant, for reconciliation and pardon doe I sue, to the principallest of them gainst whom I profest vtter enmity. Euen of Maister Doctor Haruey I hartily desire the like, whose fame and reputation (though through some precedent iniurious provocations, and feruent incitements of young heads) I rashly assailed : yet now better aduised, and of his perfections more confirmedly perswaded, vnfainedly I entreate of the whole worlde, from my penne his worths may receiue no impeachment. All acknowledgments of aboundant schollership, courteous well-governed behaviour, and ripe experienst iudgment, doe I attribute vnto him. Only with his mild gentle moderation heerunto hath he wonne me." Nash repents of all past vanities, and says: "Nothing so much do I retract as that wherein soeuer I scandaliz'd the meanest. Into some spleanatiue vaines of wantonnesse heretofore haue I foolishly relapsed, to supply my priuate wants of them no lesse doe I desire to be absolued than the rest, and to God and man doe I promise an vnfained conuersion."

The book was, in time of heavy plague, a religious call to repentance from one who no doubt honestly believed himself to be repentant of his faults. But Harvey naturally, if unjustly, put no faith in this public profession from one who had refused him private speech. In "Christ's Tears over Jerusalem" there is very large amplification of Christ's words into Elizabethan form, though still put as if spoken by Christ himself. Nash follows what he calls "our Saviour's collachrimate oration" with a vigorous description of the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem.

Then he says: "Now to London must I turne me, London that turneth from none of thy left-hand impieties. As great a desolation as Ierusalem hath London deserued. Whatsoeuer of Ierusalem I haue written, was but to lend her a Looking-glass." He deals again with Pride and the children of Pride, whose sons are Ambition, Vainglory, Atheism, Discontent, Contention, and whose daughters are Disdain, Gorgeous Attire, and Delicacy. He dwells much upon Avarice as a

N-VOL. X.

main branch of Ambition: "London, looke to thyselfe, for the woes that were pronounced to Ierusalem are pronounced to thee. Thou transgressing as grieuously as shee shall be punished as grieuously." Nash quotes the "Resolution" of Father Parsons* as convincing against Atheism. Under Delicacy, Nash ranges Gluttony, Luxury, Sloth, and Security. So, in change of form, there is the same warning against deadly sin that was in Pierce Penilesse's Supplication to the Devil, with the Plague of 1593 for text.

"At this instant," says Nash, "is a generall plague disperst throughout our Land. No voyce is hearde in our streetes but that of Ieremy (Ierem. 9): Call for the mourning women that they may come and take up a lamentation for us, for death is come into our windowes, and entred into our Pallaces.' God hath stricken vs but we haue not sorrowed, of hys heauiest correction wee make a iest (Ierem. 5). Wee are not mooued with that which he hath sent to amaze vs: As it is in Ezechiell, 'They will not heare thee, for they will not heare me' (Ezech. 3) So they will not, nor cannot heare God in his visitation, which haue refused to heare him in his Preachers." Nash ends a piece that is rich in vigorous and witty turns of thought with pattern of what should be the prayer of London for God's mercy.

"Pierce's Supereroga. tion.

:

Gabriel Harvey, having been repulsed in his attempt to be at peace with Nash, began a long pamphlet against him called "Pierce's Supererogation, or a New Prayse of the Olde Asse," which the preface to "Christ's Teares" did not cause him to leave unfinished. It appeared in the same year (1593) preceded by a letter to Barnabie Barnes, John Thorius, and Antony Chute, dated the sixteenth of July. Antony Chute published his first poem this year, "Beawtie dishonoured, written under the title of Shore's wife." Her ghost tells her story in a way that brought up old Churchyard with a "Challenge" and reprint of what he had done in like manner thirty years before. The letter of Harvey's to Barnes, Thorius, and Chute, with a Letter and vindicatory Sonnets by Barnabie Barnes, appeared first separately as "The Precursor to Pierce's Supererogation," probably before the publication of

* "E. W." x. 107.

"Christ's Teares." Then it was published together with "Pierce's Supererogation," and the book closed with the letters from Thorius and Chute and a French sonnet by the Sieur de Freguille du Gaut in support of Harvey against Nash. The letter from John Thorius was dated

the tenth of July.

Harvey published, also in 1593, "A New Letter of Notable Contents, with a straunge Sonet, intituled Gorgon, or the wonderfull yeare," dated the sixteenth of September. The sonnet refers to the recent death of Marlowe.

"A New Letter of Notable

Contents."

