as deeply engaged in a controversy with Walter Travers,[20]--a friend
and favourite of Mr. Cartwright's--as the Bishop had ever been with
Mr. Cartwright himself, and of which I shall proceed to give this
following account.

[Sidenote: The new generation]

[Sidenote: Thomas Nashe]

And first this; that though the pens of Mr. Cartwright and the Bishop
were now at rest, yet there was sprung up a new generation of restless
men, that by company and clamours became possessed of a faith, which
they ought to have kept to themselves, but could not: men that
were become positive in asserting, "That a papist cannot be saved:"
insomuch, that about this time, at the execution of the Queen of
Scots, the Bishop that preached her Funeral Sermon--which was Dr.
Howland,[21] then Bishop of Peterborough--was reviled for not being
positive for her damnation. And besides this boldness of their
becoming Gods, so far as to set limits to His mercies, there was
not only one Martin Mar-Prelate,[22] but other venomous books daily
printed and dispersed; books that were so absurd and scurrilous, that
the graver Divines disdained them an answer. And yet these were grown
into high esteem with the common people, till Tom Nash[23] appeared
against them all, who was a man of a sharp wit, and the master of
a scoffing, satirical, merry pen, which he employed to discover
the absurdities of those blind, malicious, senseless pamphlets, and
sermons as senseless as they; Nash's answers being like his books,
which bore these, or like titles: "An Almond for a Parrot;" "A Fig for
my Godson;" "Come crack me this nut," and the like; so that this
merry wit made some sport, and such a discovery of their absurdities,