tood in London. Nash shared
Shakespeare's opinion of the actors who "out-heroded Herod," and he
would have been of Moliere's way of thinking about the performances at
the Hotel de Bourgogne: "One as if he had beene playning a clay floore,
stampingly troade the stage so harde with his feete, that I thought
verily he had resolved to doe the carpenter that sette it uppe some
utter shame. Another floung his armes lyke cudgelles at a peare tree,
insomuch as it was mightily dreaded that hee woulde strike the candles
that hung above theyr heades out of their sockets, and leave them all
darke." This severe criticism may serve to reassure us about the way in
which the great English dramas were interpreted at that period.[279] And
indeed they deserved that some trouble should be taken with them, for
in London it was the time of "Romeo and Juliet," of "Midsummer Night's
Dream," of "Richard III."

In fact, Nash does not only possess the merit of knowing how to observe
the ridiculous side of human nature, and of portraying in a full light
picturesque figures now worthy of Teniers and now of Callot; some fat
and greasy, others lean and lank; he possesses a thing very rare with
the picaresque school, the faculty of being moved. He seems to have
foreseen the immense field of study which was to be opened later to the
novelist. A distant ancestor of Fielding, as Lyly and Sidney appear to
us to be distant ancestors of Richardson, he understands that a picture
of active life, reproducing only, in the Spanish fashion, scenes of
comedy, is incomplete and departs from reality. The greatest jesters,
the most arrogant, the most venturesome have their days of anguish; no
brow has ever remained unfurrowed from the cradle to the grave, and no
one has been able to live an impassive spectator and not feel his heart
sometimes beat the quicker, nor bow his head in sorrow. Nash caught a
glimpse of this, and therefore mingled serious scenes with his pictures
of comedy, in order that his romance might the more closely resemble
life. Sometimes they are love scenes as when the Earl of Surrey
describes to us his awakening passion for Geraldine, and how he met her
at Hampton Court: "Oh thrice emperiall Hampton Court, Cupids inchaunted
castle, the place where I first sawe _the perfect omnipotence of the
Almightie expressed in mortalitie_!" Sometimes they are tragic scenes
full of blood and tortures. It is true that Nash then falls into
melodrama and conducts