• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

^ •>^*^ ^ TH£ HUTH LIBRARY. THE COMPLETE WORKS THOMAS NASHE. VOL. VI. THE TRAGEDIE OF DIDO. 1594. SUMMERS LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. 1600. GLOSSARIAL-INDEX, ETC. < >< ^ | |> 1^ " Having awakened to life from the night of unconsciousness, the will finds itself as an individual in an endless and boundless world, among innumerable individuals, all striving, suffering, erring ; and, as though passing through an uneasy dream, it hurries back to the old unconsciousness. Until then, however, its desires are boundless, its claims inexhaustible, and every satisfied wish begets a new one. No satisfaction possible in the world could suffice to still its longings, put a final end to its craving, and fill the bottomless abyss of its heart. Con- sider, too, what gratifications of every kind man generally receives : they are, usually, nothing more than the meagre preservation of this existence itself, daily gained by incessant toil and constant care, in battle against want, with death for ever in the van. Everything in life indicates that earthly happiness is destined to be frustrated, or to be recognised as an illusion. The germs for this lie deep in the nature of things. Accord- ingly, the life of most of us proves sad and short. The comparatively happy are usually only apparently so, or are, hke long-lived persons, rare exceptions, —left as a bait for the rest." ' The Misery of Life ' : by Schopenhauer. 'i^dfiik ELIZABETHAN- JACOBEAN B (D) OK ^ Yerse ahd Prose LAR G E LY %f: BY TH E FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY Cl)e ^utf) lifirarp. THE COMPLETE WORKS THOMAS NASHE. m SIX VOLUMES. FOR THE FIRST TIME COLLECTED AND EDITED, WITH MEMORIAL-INTRODUCTION, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, ETC. BY THE REV. ALEXANDER B. GROSART, D.D.. LL.D. (Edin.), F.S.A. (Scot.), St. Georges, Blackburn, Lancashire. VOL. VI. THE TRAGEDIE OF DIDO. 1594. SUMMERS LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. 1600. GLOSSARIAL-INDEX, ETC. PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY, 1885. 50 copies.^ k-1^HV Printed, by Hazelly IVaisony and yiney, Limited, Londcn and Aylesbury. CONTENTS. PAGE Memorial-Introduction—Critical. By the Editor. i *' The Tragedie of Dido i i^' The Comedie of Summers Last Will and Testa- ment 8i \^ Glossarial-Index, including Notes and Illus- trations 171 i^ Index of Names, etc. 257 Curiosities of Folk Lore, etc 260 Errata et Corrigenda, etc 262 ' He took the suffering human race : He read each wound, each weakness clear ; He struck his finger on the place, " And said, 'Thou ailest here and here.' MEMORIAL-INTRODUCTION— CRITICAL. In our 'Memorial-Introduction—Biograpliicar (Vol. I., pp. xi —Ixxi) we furnished the 'little all' that has come down to us of the outward life of Thomas Nashe —its main landmarks,—as so frequently,—having been his books lesser and larger. I am under bond to ' ' add to the Biographical ' a Critical ' Introduction. I must fulfil my promise, albeit it was perchance too hastily given ; for as one turns back upon the now completed Works, one feels that the Man is too shadowy and unrevealed, and the Writings too hasty and unsubstantive, for anything like elaborate criticism or estimate. And yet the very remarkable things in these hitherto scattered and forgotten books suggest a good deal as to the Elizabethan-Jacobean period, which will reward the stydent-reader if he take pains to master them. I propose, as briefly as may be, to indicate certain points and to gather up others, leaving it to those who have a mind to follow along our lines, and mark out (it may be) as many more. Turning back upon the Man and the Writer alike, ' and trying to express summarily a critical ' estimate, — ' viii MEMORIAL-INTRODUCTION—CRITICAL. in the three things strike us ; and these I would, outset, state and put : (a) His feverish unrest. From the escapades of his academic career—slightly known as it is —to his youthful rushing at an opportunity to associate him- ' self with the glory ' of Sir Philip Sidney, and from his taking up of the wider Mar-Prelate controversy to his personal quarrels with DR. GABRIEL HARVEY, everything has the stamp of heat and hurry. There is no repose, no poising of thought or phrasing, no meditativeness. Contrariwise, even when most serious —and he is o' times serious to solemnity, as though his (probably) Puritan home-memories overshadowed him—he speaks off-hand rather than writes deliber- ately. The impression left is that of a task begun on impulse, and so long as the impulse lasted con- tinued joyously, but the impulse very soon self- evidencingly ebbing out. Even in his quarrels he hates by fits and starts. He is ' nothing long.' {b) His polemical violence. Elsewhere I have con- ceded the provocation and the intolerable baseness and black-hearted malignancy of Harvey ; so that served him right ' is the inevitable verdict and enjoyment of every 'indifferent' reader. But the sorrow is that in his attacks on the Puritans, and all ' who sought the slightest Reformation ' in either the ecclesiastical or political world, he imported all Harvey's ghoul-like prying into private character and circumstance, and equally his foul, unwholesome, pseudo-gossip or manufactured ' evil reports.' As a consequence, his truculence, his ribaldry, his coarse- ness, his insinuation of a non-existent ' more behind MEMORIAL-INTRODUCTION—CRITICAL. ix neutralizes his unquestionable argumentative poten- tiality. Not one of his ecclesiastical books but is marred and stained by his licentiousness of polemic ' its violence. His Christ's Teares ' itself startles by astonishing personality of abuse and the boldness of its accusations. (i:) His carelessness of style. He was extremely wroth that he was likened to Robert Greene. He ' disowned the (not ' sweet ' or soft,' but treacherous) ' impeachment ; and claimed to have made his ' own style. Nor can it be questioned that he did so. There is a dash and ring and swing in his sentences, a straight-hitting directness of speech, and a vocabulary so full and fluent, as to mark him out from all contemporaries. Nevertheless, he writes again and again with unscholarly inaccuracy, with uncultured flabbiness, and with irritating syntax. The same holds of Greene—Master of Arts of both Universities—and the two are typical of the edu- cation and scholarship of the time. Perhaps one secret of it is that, associating as both did with the low and vulgar and tap-house rude, they were ' subdued ' into their mode of speaking, and took it into their writing semi-unconsciously. ' Over-against these critical ' Faults I would place FOUR Merits. ' (a) His vigour. Take his Epistles ' alone, and compare them with those of most Elizabethan books, and their strength is noteworthy. Euphuism, with its platitudes of thought and sentiment, and feeble fantastique of 'hunting the phrase,' is separated by a gulf from Nashe's terse, home-speaking, manly X MEMORIAL-INTROD UCIION-CMITICAL. addresses to ' gentle and simple.' And so in nearly all his productions, save when, as in his 'Christ's Teares/ he feels bound to fill up a tale of leaves, or when, as in his ' VnfortuHate Traueller,' he has got hold of stories that he must forsooth ' put into print.' But, regarded broadly, these are vigorous, strong, effective books. His English is powerful. His sarcasm is like lightning flash and stroke. His rage is splendid. His consciousness of superiority of resource {e.g., with Gabriel Harvey, D.C.L. !) is fine. His momentum is terrific. He is a man every inch of him. [b) His graphic picturesqueness. In the second half of his 'Christ's Teares,' and, indeed, in nearly all his books, there are such word-photographs of the London and England of his day as your (so-called) dignified Historians would do well to master. He saw much, and forgot nothing that he saw. He heard more, and forgot nothing that he heard. One con- sequence is that whoever came beneath his eyes and ears, there and then had his portrait taken. City-life, tavern-life, poor scholar's life, gaming-life, sporting- life, the life of the residuum, not without glimpses of the higher, even the highest of the sixteenth century, are pictured imperishably by Nashe. For insight into men and manners commend me to the writings of this " free lance " of our literature. His abandon, his rollicking, vociferous communicativeness, his swift touch, his audacity, his strange candour, unite in such portraitures as are scarcely to be found elsewhere. (c) His humanness. He is "All hail fellow, well met," with anybody and everybody. There is nothing '' MEMORIAL-INTRODUCTION—CRITICAL. xi of the pedant, nothing of the arrogance of the ' read man, nothing of pretence in him. Wherever he haps on a mortal man (or woman), he has hand-grasp and cordial as ready greeting. He discerned " a soul of goodness " in the worst. He had Burns's pity for "the Devil himself." I fear he was licentious, drunken, shifty, spendthrift ; but somehow he emerges clean and never writes pruriently or sardonically. Some of ' his 'preachings ' in Christ's Teares' are of the poorest and most spun-out ; but other of his present-day applications reveal a fine humanity as well as a penetrative perception of the woes and mysteries of this "unintelligible world." I have noted already ' some things notable in Christ's Teares ' (Vol. IV., pp. ix—xxi). I like especially his softened speech wherever the name of ' Kit Marlowe ' comes up. (d) His vocabulary. Than our Glossarial-Index I doubt if there be a more noteworthy contribution to our great National Dictionary of the Philological Society. His fecundity, his variety, his originality, his freshness, his ebullience, his readiness, his droUness, the student-reader will find abundantly illustrated.

Load more

  307

Copy Link