Harvey said and believed that his character in after years was imperilled by Nash's attacks, and would be lost if he received blows without returning them. He tried to hit hard and be witty, including in " Pierce's Supererogation” a learned and elaborate encomium on the Ass, and a satirical description of his old Cambridge thwarter, Doctor Perne. He attacked, also, John Lyly for his "Pap with a Hatchet." In scolding he rivalled Nash, and, like Nash, promised more. But after this there was a pause, and for two years the idlers who enjoy a scolding match might think that Harvey had the last word and the victory.

Nash wrote, in 1593, but did not print until 1596, "Summer's Last Will and Testament." He published in 1594 his tale of "The Unfortunate Traveller; or, the Life of Jack Wilton." To these two pieces we shall return when we have escaped from the dulness of personalities.

In 1596 Nash returned to the old battle, saying of Harvey: "I protest I do not write against him because I hate him, but that I would confirme and plainly shew to a number of weake beleeuers in my sufficiencie that I am able to answere him.

This I will boldly say, looke how long

"Have with You to Saffron

Walden."

it is since he writ against me, so long haue I giuen him a lease of his life, and he hath onely held it by my mercie."

Nash's new reply and attack-his last word in the argument -was by a pamphlet entitled "Haue with you to Saffronvvalden. Or Gabriell Haruey's Hunt is vp. Containing a full Answere to the eldest sonne of the Halter-maker. Or, Nashe his Confutation of the sinfull Doctor. The Mott or Posie, instead of Omne tulit punctum: Pacis fiducia nunquam. As much as to say, I sayd I would speake with him." The piece is dedicated playfully to Richard Litchfield or Leechfield, the Trinity College barber, and is in the form of a dialogue between four friends and Pierce Penilesse, Respondent, the friends discussing Pierce's critical reply to Harvey's pamphlet.

"The Trimming

Nash."

Sketches from Life.

Harvey replied again in 1597, and, taking up the parable of Richard Litch-field, called his reply "The Trimming of Thomas Nashe, Gentleman, by the high-tituled patron Don Ricardo de Medico-campo (Leechof Thomas field), Barber Chirurgion to Trinitie Colledge in Cambridge." That was the last word of all. Each pamphleteer included in his work a woodcut caricature of his antagonist, besides allusions to personal appearance. Harvey is twitted with his trimmed moustache and his starched pickedevant or triangular beard, his broad starched ruff, his velvet suit in the Venetian style, and his pantofles. Nash is twitted with a shock head of hair, a hairless face, and a mouth taking nine eggs and a pound of butter, with much. other provision, at a breakfast. Nash says that Harvey paid for the printing of his pamphlets in the controversy, and did not sell more than a hundred, while Nash's own were paid for by the printer. We learn also, incidentally, that pamphleteers in London, like the great scholars in Basel and elsewhere, were often maintained in their printer's house while writing pieces that he paid for. These pamphlets contain many illustrations of the daily life of the time, and much evidence of the freedom taken in word-coining, that

From all

coining.

was a common feature of Elizabethan literature. sources, and especially from Latin or Greek, new words were drawn for the painting of a wider world Elizabethan of thought. They were often criticised as they ap- Word. peared; some of them struck root in the language, some did not; but nobody at the time knew which would live. Nash aimed at concentration by the new coinage of graphic words, and by running English monosyllables into vigorous compounds. As a word-maker, with some inspiration from Rabelais, he showed more power than Harvey, but was not less open to the charge of pedantry. Each regarded as extravagant some words used by the other of which time has confirmed the use. Nash is hard, for example, upon Harvey's use of the word "connivance," and cites, among other bad words of his, "ingenuity," " jovial mind," "rascality," "addicted to theory," "cordial liquor," "amicable terms," "extensively employed," "novelets," "mechanician;" with others like "divine entelechy," "loud mentary," "fantasticality," that have not taken root. tediousness of Harvey lies less in his vocabulary than in his sentences shaped by the arts of rhetoric; especially he works the balanced clauses, then in fashion, to a tedious excess. Having said that "The tree is known by the fruite; and needeth no other Posie: the gallantest mott of a good apple-tree is a good apple," he is not content to stop there, but goes on: "of a good warden-tree, a good warden; of a good limon-tree, a good limon; of a good palme, a good date; of a good Vine, a good grape; and so fourth their leaues, their prognostications; their blossomes, their boasts; their branches and boughs, their brauery; their fruite, their arms, their emblemes, their nobility, their glory." Harvey's best wit is often smothered in these blankets of redundant rhetoric. Nash follows Nature in his iterations-Nature and Rabelais.

The

It is to be noted that in "Have with you to Saffron