And thus a fictitious Socrates, not the great
moralist, was condemned. Armed with the most licentious ridicule, the
Aretine of our own country and times has proved that its chief
magistrate was not protected by the shield of domestic and public
virtues; a false and distorted image of an intelligent monarch could
cozen the gross many, and aid the purposes of the subtle few.

There is a plague-spot in ridicule, and the man who is touched with
it can be sent forth as the jest of his country.

The literary reign of Elizabeth, so fertile in every kind of genius,
exhibits a remarkable instance, in the controversy between the witty
Tom Nash and the learned Gabriel Harvey. It will illustrate the nature
of _the fictions of ridicule_, expose the materials of which its
shafts are composed, and the secret arts by which ridicule can level a
character which seems to be placed above it.

GABRIEL HARVEY was an author of considerable rank, but with two
learned brothers, as Wood tells us, "had the ill luck to fall into the
hands of that noted and restless buffoon, Tom Nash."

Harvey is not unknown to the lover of poetry, from his connexion with
Spenser, who loved and revered him. He is the Hobynol whose poem is
prefixed to the "Faery Queen," who introduced Spenser to Sir Philip
Sidney: and, besides his intimacy with the literary characters of his
times, he was a Doctor of Laws, an erudite scholar, and distinguished
as a poet. Such a man could hardly be contemptible; and yet, when some
little peculiarities become aggravated, and his works are touched by
the caustic of the most adroit banterer of that age of wit, no
character has descended to us with such grotesque deformity, exhibited
in so ludicrous an attitude.

Harvey was a pedant, but pedantry was part of the erudition of an age
when our national literature was passing from its infancy; he
introduced hexameter verses into our language, and pompously laid
claim to an invention which, designed for the reformation of English
verse, was practised till it was found sufficiently ridiculous. His
style was infected with his pedantic taste; and the hard outline of
his satirical humour betrays the scholastic cynic, not the airy and
fluent wit. He had, perhaps, the foibles of a man who was clearing
himself from obscurity; he prided himself on his family alliances,
while he fastidiously looked askance on the trade of his father--a
rope-manufacturer.

He was somewhat rich in his apparel, ac