patronage, or any, further than he may give freely, and so receive back honest thanks. The dangerous name and the contempt of poets, sprung from their multitude of corruptions, prove no disadvantage or terror to him: for such be his antidotes that he can walk untouched, even through the worst infection. And indeed that mountebank's preparing oil which kept his hands unscalded, was a toy of nothing to this poet's rarity of discretion, which so prepares his mind, that he can bathe it in the strains of burning lust, fury, malice, or despite, and yet be never scalded, or endangered by them. He only among men is nearest infinite: for in the scenical composures, of a tragedy or comedy, he shows the best resemblance of his high Creator: turning his quick passions, and witty humours to replenish and overcome into matter and form as infinite as God's pleasure to diversify mankind. He is no miserable selflover, nor no unbounded prodigal: for he can communicate himself wisely to avoid dull reservedness, but not make every thought common to maintain his market. It must be imputed to his perfect eyesight, that he can see error and avoid it without the hazard of a new one: as in poems, so in projects, by an easy conjecture. He cannot flatter, nor be flattered: if he gives desert, he gives no more, and leaves hyperbole in such a matter of importance. As for himself, he is so well known unto himself, that neither public fame, nor yet his own conceit, can make him over-valued in himself. He is an enemy

to atheists; for he is no fatist nor naturalist: he therefore excludes luck and rhyme from the acceptance of his poems; scorning to acknowledge the one as an efficient, the other as an essence, of his muse's favour. He pays back all his imitation with interest; whilst his authors (if revived) would confess their chief credit was to be such a pattern: otherwise (for the most part) he proves himself the pattern, and the project in hand. Silver only and sound metal comprehend his nature: rubbing, motion, and customary usage, make the brightness of both more eminent. No marvel though he be immortal, seeing he converts poison into nourishment, even the worst objects and societies to a worthy use. When he is lastly silent (for he cannot die) he finds a monument prepared at others' cost and remembrance, whilst his former actions be a living epitaph. JOHN STEPHENS, Essayes and Characters 1615

Ballads and Monsters

I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, IV. i. 221

Falstaff. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison.

I Henry IV., 11. ii. 50

Clown. What hast here ? ballads ? Mopsa. Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print, o' life, for then we are sure they are true.

Autolycus. Here's one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer's wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden; and how she longed to eat adders' heads and toads carbonadoed.

Autolycus. Here's another ballad of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids : it was thought she was a woman and was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her. The ballad is very pitiful and as true. Dorcas. Is is true, think you?

Autolycus. Five justices' hands at it, and witnesses more than my pack will hold. The Winter's Tale, Iv. iii. 261-287

Another sort of men there are, who, though not addicted to such counterfeit curiosity, yet are they infected with a farther improbability; challenging knowledge unto themselves of deeper mysteries, whenas with Thales Milesius they see not what is under their feet; searching more curiously into the secrets of nature, whenas in respect of deeper knowledge, they seem mere naturals; coveting with the phoenix to approach so nigh to the sun, that they are scorched with his beams and confounded with his brightness. Who made them so privy to the secrets of the Almighty, that they should foretell the tokens of his wrath, or terminate the time of his vengeance? But lightly some news attends the end of every term, some monsters are booked, though not bred, against vacation times, which are straightway diversely dispersed into every quarter, so that at length they become the alehouse talk of every carter: yea, the country ploughman feareth a Calabrian flood in the midst of a furrow, and the silly shepherd committing his wandering sheep to the custody of his wap, in his

field-naps dreameth of flying dragons, which for fear lest he should see to the loss of his sight, he falleth asleep; no star he seeth in the night but seemeth a comet; he lighteth no sooner on a quagmire, but he thinketh this is the foretold earthquake, whereof his boy hath the ballad.

