s of the romance.
This is an effect of the impetuosity of his temperament, blameable
undoubtedly from an artistic point of view. We shall be indulgent to him
if we remember that no author of the time was entirely master of himself
and faithful to his plot. Even Shakespeare rarely resists like
temptation, and when a poetic image comes into his mind, little matters
it to him what character is on the stage; he makes of him a dreamer, a
poet, and lends to him the exquisite language of his own emotion. Let
us remember how the murderers hired to assassinate Edward's children
describe the scene of the murder. They saw "the gentle babes ...
girdling one another

Within their alabaster innocent arms:
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
And, in their summer beauty, kiss'd each other."

A very improbable remark, it will be admitted, on the part of the
murderers. But, then, it is Shakespeare who talks aloud, forgetting that
he is supposed not to be there.

Nash, with like heedlessness, often interposes in his own person, and
takes the words out of his page's mouth; and his bold, characteristic
and concise opinions are very curious in the history of manners and
literature. For example, when he describes the war of the Anabaptists
and the execution of John of Leyden, he sums up thus in a short pithy
sentence the current opinion of his day among literary people and men of
the world, on the already formidable sect of the Puritans: "Heare what
it is to be Anabaptists, to bee puritans, to be villaines: you may be
counted illuminate botchers for a while, but your end wil be: Good
people pray for me."

His open admiration of the charity of the Catholics at Rome reveals in
him great independence of mind and much courage: "Yet this I must say to
the shame of us Protestants, if good workes may merit heaven they doo
them, we talke of them. Whether superstition or no makes them
unprofitable servants, that let pulpets decide: but there, you shall
have the bravest Ladies in gownes of beaten gold, washing pilgrimes and
poore souldiours feete, and dooing nothing they and their wayting mayds
all the yeare long, but making shirts and bandes for them against they
come by in distresse."

At Wittenberg, Wilton sees "Acolastus" performed, an old play that was
as popular in England as on the continent,[278] and Nash's severe
criticism on the actors shows how well the difference between good
comedians and common players was unders