The Vnfortunate Traveller or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse
Nash Thomas 1567-1601
English
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Below is a summary of The Vnfortunate Traveller or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse
[Illustration: Titlepage]
[Illustration: Henry Howard]
"The portrait of Surrey which is now at Hampton Court, and which is
attributed to Holbein, though probably by his imitator, Guillim Stretes,
apparently dates from a period when he was a very young man. It is a
valuable and highly interesting picture; especially in regard to the
dress, which, except for the white shirt, embroidered with Moresque
work, is entirely red, and with the flat red cap, red shoes ornamented
with studs of gold, the richly chased dagger and sword, is an admirable
example of the gorgeous style of costume prevalent at Court at the
latter end of the reign of Henry VIII, 'Law's History of Hampton Court
Palace in Tudor Times.'"
THE VNFORTUNATE TRAVELLER OR THE LIFE OF JACK WILTON: WITH AN ESSAY ON
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THOMAS NASH BY EDMUND GOSSE
London Printed And Issued By Charles Whittingham & Co At The Chiswick
Press MDCCCXCII
Contents.
An Essay on the Life and Writings of Thomas Nash
The Dedication to the Earl of Southampton
To the Gentlemen Readers
The Induction to the Pages of the Court
The Unfortunate Traveller
AN ESSAY ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THOMAS NASH.
It is mainly, no doubt, but I hope not exclusively, an antiquarian
interest which attaches to the name of Thomas Nash. It would be
absurd to claim for a writer so obscure a very prominent place in the
procession of Englishmen of letters. His works proclaim by their extreme
rarity the fact that three centuries of readers have existed cheerfully
and wholesomely without any acquaintance with their contents. At the
present moment, the number of those living persons who have actually
perused the works of Nash may probably be counted on the fingers of
two hands. Most of these productions are uncommon to excess, one or two
exist in positively unique examples. There is no use in arguing against
such a fact as this. If Nash had reached, or even approached, the
highest order of merit, he would have been placed, long ere this, within
the reach of all. Nevertheless, his merits, relative if not positive,
were great. In the violent coming of age of Elizabethan literature,
his voice was heard loudly, not always discordantly, and with an accent
eminently personal to himself. His life, though shadowy, has elements of
picturesqueness and pathos; his writings are a storehouse of oddity and
fantastic wit
It has been usual to class Nash with the Precursors of Shakespeare, and
until quite lately it was conjectured that he was older than Greene and
Peele, a contemporary of Lodge and Chapman. It is now known that he
was considerably younger than all these, and even than Marlowe and
Shakespeare. Thomas Nash, the fourth child of the Rev. William Nash, who
to have been curate of Lowestoft in Suffolk, was baptized in that
town in November, 1567. The Nashes continued to live in Lowestoft, where
the father died in 1603, probably three years after the death of his son
Thomas. Of the latter we hear nothing more until, in October, 1582, at
the age of fifteen, he matriculated as a sizar of St. John's College,
Cambridge. Cooper says that he was admitted a scholar on the Lady
Margaret's foundation in 1584. He remained at Cambridge, in unbroken
residence, until July, 1589, "seven year together, lacking a quarter,"
as he tells us positively in "Lenten Stuff."
Cambridge was the hotbed of all that was vivid and revolutionary in
literature at that moment, and Robert Greene was the centre of literary
Cambridge. When Nash arrived, Greene, who was seven years his senior,
was still in residence at his study in Clare Hall, having returned from
his travels in Italy and Spain, ready, in 1583, to take his degree as
master of arts. He was soon, however, to leave for London, and it is
unlikely that a boy of sixteen would be immediately admitted to
the society of those "lewd wags" who looked up to the already
distinguished Greene as to a master. But Greene, without doubt, made
frequent visits to his university, and on one of these was probably
formed that intimate friendship with Nash which lasted until near the
elder poet's death. Marlowe was at Corpus, then called Benet College,
during five years of Nash's residence, but it is by no means certain
that their acquaintance began so early. It is, indeed, in the highest
degree tantalizing that these writers, many of whom loved nothing better
than to talk about themselves, should have neglected to give us the
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