The youngest brother, John Harvey, who practised medicine at King's Lynn from 1587, in which year he graduated as M.D. at Cambridge, till his death in 1592, inscribed in 1583 to his very good and courteous friend, Thomas Meade, whose daughter he married, "Leap year, a compendious Prognostication for 1584." Also, " An Addition to the late Discourse upon the Great Conjunction of Saturne and Jupiter. Whereunto is adjoyned The learned Worke of Hermes Trismegistus, Intituled Iatromathematica, that is, his Phisical Mathmatiques, or Mathematical Phisickes, directed unto Ammon the Ægyptian. A Booke of especial great use for al Studentes in Astrologie and Phisicke. Lately englished by John Harvey, at the request of M. Charles P." Richard Harvey published, in the same year 1583, an Astrological Addition to the late Discourse upon the Great Conjunction of Saturne and Jupiter," also a piece, of which there is a copy in the Library of the University of Edinburgh, "Ricardi Harveii Ephemeron, Sive Paan in Gratiam perpurgate reformataque Dialectica," dedicated to Robert Earl of Essex, and printed by Robert Waldegrave. On the two last leaves of this pamphlet is a Latin poem, "Alfordı Elegia Philosophica Prudentiæ nomine insignita." In the year 1587, when he began practice of medicine in Norfolk, John Harvey dated from King's Lynn, and published in 1588 a pamphlet that condemned rash prophecy. This was "A Discoursive Probleme concerning Prophesies how far they are to be valued or credited according to the surest rules and directions in Divinitie, Philosophie, Astrologie and other learning: Devised especially in abatement of the terrible threatenings and menaces peremptorily denounced against the kingdoms and states of the world, this present famous yeere 1588, supposed the Great wonderfull and Fatall yeere of an age. By I. H. Physitian." The First Part of this pamphlet is against supposed oracles, pretended prophecies, counterfeit predictions, fabulous traditions, forged devices, counterfeit tales, which have superseded testimonies and judgments grounded upon lawful art and improved by experience. The Second Part examines and rejects a special prophecy for 1588. Thus, of the three brothers, Gabriel Harvey had little or no faith in astrology, and sought to dissuade his credulous brother Richard from its study; Richard was a credulous believer; John a believer, but not credulous. Thomas as neuer In 1591 Thomas Nash caricatured the prophet-astrologers, without any direct reference to Richard Harvey or to any other of their number, in "A Wonderfull strange and miraculous Astrologicall Prognosti- Nash cation for this yeer of our Lord God 1591. Discovering such wonders to happen this yeere chaunced since Noes floud. Wherein if there be found one lye, the Author will loose his credit for euer. By Adam Fouleweather, Student in Asse-tronomy." Nash may have written also against Martin Marprelate an undated pamphlet called "An Almond for a Parrot" (that is, the parrot-cry stopped with a nut to crack). Or was it by Lyly? Richard "Lamb of God.' In 1590 Richard Harvey published the book that gave rise to the Nash and Harvey controversy. It was especially directed against the violence of the pamphlets written on both sides in the Martin Marprelate Harvey's controversy.* It was dedicated to the Earl of Essex as " A Theologicall discourse of the Lamb of God and his enemies. Containing a brief commentary of Christian faith, together with a detection of old and new Barbarisme, now called Martinisme." Richard Harvey seems, like his brother Gabriel, to have followed in religion the queen's Via Media, with friendly eyes upon the sidepath of the Puritans. In the preface to "The Lamb of God," Richard Harvey, in condemning the unseemly *E. W." ix. 292-310. language both of the Marprelate pamphlets and of the players' pamphlets written against them, was of one mind therein with Francis Bacon.* But he used language that gave new offence to Nash, Lyly, and Greene. "Not me alone," says Nash,† "did he revile and dare to the combat, but glicked at Pap-hatchet once more, and mistermed all our other poets and writers about London, piperly makeplays and make-bates." "Plaine Percevall." Richard Harvey was credited—no doubt rightly—by Nash with the authorship of an undated contribution to the Marprelate controversy that appeared under the title of "Plaine Percevall, the Peace-maker of England, sweetly indevoring with his blunt persuasions to botch vp a Reconciliation between Mar-ton and Mar-tother." The dedication was "To the new vpstart Martin. To all Whip Iohns and Whip Iackes; not forgetting the Caualiero Pasquill" [Nash] " or the Cooke Ruffian, that drest a dish for Martin's diet" [Lyly and his "Pap with a Hatchet"]. : "Perceuall