in meere pitie of him would neuer looke vpon it but in some calme pleasing humor, for feare least in my melancholy too cruelly I should haue martyr'd him.... In loue and charity I take my leaue of you all, at least of all such as heere meane to leaue and reade no further, and hast to the launching forth of my dialogue. HAUE WITH YOU TO SAFFRON-WALDEN, Dialogus. Interlocutores, Senior Importuno, Grand Consiliadore, Doming Our limits already exceed the customary proportion. In the course of the pages there is a wood cut exhibiting Harvey, that neither Hauns Boll, Hauns Holbine, Hauns Mullier, Blockland, Trusser, or Francis de Murre, could amend, or "doo a thing one quarter so masterly." More will probably be given hereafter from this rare Tract,* Eu. H. "The Trimming of Thomas Nashe, Gentleman, by the high-tituled patron Don Richardo de Medico campo, Barber Chirurgion to Trinitie Colledge in Cumbridge. Faber quas fecit compedes ipse gestat, London, printed for Philip Scarlet, 1597.” 4to. G 4. * It seems by a letter at sig. V 2. as if Henry Chettle was a Compositor THIS tract is written in the name of “Dick Litchfield the Barber of Trinity College, (following the words of Nashe) a rare ingenuous odde merry Greeke:" but his character was undoubtedly assumed by Harvey for the purpose of defence. At the back of the title: "To the learned. Eme, perlege, nec te precii panitebit. To the simple. Buy mee, read me through, and thou wilt not repente thee of thy cost." On next page an address "To the gentle Reader. PROFACE gentle Geˇtlemen, I am sorry I haue no better Cates to preset you with: but pardon, I pray you, for this which I haue heere prouided, was bred in Lent, and Lent (you know) is said of leane, because it macerates and makes leané the bodye: if therefore this dish bee leane and nothing answerable to your expectation, let it suffice 'twas bred in Lent: neither had it anye time wherein it might gather anye thinge vnto it selfe to make it more fat and delightfull. His Epistle I expected any time these three yeares, but this mine aunswer, sine fuco loquar, (though it be not worthy to bee called the worke of one well spent houre) I haue wrought foorth out of the stolne houres of three weeks: for although occasion hath been offered euer since the Epistle hath been extant, to answere it yet held in suspence considering him easily answerable, I haue vndergone it: therefore howsoeuer you see it crept abroad Gentles, receiue it well in worth. Your fauours happily might adde strength vnto it, and stirre vp the faint creeping steps to a more liuely pace: it by hard hap being denied of the progresse, keeping at home hath growne somewhat greater. To tell you what the man is, and the reason of this book, were but triviall and superfluous, only this, you may call it, The trimming of Thomas Nashe, wherein hee is described. In trimming of which description, though I haue founde out and fetcht from the mint some few new wordes to coulor him, grant me pardon, I thinke them fitte for him who is so limmed and coullored with all new found villanie: for if they bee etimologisde, they no whit disagree from his properties. Slender labour hath suffised to weaue this thinne superficiall vaile to couer his crimson Epistle, and shaddow it foorth vnto the world.... If this bee not so well set foorth as you could wish it were, blame me not: for as the moon being naked and bare, is said once to haue gone to her mother, and asked of her a coat to cloath her but she answered, there could bee no coate made fit for her, for her instabilitie, sometime she being in the ful, and somtime in the wane: so hee being a man of so great reuolution, I could not fit him, for if I had vndertaken to speak of one of his properties, another came into my mind, and another followed that, which bred confusion, making it too little for him: therefore were it not too little, it might be 'twold be fit, but howsoeuer, pardon (Gentlemen) my boldnes in presenting to your fauourable viewes this little and co fused coate. Yours in all curtesie, RICHARD LICHFIELD." "The Trimming of Thomas Nashe.. SIR, heere is a gentleman at the doore would speake with you. Let him come in, M. Nashe! welcome. What, you would be trim'd? and I cannot denie you that fauour. Come, sit downe, Ile trim you myselfe. How now? what