The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Nash, Thomas

NASH, Thomas, an English dramatist, born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, about 1560, died in London in 1600 or 1601. He took the degree of B. A. at Cambridge in 1584, and in 1589 fixed his abode in London. The prelatists and Puritans being then engaged in a war of vituperation, Nash espoused the cause of the former, and wrote a series of pamphlets including “Pap with a Hatchet,” “An Almond for a Parrot,” “A Countercuffe to Martin Junior,” and “Martin's Month's Minde.” He aided Marlowe in writing “Dido, Queen of Carthage,” and produced a spectacle styled “Summer's Last Will and Testament,” which was exhibited before Queen Elizabeth in 1592. Nash's plays were ill received, and he became very poor. He described his forlorn condition in his “Pierce Penniless, his Supplication to the Divell,” which appeared in 1592. He then resumed pamphleteering, and assailed Dr. Gabriel Harvey, who made a stout defence; and finally the archbishop of Canterbury ordered the publications of both to be seized. In 1597 Nash produced a satirical play called “The Isle of Dogs,” the representation of which led to his confinement in the Fleet prison.