Mr. Nash was born at Swansea, in the county of Glamorgan, the 18th of October, 1674; his father having been long resident in that place, and possessed of a handsome income, chiefly derived from a glass-manufactory there. On his mother's side his descent was more respectable, she being the neice of Col. Poyer, who was executed by Oliver Cromwell, for defending valiantly the castle of Pembroke, on behalf of the unfortunate Charles the First. In the school of Carmarthen, a town that was then, and is now, the metropolis of South Wales, the central point of its science and literature, Mr. Nash received the elements of education, and a competent share of classical knowledge, which he was sent to the university of Oxford to improve at the early age of sixteen. Here he entered at Jesus College, with a wish on the part of his friends, and his own intention, to pursue the study of the law. But he had mistaken his turn; the dry code of civil jurisprudence, or the still drier volumes of English common law, the quaintness of Coke, and the dulness of Plowden, were ill-calculated to fix the attention of one whose disposition was naturally gay and volatile, and who was now surrounded by the diversified dissipation of an EngJish university. Nash devoted himself to pleasure instead of institutes and acts of parliament; involv ed himself in an intrigue with a knowing female in the neighbourhood of the university, and was on the eve of sacrificing all his prospects to a very dis. proportioned marriage in point of age and fortune, when his friends discovered the amour, and instantly removed the young inamorato from the sphere of his mistress's attractions. A choice of profession was once more given to Nash, who, thinking that the army offered, beyond any other, opportunities of gaiety, and chances of gallantry, purchased a pair of colours, and became a soldier. But he soon found that he had pleased himself with ideal delights; his rank did not lift him above subordination, and the duties and attendance attached to an ensign's commission became quickly insupportable to a man who had long pursued his pleasures without restraint, and deviated from regularity and order without reproach. He therefore quitted the army in disgust, returned to the discarded law, and entered himself a student of the Middle-Temple. He now became a town fine gentleman of the second rate; a sort of Wil Honeycomb; dressing tawdrily; affecting publick places; and dividing his time between play and the ladies. Sufficiently notorious in the confined sphere of private life, Nash shortly after became a public character by the following circumstance: at the time of William's accession to the throne, our hero was a member of the Temple, where he had acquired the credit of wit, gallantry, and elegance. A custom, sanctioned by very high antiquity, rendered it necessary for this society to entertain the new monarch with a revel and a pageant on this occasion; but the direction of these was a matter of importance, and not to be entrusted to a common hand. Nash's fame for taste and gaiety rendered him the fittest person for the office of high-priest on the occasion; the Templars, therefore, fixed upon him for the purpose, and their choice was sufficiently justified by the revel being conducted in such a manner as gave the utmost satisfaction to the king and his attendants. William, indeed, offered to knight Nash on the occasion, but our hero, who seems to have had sense enough to despise the unsubstantial mockery of a title without the palpable comfort of a good income attached to it, declined the intended honour. In the year 1704 Nash went down to Bath, which was just then beginning to be a place of fashionable resort; and a vacancy happening about the same time in the office of Master of the Ceremonies, by the loss of Captain Webster, the well-known talent of Nash for the invention of amusement, and the promotion of dissipation, became a powerful recommendation to his succeeding to the important situation of Arbiter Elegantiarum. He was accordingly elected; and invested with the fullest power to order, arrange, correct, and improve, the manners of the company, the routine of amusements, and the points of etiquette. Uncontrolled as was the authority thus delegated to him, it must be confessed he deserves great credit in having exercised it entirely for the public good. Under his auspices, Bath quickly emerged from that obscurity in which it had been hidden for ages, to splendor, elegance, and taste. The old roads to it were repaired and improved, and new approaches made; public charities were instituted; places of amusement constructed; the pumps and baths furnished with new accommodations; and the motley crew of visitors which met together at the place of general resort, was reduced to order and propriety of conduct. Under his equal administration no rank could shield the criminal from punishment, if the code of laws established by Nash had been infringed; and no dignity of situation influence him to allow a breach or temporary suspension of them. When the Duchess of Queensbury appeared at the dress-ball in an apron, he deliberately desired her to take it off, and threw it to the attendants who were standing behind; and when the Princess Amelia applied to him for one more dance after eleven o'clock, he refused, assuring her that the laws of Bath were, like those of Lycurgus, unalterable. The influence which this firmness in his government gave him in the little world of Bath, was unbounded, and Nash took care to preserve and increase it by a considerable affectation of splendour in his dress and equipage; aware that external appearance has a powerful and visible effect on the largest part of mankind, the weak and the vain, and that the wise and the good are not entirely insensible to it, though in an inferior degree. Consistently with this just view of human nature, his house was richly furnished; his chariot was drawn by six grey horses, several persons on horseback and on foot attending the carriage, bearing French-horns and other instruments of music; his clothes were profusely decorated with lace, and his head crowned with a large white hat, cocked up in a fierce and singular manner. This was the meridian of Nash's glory. The Prince of Wales, and the Prince of Orange, gave him marks of their esteem; the nobility at Bath flattered him with their familiarity; the gentry treated him with respect; and the corporation always consulted him in every public step in which they engaged; a sum of money was voted by the chamber for the purpose of erecting a marble statue of the King of Bath, which, when finished, found an honourable station in the pump-room, between the busts of Newton and Pope.* The latter of these respectable names is discovered amongst the number of Mr. Nash's friends, and it argues no little regard for the beau on the part of the poet, that Pope condescended to write, at Nash's desire, an inscription for the obelisk in *The keen wit of Lord Chesterfield could not pass over this happy opportunity of ridiculing so absurd an association. He wrote an epigram on the subject, which concludes with these lines: "The statue placed the busts between, Wisdom and wit are little seen, Queen-square, erected by him in commemoration of the Prince of Wales's visit to Bath. Some little disinclination was expressed, indeed, at first by the bard to the task, as will appear by the letter next ensuing; but the one which succeeds it also shews that his friendship at length got the better of his fastidiousness. "SIR,-I have received your's, and thank your partiality in my favour. You say words cannot express the gratitude you feel for the favour of his R.H. and yet you would have me express what you feel, and in a few words. I own myself unequal to the task; for even granting it possible to express an inexpressible idea, I am the worst person you could have pitched upon for this purpose, who have received so few favours from the great myself, that I am utterly unacquainted with what kind of thanks they like best. Whether the P- most loves poetry or prose, I protest I do not know; but this I dare venture to affirm, that you can give him as much satisfaction in either as I can. "I am, sir, your affectionate servant, A. POPE." Dear sir, your affectionate servant, The inscription betrays no marks of the fancy that inspired the author of the Rape of the Lock. It as follows: |