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Without redress complains my ceaseless verse,

And Midas' ears relent not at my moan:

In some far land will I my griefs rehearse,

'Mongst them, that will be mov'd, when I shall groan. England, adieu, the soil that brought me forth!

Adieu, unkind, where skill is nothing worth!

"These rhymes thus abruptly set down, I tost my imagination a thousand ways, to see if I could find any means to relieve my estate. But all my thoughts consorted to this conclusion, that the world was uncharitable, and I ordained to be miserable. Thereby I grew to consider how many base men, that wanted those parts which I had, enjoyed content at will, and had wealth at command: I called to mind a cobler that was worth 500l.: an hostler, that had built a goodly inn, and might dispend 401. yearly by his land ; a carman, in a leather pilch, that had whipped out 10001. of his horse's tail! And have I more wit than all these, thought I to myself? Am I better born? Am I better brought up? Yea; and better favoured; and yet am I a beggar! What is the cause? How am I crost? Or whence is this curse?" &c.

Perhaps there is no class of men more likely to fall into poverty than authors; and none whose natures and habits render them less patient of poverty. The fate of Nash, and Greene, and Savage, and Chatterton, and many others, always fills me with horror.

The lot of Gabriel Harvey seems to have been cast under luckier stars. He survived till 16301.

'See Restituta, iii. 215.

In the selection of pieces for insertion in ARCHAICA, the impossibility of satisfying every various taste of those, who pursue the study of old English literature, is too obvious. He, who possesses an old edition of any piece here reprinted, is little gratified by the appearance of a new one. But against judgments thus biassed a strong protest may fairly be made. The cause of literary antiquities must be regarded, not as it affects the interest or vanity of mere Collectors, but as it furnishes materials for enlarging and correcting the minds of the scholar and the philosopher. These are men, to whom the works they require, must be more easily accessible than to those, whose leisure and whose purses enable them to be vigilant in seizing the first offerings of catalogues, or to be unrivalled and resistless in the triumphs of the auction-room: men, who value books for their contents, and not for their rarity; and who do not think the worse of those contents, because they are conveyed through the splendid improvements of modern typography. Hitherto the prose works of Robert Greene, Gabriel Harvey, Tom Nash, Robert Southwell, Nicholas Breton, R. Brathwayte, and others, had been out of the reach of all but two or three possessors of curious libraries, and the few friends who had access to them. In future their very combination and bulk will preserve them as an ornament to every well-furnished English library: and studious men will hereafter have no difficulty in knowing where to find them.

London, June 27, 1815.

CHRIST'S TEARS

OVER

JERUSALEM.

WHEREUNTO IS ANNEXED

A comparative Admonition to London.

A JOVE MUSA.

BY THO. NASH.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THOMAS THORP.

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