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Fourth Edition
Originally published by Robert Dodsley in the Year 1744.
Now first chronologically arranged, revised and enlarged with the Notesof all the Commentators, and new Notes
By
1874-1876.
Summer's Last Will and Testament
The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington
The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington
Contention between Liberality and Prodigality
Grim the Collier of Croydon.
A pleasant Comedie, called Summer's last will and Testament. Writtenby Thomas Nash. Imprinted at London by Simon Stafford, for Water Burre.1600. 4to.
[Thomas Nash, son of William Nash, minister, and Margaret his wife, wasbaptized at Lowestoft, in Suffolk, in November 1567.[1] He was admitteda scholar at St John's College, Cambridge, on the Lady Margaret'sfoundation, in 1584, and proceeded B.A. in 1585:] the following is acopy of the Register:—
"Tho. Nashe Coll. Joh. Cantab. A.B. ib. 1585." The place, though notthe time, of his birth[2] we have under his own authority, for in his"Lenten Stuff," printed in 1599, he informs us that he was born atLowestoft; and he leads us to conclude that his family was of some note,by adding that his "father sprang from the Nashes of Herefordshire."[3]
It does not appear that Nash ever proceeded Master of Arts at Cambridge,and most of his biographers agree that he left his college about 1587.It is evident, however, that he had got into disgrace, and probably wasexpelled; for the author of "England to her three Daughters" in"Polimanteia," 1595, speaking of Harvey and Nash, and the pendingquarrel between them, uses these terms: "Cambridge make thy two childrenfriends: thou hast been unkind to the one to wean him before his time,and too fond upon the other to keep him so long without preferment: theone is ancient and of much reading; the other is young, but full ofwit."[4] The cause of his disgrace is reported to have been the share hetook in a piece called "Terminus et non Terminus," not now extant; andit is not denied that his partner in this offence was expelled. Mostlikely, therefore, Nash suffered the same punishment.
If Nash be the author of "An Almond for a Parrot," of which there islittle doubt, although his name is not affixed to it, he travelled inItaly;[5] and we find from another of his pieces that he had been inIreland. Perhaps he went abroad soon after he abandoned Cambridge, andbefore he settled in London and became an author. His first appearancein this character seems to have been in 1589, and we believe theearliest date of any tract attributed to him relating to MartinMarprelate is also 1589.[6] He was the first, as has been frequentlyremarked, to attack this enemy of the Church with the keen missiles ofwit and satire, throwing aside the lumbering and unserviceable weaponsof scholastic controversy. Having set the example in this respect, hehad many followers and imitators, and among them John Lily, the dramaticpoet, the author of "Pap with a Hatchet."
In London Nash became acquainted with Robert Greene, an