The word “quality,” in “excellent in the quality he professes,” is by the fantastically inclined, made to yield a convenient connotation, but in the ordinary and contextural meaning of the word, may embrace all that makes or helps to make any person such as he is. Are these words of Chettle written in 1592 when the theatre was lying under a social ban, and the actor was still a social outcast, identifiable with a vagabond at law, or with Thomas Nash, who took his bachelor’s degree at Cambridge in 1585? “In the autumn of 1592, Nash was the guest of Archbishop Whitgift at Crogdon, whither the household had retired for fear of the plague, and, as the official antagonist of Martin Marprelate was constrained to keep up such a character as would enable divers of worship to report his uprightness of dealing,” he certainly was entitled to commendation for his “factitious grace in writing.” The appropriation of the complimentary remarks of Chettle on Nash, or any one of the three playmakers addressed, to Shakspere, who was not one of those addressed, and therefore, could not have been the recipient of Chettle’s apology, so called, is one of the fancies in which critics of the highest reputation have indulged. There is nothing equal to this in all the annals of literature, unless it be “Cicero’s famous letter to Lucretius, in which he asks the historian to lie a little in his favor in recording the events of his consulship, for the sake of making him a greater man.” Chettle lost no time in transcribing the posthumous letter. Doubts as to “Groats Worth of Wit” were entertained at the time of publication. Some suspected Nash to have had a hand in the authorship, others accused Chettle. Nash did take offense at the report that it was his. Its publication caused much excitement and the rumor went abroad that the pamphlet was a forgery. “Other news I am advised of,” writes Nash, in an epistle prefixed to the second edition of “Pierce-penniless,” “that a scald, trivial, lying pamphlet called ‘Greene’s Groats Worth of Wit’ is given out to be of my doing. God never have care of my soul, but utterly renounce me, if the least word or syllable in it proceeded from my pen, or if I were any way privy to the writing or printing of it.” We regard these words confirmatory of the fact that “Groats Worth of Wit” is not a work of unquestioned authenticity, and, furthermore, that Nash did not believe it the work of Robert Greene. _Prima facie_, it is spurious, for Nash spoke in high praise of Greene’s writings. He neither would, nor could, have used the words “scald, trivial, lying” of a genuine work of Robert Greene, whose writings were held in high favor by all classes. Nash could not have taken offense at the allusion of Greene, which was rather complimental, though personal, and not intended for publication; but it did, however, contain some slight mixture of censure,—“Sweet boy, might I advise thee, get not many enimies by bitter words.