The whole is prose, and the style is sometimes eloquent, though generally too diffuse. It seems to have been written off at a heat, and there is not a single division of paragraphs from the first page to the last. The anonymous dedication is to the Lords of the Privy Council.

MURRAY, DAVID.-The Tragicall Death of Sophonisba. Written by David Murray. Scoto-Brittaine. At London Printed for John Smethwick &c. 1611. 8vo. 36 leaves.

Sir David Murray dedicates this production to Prince Henry in two Sonnets, followed by "The Argument of this Poeme," which is founded upon the same passages in history as Marston's tragedy called "The Wonder of Women," printed in 1606. Commendatory Sonnets by John Murray, Michael Drayton, and Simeon Grahame introduce the main poem, which is in sevenline stanzas. The following in praise of beauty is one of the best:

At the end of "the tragical Death of Sophonisba" comes a new title-page: "Cælia. Containing certaine Sonets. By David Murray, Scoto-Brittaine." They are dedicated in verse to Lord Dingwall, and they seem written in imitation of Drayton, although the imitation does not arrive at any thing like the excellence of the original. William Percy, seventeen years before, had adopted Cælia as the name of his mistress in a series of sonnets.

After the Sonnets Sir David Murray inserts several miscellaneous productions, and among them an Epitaph upon his cousin of the same name.

NASH, THOMAS.-The Returne of the renowned Cavaliero Pasquill of England from the other side of the Seas, and his meeting with Marforius at London upon the Royal Exchange. Where they encounter with a little houshold talke of Martin and Martinisme &c. If my breath be so hote that I burne my mouth, suppose I was Printed by Pepper Allie. Anno Dom: 1589. B. L. 4to. 16 leaves.

Thomas Nash obtained the appellation of "Pasquil of England,"-and, having travelled abroad, as we find by his "Almond for a Parrat" and some of his other works, this tract would seem to have been printed soon after his return to England, when he found the Martin Mar-prelate controversy in full activity. No printer's name was attached to it, because perhaps it was feared it might give offence to persons in authority. Nash promises in it various other pamphlets on the same subject, such as "The Owls' Almanack," "The May-game of Martinisme," and the "Golden Legend of the Lives of the Saints" or the chief supporters of the Martinists, which never appeared, and were probably only threatened. He acknowledges the authorship of "A Counter-cuffe given to Martin Junior," printed in the same year as the tract before us, which is entirely prose: one of the sub-titles of Lyly's "Pappe with an Hatchet" is "a Countrie Cuffe" for "the idiot Martin," but it is not to be confounded with Nash's "Counter-cuffe."

NASH, THOMAS.-Plaine Percevall the Peace-Maker of England. Sweetly indevoring with his blunt persuasions to botch up a reconciliation between Mar-ton and Mar-tother &c. Printed in Broad-streete at the signe of the Packe-staffe. n.d. B. L. 4to. 18 leaves.

The authorship of this tract is assigned to Thomas Nash by Taylor the Water-poet, in his "Tom Nash's Ghost:" Taylor was contemporary with Nash. "Plaine Perceval" has no date, but was printed after 1589, as the "Counter-cuffe given to Martin Junior," published in that year, is mentioned in the prefatory matter. At the end are some mock-commendatory verses, one set of which runs thus:

"The gay bay Laurell bow that prancks my Cole,
As speciall forehorse of my beanefed Teeme,

Take Percevall, and clap it on thy pole,
Whose fortops such a branch doth well beseeme.
If any aske why thou art clad so garish?

Say, thou art dubd the forehorse of the parish.

Quoth A. N. Carter."

Gabriel Harvey, in his "Four Letters and Certain Sonnets," 1592, makes a clear allusion to and nearly a quotation of the closing couplet:

"Here Bedlam is, and here a Poet garish,

Gaily bedeck'd, like forehorse of the parish!"

A list of "faults escaped" forms the last leaf of the pamphlet.

NASH, THOMAS.-Pierce Penilesse his Supplication to the Divell. Barbaria grandis habere nihil. Written by Thomas Nash, Gent. London, printed by Abell Jeffes for J. B. 1592. B. L. 4to. 38 leaves.

There are three editions of this celebrated and extraordinarily popular production, all dated 1592, although the first could not have been printed prior to the autumn of that year.