the PeaceMaker of England wisheth grace to the one party, of the other Parish and peace stichd up in a gaberdine without pleat or wrinckle, to the other party of this Parish." The argument of the text to Martin's opposing pamphleteers might be summed up in one or two of its phrases: "I do not think, though Martin and you be of divers Parishes, but you be all of one Church, sail all in one ship, and dwell all in one Commonwealth. Nay, you are all good subjects, or else I would the worst were curbed with a check-thong as big as a twopenny halter, for halting with a Queen so good and gracious." And again, to the question, "If Martin snarl like a cur at us, why should not we provide a bastinado for him?" Plain Percevall answered, "Marry, sirs, for fear the "E. W." ix. 308-310. In "Foure Letters Confuted," Works ed. Grosart, Vol. II., p. 197. cudgel fall down again on a man's own costard. If a swiftrunning stream have free passage along the kennel, farewell it, you shall never hear worse of it; but stop it, and Hercules-like where it finds no way it will make one, and so set the next neighbour's meadows all on a float." Nash writes, therefore, to Gabriel Harvey :* "Somewhat I am privy to the cause of Greene's inveighing against the three brothers. Thy hot-spirited brother Richard (a notable ruffian with his pen) having first tooke upon him in his blundring Persival to play the Iacke of both sides twixt Martin and vs, and snarld priuily at Pap-hatchett, Pasquill, and others that opposde themselues against the open slaunder of that mightie platforme of Atheisme, presently after dribbed forth another fooles bolte, a booke I shoulde say which he christened the Lambe of God." I have not seen a copy of this book, and must take Nash's report, already quoted, of the passage that affronted the players. "Hence," says Nash, "Greene being chiefe agent for the companie (for hee writ more than foure other, how well I will not say but Sat cito, si sat bene) tooke occasion to canuaze him a little in his 'Cloth-breeches and Veluet-breeches,' and because by some probable conjectures hee gest the elder brothers hand was in it, he coupled them both in one yoake, and, to fulfill the proverbe Tria sunt omnia, thrust in the third brother, who made a perfect parriall of Pamphleters. About some seaven or eight lines it was which hath pluckt on an invective of so many leaves." Richard God." The invective of so many leaves was Gabriel Harvey's "Fovre Letters, and certaine Sonnets: Especially touching Robert Greene and other parties by him abused: But incidently of diuers excellent persons, and some matters of note. To all courteous mindes that will voutchsafe the reading." London: Imprinted by Iohn Wolfe, 1592. * "Four Letters Confuted," Works, vol. ii. p. 196. The last of these Four Letters was dated "London: this 11. and 12. of September." Greene had died on the Gabriel Harvey's "Four Letters and third of that month, and Gabriel Harvey's muchloved youngest brother John, whose memory he cared most to save from reproach, had died only a few weeks earlier. Dr. John Harvey returned sick from Cambridge to his home at East Lynn in the preceding July, 1592. The first of the Four Letters, dated the twenty-ninth of August, 1592, is from Christopher Bird of Saffron Walden, with recommendation of Gabriel Harvey to the worshipful his very good friend M. Emmanuel Demetrius. There is a postscript by Mr. Bird introducing a sonnet of his own against Robert Greene-" now sick as a dog, and ever brainsick "-who in his "Quip for an Upstart Courtier "most spitefully and villanously abuseth an auncient neighbour of mine, one M. Harvey, a right honest man of good reckoninge; and one that above twenty yeres since bare the chiefest office in Walden with good credite: and hath maintained foure sonnes, in Cambridge and elsewhere, with great charge: all sufficiently able to aunsweare for themselves; and three, (in spite of some few Greenes) vniversally well reputed in both Vniuersities and through the whole Realme. Whereof one returning sicke from Norwich to Linne in Iuly last, was past sence of any such malicious injury, before the publication of that vile Pamphlet." The Second Letter, dated the fifth of September, from Gabriel Harvey to Christopher Bird, reports that "in the absence of M. Demetrius I delivered your letter vnto his wife, whome I found very courteous. My next business was to enquire after the famous Author: who was reported to lye dangerously sicke in a shoemaker's house near Dowgate." Harvey, who had intended to seek remedy by law, gives Greene no credit for the desire he had to cancel the offending lines from his "Quip for an Upstart Courtier." "In his extremest want he offered ten or, rather than faile, |