2»4 S. No 95., Oct, 24. *57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



323 



neither luUabied with thj' sweet Pap, or scare-crowed 

 •with thy sour Hatchet." — Keprint, p. 81. 



Lyly's Euphues came out in 1579 : and from 

 the prefatory matter we learn that its author had 

 previously been rusticated at Oxford, for glancing 

 at some abuses. One of his first patrons was the 

 Earl of Oxford ; but in 1582 he appears to have 

 lost the favour of that nobleman ; this circum- 

 stance is stated in a letter which Lyly wrote upon 

 the occasion to Lord Burghley, in which he pro- 

 tests his innocence. In what capacity he served 

 Lord Oxford is not mentioned, but it may be 

 gathered from the terms of the letter, that he oc- 

 cupied a place of pecuniary trust, which he was 

 supposed to have abused. (Collier's Hist, of Eng- 

 lish Dramatic Poetry, iii. 175.) 



The quarrel between Lyly and Gabriel Harvey 

 would appear to have begun about 1580, and it is 

 not unreasonable to suppose that it had reference 

 to the discharge of Lyly from his office in the 

 family of the Earl of Oxford. 



In 1583, Richard Harvey, being as he says, 

 "shortly to profess Divinity," published -4n ^s- 

 trological Discourse vpon the great and notable 

 Coniunction of the two superiour Planets, Sa- 

 tvrne and lupiter, which shall happen the 28. day 

 of April, 1583," which, having been submitted to 

 the censorship of Doctor Squire, son-in-law to 

 Abp. Whitgift, came out under his Lordship's 

 express sanction and encouragement. The pre- 

 diction in this absurd and foolish book did not 

 take place, but the author, according to Nash, had 

 pawned his credit upon it in these express terms : 

 " If these things fall not out in euerie poynt as I 

 haue wrote, let mee for euer hereafter loose the 

 credit of my astronomic." [Nash's Pierce Penni- 

 lesse, 8vo. p. 44. reprint.] These express terms, 

 however, do not appear in the book, although the 

 substance of what is quoted is the same. (See R. 

 Harvey's Astrol. Discourse, p. 17, 1583.) 



" Wei, so it happend, that he happend not to be a man 

 of his word : his astronomic broke his day with his cre- 

 ditors, and Saturne and Jupiter proued honester men than 

 all the worlde tooke them for. Wherevpon the poore 

 prognostieator was readie to runne himselfe through with 

 his Jacob's staife, and cast himselfe headlong from the 

 top of a globe, (as a mountaine) and breake his necke. 

 The whole uniuersitie hyst at him, Tarlton at the Theater 

 made lests of him, and Elderton consumed his ale- 

 crammed nose to nothing in bear-bayting him with whole 

 hundells of ballets." (Nash's Pierce Penniksse, 1592, p. 44. 

 reprint.) 



Here, then, we see one of the Harveys, and 

 presently shall find the three brothers, at variance 

 with that gregarious herd .of town wits, who, as 

 actoi's or writers, were connected with the stage 

 at this eventful period. 



^ In 1589 * Nash gave to the world the " first- 

 lings of his folly " in authorship, being a preface 



* See Preface to the Reprint of ^n Almond for a Parrot, 

 1845, where the reasons for this conclusion are given. 



to his friend Greene's Arcadia, or Meiiaphon. 

 This was addressed " To the Gentlemen Students 

 of both Universities," and in it he takes occasion 

 to bestow just praise on Harvey's Latin versifica- 

 tion ; hence we may conclude with certainty that 

 the strife waged so many years between them had 

 not then begun. 



Whether any circumstances to us unknown 

 occasioned the production of Lyly's Pap with a 

 Hatchet, or merely his desire of attacking Gabriel 

 Harvey under the mask of Martin Mar-prelate, is 

 uncertain. Harvey tells us that he had been 

 suspected by these mad copesmates (Greene, Lyly, 

 and Nash) of being Martin ; and Lyly, in the ex- 

 tract we have given above from Pap with a Hatchet, 

 charges him with being the author of Martin's 

 Epitome. It is most probable, however, that it 

 was more for the purpose of attacking their com- 

 mon enemy that these writers engaged in a con- 

 troversy so totally at variance in its object and 

 end to their usual occupation, and not, as has been 

 supposed, that they were patronised and en- 

 couraged by the dignitaries of the Church. 



We have seen how Lyly attacked Gabriel 

 Harvey in Pap with a Hatchet, on account of some 

 old grudge, hoarded for ten years, and how, in the 

 preface to Blundring Persiual, Richard Harvey 

 attacked both him and Nash, and possibly Greene. 

 We come now to another work of Richard Harvey, 

 respecting which I wish it was in my power to 

 give more accurate information. In the quotation 

 from Nash's Strange Newes, above, a book called 

 the Lamh of God is mentioned. The title is " A 

 Theologicall Discovrse of the Lamh of God and 

 his enemies : Contayning a briefe Commentarle of 

 Christian faith and felicitie, together with a detec- 

 tion of old and new Barbarisme, now commonly 

 called Martlnisme, Newly published, &c. Lon- 

 don, John Windet for W. P. Anno 1590," in 4to. 

 A copy of this work belonged to the late Mr. B. 

 H. Bright, and was sold by auction in 1845. 

 Being unable, however, to ascertain into whose 

 hands it had passed, and not finding it at the 

 British Museum, or in any public collection in 

 London, I applied to a gentleman at Oxford to 

 whom literature is under great obligations, who 

 with much kindness referred to the copy In the 

 Bodleian Library. I am therefore enabled to ' 

 state that what I am going to quote from Nash is 

 not contained in that edition, and other circum- 

 stances, before the above fact was known, had led 

 me to infer the existence of a prior edition to that 

 of 1590. 



After quoting the Lamb of God, Nash goes on 

 to say : 



" Not mee alone did hee reuile and dare to the combat, 

 but glickt at Pap-hatchet once more, and mistermed all 

 our other Poets and writers about London, piperly make- 

 plaies and make-bates. Hence Greene being chiefe agent , 

 for the companie (for he writ more than foure other, how 

 well I will not say : but Sat cito, si sat bene) tooke oc- 



