robbers of that name who harassed the effeminate provincials; for they (the Scots) had brethren on the opposite and neighbouring coasts of Ireland, whose help doubtless they easily and frequently procured, which at once renders it intelligible why several passages in the contemporaneous authorities should designate the Scottish ravagers as inhabitants of the "Green Isle." Although, therefore, we are prepared to admit that the Scots had obtained a footing in their future country, as early even as the age of Ammianus Marcellinus (the fourth century), yet in forming this judgment we have never been swayed or influenced by the statement of Bede, and the supplementary arguments based upon it. That truly invaluable author left upon record, that the Scots had first landed in Britain under the guidance of a certain Riorda, from whom their territory was entitled Dalriorda, and the Irish writers forthwith hunted up in their genealogies, a prince of that name, to act as the Scottish Teucer. It seems to us, however, very evident that the tradition preserved by Bede refers to Dalriorda in Ireland, the true original, from which the district in Scotland undoubtedly receives its appellation direct: nor need it be a matter of surprise, that a legend such as this should have been transplanted incidentally from one country to another by the people whose peculiar property it was. But be that as it may, the few hints our narrow limits have enabled us to throw out, though short and necessarily inconclusive, may perhaps be sufficient to indicate, that at first the position of the Scots in Britain was fluctuating and indeterminate, and only assumed a more settled aspect, when the sons of Erc led over fresh bands from Ireland, consolidated their monarchy, and founded a royal line, which was afterwards to become dominant not only amid the mountain fastnesses of Scotland, but, by rare fortune, throughout the whole united kingdom of Great Britain. ART. VI.—Satires and Declamations of Thomas Nash. Pierce Penilesse his Supplication to the Devill. Describing the over-spreading of Vice, and the Suppression of Vertue. Pleasantly interlac'd with variable delights: and pathetically intermixt with conceipted reproofes. Written by THOMAS NASH, Gentleman. London, Imprinted by Richard Ihones, dwelling at the Signe of the Rose and Crowne, nere Holburne Bridge, 1592. [Reprinted for the Shakespeare Society, 1842.] Nashe's Lenten Stuffe, containing the Description and First Procreation and Increase of the Towne of Great Yarmouth in Norffolke: with a new Play never played before, of the Praise of the Red Herring. Fitte of all Clearkes of Noblemens Kitchins to be read: and not unnecessary by all serving men that have short boord-wages, to be remembered. Famam peto per undas. London, Printed for N. L. and C. B. and are to be sold at the west end of Paules. 1599. Christ's Tears over Jerusalem. Whereunto is annexed a Comparative Admonition to London. A Jove Musa. By THO. NASH. London: printed for Thomas Thorp, 1613. [Reprint, 1815.] IN selecting these works from the many which the author left behind him, we have been influenced less by any similarity or congruity between them than by the simple wish to make our readers acquainted with the once renowned but now little-known satirist, whose mirthful sallies passed from mouth to mouth in the days of queen Bess much as the good things of a Hood or a Sydney Smith did in our own younger days. But his wit as well as his satire partook largely of the grossness of the times in which he lived, as the books before us abundantly testify; and in this and other instances of a similar nature our object will ever be to present our readers with the spirit, if not the quintessence, of an author, while we leave the scum and dregs of his productions to their deserved oblivion. In the present case it is especially incumbent upon us to adopt this course, for the author, in the epistle prefixed to his 'Christ's Tears,' says: "Many vain things have I vainly set forth, whereof now it repenteth me. St. Augustine writ a whole book of his Retractions. Nothing so much do I retract as that wherein soever I have scandalized the meanest. Into some splenetive veins of wantonness heretofore have I foolishly relapsed to supply my private wants: of them no less do I desire to be absolved than the rest, and to God and man do I promise an unfeigned conversion." Now this is nobly said; and far be it from us to make the Retrospective Review the vehicle for bringing to light what so ingenuous a mind would gladly have consigned to the flames. We shall, however, make one reservation: we do not engage to blot all that Nash himself would have blotted, as thereby much of the raciness of his personal satire would be lost; but blot we will all that could reasonably be construed into a breach of modesty. The history of Thomas Nash is that of Savage, Chatterton, Hood-a tale of the misery (self-procured or otherwise) which is so often the concomitant of genius. He was born of gentle parentage at Lowestoffe in Suffolk, his father being a member of the Nashes of Herefordshire, and in some way a relative of Sir Robert Cotton. He took his degree of B.A. at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1585, and was, as he himself tells us, a resident there ("the sweetest nurse of knowledge in all that university") for almost seven years. For some unexplained reason, however, he quitted Cambridge without proceeding M. A. Mr. Payne Collier, to whom we are indebted for the edition of 'Pierce Penniless,' thinks he left his College under some imputation of misconduct. He appears soon afterwards to have visited Italy, Ireland, and many parts of England. In 1587 he was in London and associated with the celebrated Robert Greene, the dramatist, in literary occupations. Two or three years later he engaged in his contest with the Puritans, which was the opening of the celebrated "Martin Marprelate controversy." His adversaries were very numerous, but Nash's sprightly warfare with the small shot of satire and wit, was unmatched even by a host of theologians and a cannonade of scripture