iven thee to eate thy owne
booke buttered, as I saw him make an Appariter once in a tavern eate his
Citation, waxe and all, very handsomely served 'twixt two dishes.'"

From this he proceeds to caricature Gabriel's person. "That word
complexion is dropt forth in good time, for to describe to you his
complexion and composition entred I with this tale by the way. It is of
an adust swarth chollericke dye, like restie bacon, or a dried
scate-fish; so leane and so meagre, that you wold thinke (with the
Turks) he observed 4 Lents in a yere, or take him for a gentleman's man
in the courtier, who was so thin-cheeked, and gaunt, and starv'd, that
as he was blowing the fire with his mouth the smoke took him up like a
light strawe, and carried him to the top or funnell of the chimney, wher
he had flowne out God knowes whither if there had not been crosse barres
overthwart that stayde him; his skin riddled and crumpled like a piece
of burnt parchment; and more channels and creases he hath in his face
than there be fairie circles on Salsburie Plaine, and wrinckles and
frets of old age, than characters on Christ's sepulcher in Mount
Calvarie, on which euerie one that comes scrapes his name, and sets his
marke to shewe that hee hath been there; so that whosoever shall behold
him

"Esse putet Boreae triste furentis opus,"

will sweare on a book I have brought him lowe, and shrowdly broken him;
which more to confirme, look on his head, and you shall find a gray
haire for euery line I have writ against him; and you shall have all his
beard white too, by that time he hath read over this booke. For his
stature, he is such another pretie Jacke-a-Lent as boyes throw at in the
streete, and lookes in his blacke sute of veluet, like one of these
jet-droppes which divers weare at their eares instead of a iewell. A
smudge peice of a handsome fellow it hath been in his dayes, but now he
is olde and past his best, and fit for nothing but to be a nobleman's
porter, or a knight of Windsor."

Nash was so full of invective and personal abuse that he scarcely
deserved the name of a satirist, and so great was the animosity with
which the quarrel between him and Gabriel Harvey was conducted, that the
Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London issued an order in 1599
that all such books "be taken wheresoever they be found, and that none
of the said books be ever printed hereafter."

His humour was remarkable, as it largely consisted of coining