To The Right Honorable The Lord S.
Pardon,
_sweete
flower
of
Matchles
poetrie,
And
fairest
bud
the
red
rose
euer
bare;
Although
my
Muse,
devorst
from
deeper
care,
Presents
thee
with
a
wanton
Elegie.
Ne
blame
my
verse
of
loose
unchastitie
For
painting
forth
the
things
that
hidden
are,
Since
all
men
acte
what
I
in
speache
declare,
Onlie
induced
with
varietie.
Complants
and
praises
euery
one
can
write,
And
passion
out
their
pangu's
in
statlie
rimes;
But
of
loues
pleasures
none
did
euer
write,
That
have
succeeded
in
theis
latter
times.
Accept
of
it,
Deare
Lord,
in
gentle
gree,
And
better
lynes,
ere
long,
shall
honor
thee.
Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe, (born 1567, Lowestoft, Suffolk, Eng.—died c. 1601, Yarmouth, Norfolk?), pamphleteer, poet, dramatist, and author of The Unfortunate Traveller; or, The Life of Jacke Wilton (1594), the first picaresque novel in English. Nashe was educated at the University of Cambridge, and about 1588 he went to London, where he became associated with Robert Greene and other professional writers. In 1589 he wrote The Anatomie of Absurditie and the preface to Greene’s Menaphon. Both works are bold, opinionated surveys of the contemporary state of writing; occasionally obscure, they are euphuistic in style and range freely over a great variety of topics.