epherd Philisides, as Greene had told his own miseries under
the name of poor Roberto. Here is Nash's portrait of the upstart who has
travelled abroad and has brought back from his journey nothing more
valuable than scorn for his own country: "Hee will bee humorous forsooth
and have a broode of fashions by himselfe. Somtimes, because Love
commonly wears the liverie of wit, hee will be an _Inamorato poeta_, and
sonnet a whole quire of paper in praise of Ladie Manibetter, his
yeolowfac'd mistres.... All _Italionato_ is his talke, and his spade
peake [_i.e._, his beard] is as sharpe as if he had been a pioner before
the walls of Roan. Hee will dispise the barbarisme of his owne countrey,
and tell a whole legend of lyes of his travayles unto Constantinople. If
he be challenged to fight ... hee objects that it is not the custome of
the Spaniard or the Germaine to looke backe to everie dog that barks.
You shall see a dapper Jacke that hath beene but once at Deepe, wring
his face round about, as a man would stirre up a mustard pot and talke
English through the teeth, like Jaques Scabdhams, or Monsieur Mingo de
Moustrapo; when, poore slave, he hath but dipt his bread in wylde boares
greace and come home againe, or been bitten by the shinnes by a wolfe;
and saith he hath adventured uppon barricadoes of Gurney or Guingan, and
fought with the yong Guise hand to hand."

Like Ben Jonson, Nash met on his way some Politick Would-Bes that
"thinke to be counted rare politicians and statesmen, by beeing
solitarie: as who should say, I am a wise man,"[284]--"and when I ope my
lips," would have added Shakespeare, "let no dog bark!" He has met
inventors of sects, and has heard of pre-Darwinian "mathematicians" who
doubt the fact that there were no men before Adam and are inclined to
think there are no devils at all. Nash strongly condemns these
inventors and mathematicians, drawing at the same time a curious picture
of the state of confusion in religious matters which was then so
conspicuous in England: "They will set their self love to study to
invent new sects of singularitie, thinking to live when they are dead,
by having their sect called after their names: as Donatists of Donatus,
Arrian[s] of Arrius, and a number more of new faith founders, that have
made England the exchange of innovations and almost as much confusion of
religion in everie quarter, as there was of tongues at the building of
the Tower of Babel ...

"Hence atheists tr