pointed a collector of subscriptions or canvasser for the Societas Evangelica, a society for the maintenance of itinerant preachers; but he soon embroiled himself with the committee by publishing an attack on the well-known Dr. William Romaine [q.v.] It was entitled 'Gideon's Cake of Barley Meal, a letter to the Rev. William Romaine on his Preaching for the Emigrant Popish Clergy, with some Strictures on Mrs. Hannah More's Remarks, published for their Benefit, 1793,' London, 1793. A second edition of the same year contains 'another letter sent to Mr. Romaine prior to this, and sundry notes and remarks, wherein all the objections and replies of opponents that have come to the author's knowledge, are fully answered.' 'The Barley Cake defended from the Foxes . . . addressed to the editors of the "Evangelical Magazine,"' appeared a few months later. It seems that Nash was also secretary of the Society for the Promotion of the French Protestant Bible, and in that capacity called on Romaine in November 1792, and railed to induce him to preach on behalf of the society. But he found shortly after that Romaine had preached in his own church, and made a collection on behalf of the French catholic refugees.
The committee of the Societas Evangelica, disapproving of Nash's attacks, dismissed him on 17 Jan. 1794. Subsequently one of the committee, a Mr. Parker, 'of the Mews,' denounced Nash in 'A Charitable Morsel of Unleavened Bread for the Author of . . . Gideon's Cake of Barley Meal,' 1793, and Nash retaliated in 'An Answer . . . proving that Pamphlet to be a Beast with Seven Heads, and Thirty Horns or Falsehoods,' London, 1793, and in 'The Windmill Overturned by the Barley Cake . . . with a Faithful Narrative of the Dark Transactions of a Religious Society called Societas Evangelica,' London, 1794. On page 19 Nash claims to be extremely loyal, and to have sent through Lord Salisbury to the king expressions of loyalty in a manuscript which he himself valued at fifty guineas, and which was graciously received. Nash's strong protestant sympathies are revealed in his latest extant tract, 'The Ignis Fatuus or Will o' the Wisp at Providence Chapel Detected and Exposed, with a Seasonable Caution to his infatuated Admirers to avoid the Bogs of his Ambiguous Watch Word and Lying Warning,' London, 1798, an attack on William Huntington [q.v.] Other tracts by Nash of the same kind are extant.
[Cadogan's Life of William Romaine in Works, Vol vii.; Nash's Tracts ut supra; Evangelical Magazine, 1793, i. 85, contains a short review of Gideon's Cake of Barley Meal; Reuss's Alphabetical Register; Watt's Bibl. Brit; Westby-Gibson's Bibl. of Shorthand.]
NASH, RICHARD, Beau Nash (1674–1762), born at Swansea on 18 Oct. 1674, was the son of Richard Nash, a native of Pembroke, who, as partner in a glass-house at Swansea, had earned the means of giving his son an excellent education. It was commonly stated, by Dr. Cheyne among others, that Nash had no father, and the Duchess of Marlborough once twitted him with the obscurity of his birth; but Nash rejoined with characteristic felicity, 'Madam, I seldom mention my father in company, not because I have any reason to be ashamed of him, but because he has some reason to be ashamed of me.' The 'Beau's' mother was niece to Colonel John Poyer [q.v.]
After some years spent at Carmarthen grammar school Nash matriculated from Jesus College, Oxford, on 19 March 1691-2; but he left the university without a degree. His father next purchased him a pair of colours in the army, and Nash dressed the part, says Goldsmith, 'to the very edge of his finances;' but he soon found that 'the profession of arms required attendance and duty, and often encroached upon those hours he could have wished to dedicate to softer purposes.' He accordingly reverted to the law, for which profession he had originally been intended, and entered as a student of the Inner Temple in 1693. There he distinguished himself by his good manners, by his taste in dress, and by leading so gay a life without visible means of support that his most intimate friends suspected him of being a highwayman. He was selected by the students of the Middle Temple to superintend the pageant which they exhibited before William III in 1695, and displayed so much skill in the matter that William offered to knight him. Nash, however, evaded the honour by the remark, 'If your majesty is pleased to make me a knight, I wish it may be one of your poor knights at Windsor, for then I shall have a fortune at least able to support my title.' He is said to have been offered a knighthood subsequently by Queen Anne, but refused to receive the distinction, simultaneously with Sir William Read [q.v.], the empirical oculist. Between 1695 and 1705 he must have been reduced to strange expedients in quest of a livelihood. A favourite resource was the acceptance of extravagant wagers, such as that he would ride through a village on cowback naked. On one occasion he won fifty guineas by standing at the great door of York Minster as the congregation came out, clad only in a blanket. To