makes you sit downe so tenderly? you crintch in your buttocks like old father Pater patriæ, he that was father to a whole country of bastards. Dispatch, st, boy, set the water to the fire! but, sirra, hearke in your eare, first goe prouide me my breakfast, that I goe not fasting about him; then goe to the apothecarie, 3 B VOL. II. and fetcht mee some repressiue Antidotum to put into the bason, to keep downe the venomous vapors that arise from his infec tious excremets: for (I tell you) I like not his countenance, I am afraid he labours of the venereall murre. Muse not (gentle Thomas) that I come so roughly vppon you with Sit downe, without anie Dedicatorie Epistle, which (I know) you expected; for that your Epistle (in some wise) brought forth this small worke: which purposely I omitted scorning patronage against you. For if (by an Epistle) I had made some Lord or Knight my patron, it would have mennaged and giuen courage to you that (not sufficient of myselfe) I should get some Protector to stand out with you.... I made choice of you, that like an asse you might bear your burden, and patronize your owne scourge, 'as dooth the silly hedge-sparrow, that so long fostereth vp the cuckow in her neast, till at length she be deuoured of her: or the viper that is destroyed of her owne whelpes. All England 'for a Patron. But to this sodaine ioy, (for sodaine ioy soone ends) this crosse happened. That * knowing it to bee my duetie to gratulate my Patrone with the first hereof, but not knowing where to finde you, for that you (the world's citizen) are heere and there, you may dine in this place, and goe supperless to bed, if you know where to haue your bed:† you may bee in one prison to day, and in another to morrow: so that you haue a place but as a fleeting incorporeall substance, circumscribed with no limits, that of your owne you haue not so much as one of Diogenes his poore cottages. You haue indeed a terminus a quo (as we Logicians speake) but no terminus ad quem. Now, sir, for the vncertaintie of your mansion house, you hauing all the world to keep court in, and being so haunted with an earthquake, that in what house soeuer you are one daye, you are shaken out the next, my little Booke might kill three or foure. porters, that must run vp and downe London to seeke you, Item for you. t Wel put in. How hardly I leaue this common place. and at the last might dye it selfe for want of succour before it comes to your hands. Yet it might bee, that in your request you are insatiable, you will take no excuse, your will is your reason, nay may not be admitted. Well, it shall be yours; for your Epistle's sake, haue at you with an Epistle. "To the polypragmaticall, parasitupocriticall, and panto phainoudeconticall Puppie, Thomas Nashe, Richard Leich+ field wisheth the continuance of that he hath: that is, that he want not the want of health, wealth, and libertie. Mitto tibi Nashum prora N puppi humque carentem. GoD saue you (right glossomachicall Thomas). The ver tuous riches, wherewith (as broad spread Fame reporteth) you are indued, though fama malum, (as saith the poet) which I confirme: for that shee is tam ficti prouique tenax, quam nuncia veri, as well saith Master William Lilly in his Adiectiua verbalia in ar. I say the report of your rich vertues so bewitched me toward you, that I cannot but send my poore Book to be vertuously succoured of you, that when both yours and my frends shall see it, they may (for your sake) vertuously accept of it. But, it may be, you denie the Epistle, the Booke is of you, the Epistle must be to some other. I answer, you are desirous of an Epistle. Did not Cæsar write those things himself which himselfe did? and did not Lucius, that golden asse, speak of him self, which was the asse? and will not you (though an asse, yet neither golden nor siluer) patronize that which others tooke paines to write of you? Cæsar and Lucius, for that shall hue for euer: and so shall you, as long as euer you liue. Go too, I say, he is an ill horse that will not carrie his own prouender. But chiefly I am to tell you of one thing, which I chuse to tell you of in my Epistle, both because of Epistles some be denuntiatorie, as also considering that wise saying elswhere of the precise schoole-master: If thy frend commit anie enormious Nas huh |