An English Garner: Critical Essays & Literary Fragments
History
An English Garner: Critical Essays & Literary Fragments
English literature -- History and criticism
And so is now our witty [THOMAS] WILSON, who, for learning and extemporal
wit in this faculty, is without compare or compeer; as to his great and
eternal commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the _Swan_, on
the Bank Side.
As ACHILLES tortured the dead body of HECTOR; and as ANTONIUS and his
wife FULVIA tormented the lifeless corpse of CICERO; so GABRIEL HARVEY
hath showed the same inhumanity to GREENE, that lies full low in his
grave.
As EUPOLIS of Athens used great liberty in taxing the vices of men: so
doth THOMAS NASH. Witness the brood of the HARVEYS!
As ACTAEON was worried of his own hounds: so is TOM NASH of his _Isle of
Dogs_. Dogs were the death of EURIPIDES; but be not disconsolate, gallant
young JUVENAL! LINUS, the son of APOLLO, died the same death. Yet GOD
forbid that so brave a wit should so basely perish! Thine are but paper
dogs, neither is thy banishment like OVID's, eternally to converse with
the barbarous _Getae_. Therefore comfort thyself, sweet TOM! with
CICERO's glorious return to Rome; and with the counsel AENEAS gives to
his seabeaten soldiers, _Lib_ 1, _AEneid_.
Pluck up thine heart! and drive from thence both fear and care away!
To think on this, may pleasure be perhaps another day.
_Durato, et temet rebus servato secundis_.
As ANACREON died by the pot: so GEORGE PEELE, by the pox.
As ARCHESILAUS PRYTANOEUS perished by wine at a drunken feast, as
HERMIPPUS testifieth in DIOGENES: so ROBERT GREENE died by a surfeit
taken of pickled herrings and Rhenish wine; as witnesseth THOMAS NASH,
who was at the fatal banquet.
As JODELLE, a French tragical poet, being an epicure and an atheist, made
a pitiful end: so our tragical poet MARLOW, for his Epicurism and Atheism,
had a tragical death; as you may read of this MARLOW more at large, in the
_Theatre of GOD's judgments_, in the 25th chapter, entreating of _Epicures
and Atheists_.
As the poet LYCOPHRON was shot to death by a certain rival of his: so
CHRISTOPHER MARLOW was stabbed to death by a baudy Servingman, a rival of
his, in his lewd love.
_PAINTERS_.
APELLES painted a mare and a dog so lively [_lifelike_], that horses and
dogs passing by would neigh and bark at them. He grew so famous for his
excellent art, that great ALEXANDER came often to his shop to visit him,
and commanded that none other should paint him. At his death, he left
VENUS unfinished; neither was any [one] ever found, that durst perfect
what he had begun.
ZEUXIS was so excellent in painting, that it was easier for any man to
view his pictures than to imitate them; who, to make an excellent table
[_picture_], had five Agrigentine virgins naked by him. He painted grapes
so lively, that birds did fly to eat them.
PARRHASIUS painted a sheet [_curtain_] so artificially, that ZEUXIS took
it for a sheet indeed; and commanded it to be taken away, to see the
picture that he thought it had veiled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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