His ideas regarding the art of novel writing are very liberal, and he accepts as belonging to literature many specimens we should sternly reject. The one point to remember, however, is that he does not accept them all; he draws the line somewhere, and in that age when the novel was in its infancy, there was merit in doing even no more than this. He is very hard upon the old mediaeval romances, which it is true he seems to have known only through the abridged and degenerate texts circulated in his time, for the amusement of idle readers. He readily endorses the moral views of Ascham about them, adding however, what is more interesting for us, some literary criticism: "What els I pray you, doe these bable booke-mungers endevor but to repaire the ruinous wals of Venus court, to restore to the worlde that forgotten legendary licence of lying, to imitate a fresh the fantasticall dreames of those exiled Abbie-lubbers [_i.e._, the monks] from whose idle pens proceeded those worne out impressions of the feigned no where acts of Arthur of the rounde table, Arthur of litle Brittaine, Sir Tristram, Hewon of Burdeaux, the Squire of low degree, the four sons of Amon, with infinite others.... Who is it that reding Bevis of Hampton, can forbeare laughing, if he marke what scambling shyft he makes to end his verses a like? I will propound three or foure payre by the way for the readers recreation: The porter said: By my snout, It was Sir Bevis that I let out."[273] Every reader will agree with Nash, I suppose, in condemning this as balderdash. Endowed thus with artistic theories of his own, with an intense love of literature, with an inborn gaiety and faculty of observation, Nash added to the collection of novels of the Shakespearean era, not another Bevis of Hampton, but his "Jack Wilton,"[274] the best specimen of the picaresque tale in English literature anterior to Defoe. His romance, written in the form of memoirs, according to the usual rule of the picaresque, is dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, under whose patronage Shakespeare had already placed his "Venus and Adonis." It has the defect of all the romances of the time, in England as elsewhere: it is incoherent and badly put together. But it contains excellent fragments, two or three capital portraits of individuals which show careful observation, and a few solidly constructed scenes like the vengeance of Cutwolfe which allow us to foresee that one day the dramatic power of the English genius, worn out doubtless by a too long career on the stage, instead of dying altogether, will be revived in the novel.