quotations. Among all his antagonists none had so large a share of his bitterest objurgations as Gabriel Harvey, with whom the contest was protracted through several years, until it was at length put a stop to by the public authorities. Nash also wrote several plays, and other pieces too numerous to be named here. The satirist is not a likely man to get friends: few respect him otherwise than as some savages are said to worship the devil-lest he should hurt them. This may partly account for the extreme misery and distress into which Nash fell; but extravagance and debauchery are alleged as other causes; and these alas! are no unusual concomitants of genius when it takes this direction. Besides other misfortunes in which his satirical vein involved him, we find him in 1597 imprisoned by the Privy Council for having written a play called 'The Isle of Dogs.' About the same time he wrote a letter to his kinsman, Sir Robert Cotton, in which occurs the expression; "I am merry now, though I have ne'er a penny in my purse." He died-probably under forty years of age-in 1601. It was in one of his "pennilesse" periods, if we are to take him literally, that he wrote the first work on our list: this was in 1592. Having spent manie yeres in studying how to live, and livde a long time without money; having tyred my youth with follie, and surfeited my minde with vanitie, I began at length to looke backe to repentaunce, and addresse my endevors to prosperitie. But all in vaine: I sate up late, and rose early, contended with the colde, and conversed with scarcitie; for all my labours turned to losse, my vulgar muse was despised and neglected, my paines not regarded, or slightly rewarded, and I my selfe, (in prime of my best wit) layde open to povertie. Whereupon, in a male-content humour, I accused my fortune, raild on my patrones, bit my pen, rent my papers, and ragde in all points like a mad man. In which agonie tormenting myself a long time, I grew by degrees to a milde discontent; and pausing awhile over my standish, I resolved in verse to paynt forth my passion: which, best agreeing with the vaine of my unrest, I began to complaine in this sort : "Why is't damnation to despaire and dye, When life is my true happinesse' disease? Ah worthlesse wit, to traine me to this woe, Vaine thoughts adieu, for now I will repent; And thus he goes on with his lament of neglected talents, and the poor requital of literary labour. "I cald to mind a cobler, that was worth five hundred pound; an hostler that had built a goodly inne, and might dispende fortie pounds yerely by his land; a carreman in a lether pilche that had whipt a thousand pound out of his horse tayle and have I more wit," he asks, "than all these? am I better borne? am I better brought up? yea, and better favored? and yet am I a begger? what is the cause?" The answer to this string of interrogatories is much the same in substance, as that which an unsuccessful or an improvident literary man would now give, namely, that it is the fault of an undiscerning public, which prefers the trashy and ephemeral to the substantial and profound. "Everie grosse-brainde idiot is suffered to come into print, who, if hee set foorth a pamphlet of the praise of pudding-pricks, or write a treatise of Tom Thumme, or the exployts of Untrusse, it is bought up thicke and three-folde, when better things lye dead." So complains Pierce Penilesse, but without redress. "Opus and usus are knocking at my door twenty times a weeke," he says, "when I am not at home." At length, finding that pretended friends will give him nothing, though intreated for God's sake, he bethinks himself of a tale that he has heard, of pecuniary advances made by "the gentleman in black," and thereupon indites a 'Supplication to the Divell.' This "supplication" is nothing more than a satire on the prevailing vices of the day; and we now proceed to adduce from it, a few specimens of the author's peculiar humour. "In the inner part of this ugly habitation stands Greedinesse, prepared to devoure all that enter, attired in a capouch of written parchment buttond downe before with labels of wax, and lined with sheepe's fels for warmenes : his cappe furd with catskins after the Muscovie fashion, and all be tasseld with angle-hookes, instead of aglets, ready to catch hold of all those to whom he shewes any humblenes: as for his breeches, they were made of the lists of broad cloaths, which he had by letters-patents assured to him and his heyres, to the utter overthrow of bow-cases and cushin-makers; and bumbasted they were, like beer barrels, with statute-marchants and forfeitures. In Penilesse's 'complaynt of pryde,' he is extremely severe against the sectaries of his age, who think " to live when they are dead by having theyr sect called after their names." "We devide Christ's garment amongest us in manie peeces, and of the vesture of salvation make some of us babies and apes coates, others straight trusses and divell's breeches, some gally gascoynes, or a shipmans hose; like the Anabaptists and adulterous Familists, others with the Martinists, a hood with two faces to hide their hypocrisie, and, to conclude, some, like the Barrowists and Greenwoodians, a garment ful of the plague, which is not to be worn before it be new washt. Hence atheists triumph and rejoyce, and talke as prophanely of the Bible as of Bevis of Hampton. I heare say there be mathematitians abroad that will proove men before Adam; and they are harboured in high places who will maintayne it to the death that there are no divells. It is a shame (Senior Belzebub) that you shoulde suffer yourself thus to be tearmed a bastard, or not prove to your predestinate children not only that they have a father, but that you are hee that must owne them!' A side note adds, 'The devill hath children, but fewe of them know their owne father.' Pierce, after belabouring the pride of merchants' wives, upstarts, parasites, &c., proceeds to point out the peculiar forms and phases of pride which distinguish various nations. The Spaniard, for example, is "born a braggart;" the Italian, "a more cunning |