The first was "Imprinted for Richard Jhones," the title being much more explanatory than the two others, both of which were "printed by Abell Jeffes," one for John Busbie, and the other for J. B. The present is the third impression. To the second impression Nash prefixed" a private Epistle" to the printer, filling three pages, complaining that Richard Jhones had wronged him by publishing it "uncorrected and unfinished." Here he also notices the death of Robert Greene, which occurred in September, 1592; so that the first edition of "Pierce Penniless" had only been issued very shortly before that event. When Nash wrote this Epistle, "a second part," (not by Nash), had been already prepared for the press, and offered for sale to some bookseller. Here also he denies that he had had any concern in putting forth Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit." At this time he was "the plagues prisoner in the country," and had probably just produced his play of "Summer's Last Will and Testament," not printed until 1600.

In the third edition Nash's Epistle is crowded into two pages, but the variations here and in the body of the work are merely typographical. Indeed, Nash's chief objection to the edition by Richard Jhones seems to have been that that printer had surreptitiously obtained a copy of the work, and had

EE

published it without making any compensation to him. The differences between Jhones's edition and that by Jeffes, which Nash authorized, are extremely trifling.

The earliest known production by this author is dated 1587, and his latest 1600. He died, as has been already pointed out, in 1604, [Vide MIDDLETON'S "Father Hubburd's Tales" in this Catalogue].

Nash's reputation was principally founded upon his prose compositions, which are generally written in clear, vigorous, unaffected English: he has left comparatively little verse behind him, but that little is good in its kind. In the tract before us are two pieces by him, one often quoted, (first in "The Yorkshire Tragedy," attributed to Shakespeare) beginning "Why is 't damnation to despair and die," and the other a Sonnet, as may be presumed upon the Earl of Southampton, which expressly mentions Spenser, and has been rarely noticed. Nash objects that "heavenly Spenser," (so he terms him) in the Sonnets appended to his "Fairy Queen," had "passed unsaluted" one "special pillar of nobility," and Nash subjoins a sonnet he had himself written "long since" upon that subject. It runs thus:

"Perusing yesternight with idle eyes

The Fairy Singers stately tuned verse,
And viewing, after Chapmen's wonted guise,
What strange contents the title did rehearse,

I streight leapt over to the latter end,

Where, like the quaint Comædians of our time
That when the play is doone do fal to ryme,
I found short lines to sundry Nobles pen'd;
Whom he as speciall Mirrours singled fourth

To be the Patrons of his Poetry.

I read them all, and reverenc't their worth,

Yet wondred he left out thy memory.

But therefore, gest I, he supprest thy name,

Because few words might not comprise thy fame."

This is a happy and a deserved compliment, if we suppose it addressed to the patron of Shakespeare, to whom no sonnet is appropriated at the end of the " Fairy Queen." What makes it more probable that the Earl of Southampton was meant by Nash is the circumstance that he dedicated to that nobleman his "Life of Jack Wilton," 4to. 1594, where the following passage occurs:-" A dere lover and cherisher you are, as well of the lovers of Poetrie, as of Poets themselves. Amongst their sacred number I dare not ascribe my selfe, though now and then I speak English: that small braine I have, to no

further use I convert, save to be kinde to my friends and fatall to my enemies. A new braine, 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."

Whether this tender of service was accepted does not appear, but the probability is that the Earl of Southampton knew how to appreciate the extraordinary talents and learning of such a man as Thomas Nash.

NASH, THOMAS. - Strange Newes of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Convoy of Verses, as they were going Privilie to victuall the Low Countries. Unda impellitur unda. By Tho. Nashe Gentleman. Printed at London by John Danter &c. 1592. 4to. 46 leaves.

This tract is an answer by Nash to Gabriel Harvey's "Four Letters and Certain Sonnets," [Vide HARVEY, in this Catalogue], printed in the same year. Other copies of Nash's "Strange Newes" have the title of "The Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse," (that perhaps being considered a more attractive name), and bear date in 1593. The preliminary matter only (including the dedication and address) was reprinted, the rest being from the identical types as the edition of 1592.

The dedication is to a person whom Nash calls William Apis-lapis, probably Beestone, whom he calls in derision " the most copious Carminist of our time, and famous persecutor of Priscian." This person was perhaps the father of Christopher Beestone or Beeston, an actor, and subsequently master of a company of players. On the title-page Nash is styled "Gentleman," and to this circumstance he refers in the body of the work, claiming for his family an ancient and distinguished origin.

On Sign. L. 3. b. Nash quotes Spenser's Sonnet in praise of Harvey, and he ends his reply by one of his own in abuse of him:

"Were there no warres, poore men should have no peace:

Uncessant warres with waspes and droanes, I crie.

Hee that begins oft knows not how to cease:

They have begun, I'le follow till I die.

Ile heare no truce: wrong gets no grave in mee;

Abuse pell mell encounter with abuse:

Write hee againe, Ile write eternally.

Who feedes revenge hath found an endlessc Muse.