Thus are the ignorant deluded, the simple misused, and the sacred science of astronomy discredited; and in truth what leasings will not make-shifts invent for money? What will they not feign for gain? Hence come our babbling ballads, and our new found songs and sonnets, which every rednose fiddler hath at his fingers' ends, and every ignorant ale-knight will breathe forth over the pot, as soon as his brain waxeth hot. Be it a truth which they would tune, they interlace it with a lie or two to make metre, not regarding verity, so they may make up the verse; not unlike to Homer, who cared not what he feigned, so he might make his countrymen famous. But as the straightest things being put into water seem crooked, so the crediblest truths if once they come within compass of these men's wits, seem tales. Were it that the infamy of their ignorance did redound only upon themselves, I could be content to apply my speech otherwise than to their Apuleian ears, but sith they obtain the name of our English poets, and thereby make men think more basely of the wits of our country, I cannot but turn them out of their counterfeit livery, and brand them in the forehead, that all men may know their falsehood. Well may that saying of Campanus be applied to our English poets, which he spake of them in his time: "They make (saith he) poetry an occupation, lying is their living, and fables are their movables; if thou takest away trifles, silly souls, they will famish for hunger." It were to be wished that the acts of the venturous, and the praise of the virtuous were, by public edict, prohibited by such men's merry mouths to be so odiously extolled, as rather breeds detestation than admiration, loathing than liking. What politic councillor or valiant soldier will joy or glory of this, in that some stitcher, weaver, spendthrift or fiddler hath shuffled or slubbered up a few ragged rimes, in the memorial of the one's prudence, or the other's prowess? It makes the learned sort to be silent when they see unlearned sots so insolent.

THOMAS NASHE, The Anatomie of Absurditie 1589

The Troubles of Authorship

Theft of Manuscripts

As touching this short gloss or annotation on the foolish Terrors of the Night, you partly are acquainted from whose motive imposition it first proceeded, as also what strange sudden cause necessarily produced that motion. A long time since hath it lain suppressed by me, until the urgent importunity of a kind friend of mine (to whom I was sundry ways beholding) wrested a copy from me. That copy progressed from one scrivener's shop to another, and at length grew so common that it was ready to be hung out for one of their signs, like a pair of indentures. Whereupon I thought it as good for me to reap the fruit of my own labours, as to let some unskilful pen-man or noverint-maker starch his ruff and newspade his beard with the benefit he made of them.

THOMAS NASHE, The Terrors of the Night 1594

Decipherers and Informers

If but carelessly betwixt sleeping and waking I write I know not what against plebeian publicans and sinners (no better than the sworn brothers of candlestick-turners and tinkers) and leave some terms in suspense that my post-haste want of argent will not give me elbow-room enough to explain or examine as I would, out steps me an infant squib of the Inns of Court, that hath not half greased his dining-cap or scarce warmed his lawyer's cushion, and he, to approve himself an extravagant statesman, catcheth hold of a rush, and absolutely concludeth it is meant of the Emperor of Russia, and that it will utterly mar the traffic into that country if all the pamphlets be not called in and suppressed, wherein that libelling word is mentioned....

O, for a legion of mice-eyed decipherers and calculators upon characters, now to augurate what I mean by this,...men that have no means to purchase credit with their prince, but by putting him still in fear and beating into his opinion that they are the only preservers of his life, in sitting up night and day in sifting out treasons, when they are the most traitors themselves to his life, health and quiet, in continual commacerating

him with dread and terror, when, but to get a pension or bring him in their debt, next to God, for upholding his vital breath, it is neither so, nor so, but some fool, some drunken man, some madman in an intoxicate humour hath uttered he knew not what, and they, being starved for intelligence or want of employment, take hold of it with tooth and nail, and in spite of the waiters, will violently break into the king's chamber, and awake him at midnight to reveal it....

I am not against it, (for God forbid I should), that it behoves all loyal true subjects to be vigilant and jealous for their prince's safety, and, certain, too jealous and vigilant of it they cannot be, if they be good princes that reign over them, nor use too many means of disquisition by tortures or otherwise to discover treasons pretended against them. But upon the least wagging of a straw to put them in fear where no fear is, and to make a hurly-burly in the realm upon had-I-wist, not so much for any zeal or love to their princes or tender care of their preservation, as to pick thanks and curry a little favour, that thereby they may lay the foundation to build a suit on, or cross some great enemy they have, I maintain it is most lewd and detestable. I accuse none, but such there have been belonging to princes in former ages, if there be not at this hour. THOMAS NASHE, Lenten Stuffe 1599

Prison

About the time of the last convocation, I composed a little poem, well known throughout this kingdom; wherein, having to conscionable purposes expressed such resolutions as every reasonable man should endeavour to entertain, and having, as opportunity was offered, glanced also in general terms at the reproof of a few things of such nature as I feared might disparage or prejudice the commonwealth, some particulars, not then in season to be meddled withal, were at unawares so nearly touched upon, that I unhappily fell into the displeasure of the State: and all my apparent good intentions were so mistaken by the aggravations of some ill-affected towards my endeavours, that I was shut up from the society of mankind, and, as one unworthy the compassion vouchsafed to thieves and murderers, was neither permitted the use of my pen, the access or sight of acquaintance, the allowance usually afforded