largely concentrated on the sensuous effect of combining 
different voices rather than on the sentiments of the text or 
indeed on emotional expression at all.”

The oral polyphony of the prose of Nashe offends against lineal 
and literary decorum.

*     This sensuous relish for the complex interplay of 
qualities persists in the sixteenth century even in language 
intended for the printed page. And James Sutherland in On  
English Prose  (p. 49) mistakes this polyphony in Nashe for a 
failure to be a sensible man of letters: “The trouble with Nashe 
is partly that he is a good deal less interested in making things 
easy for the reader than in enjoying his own superiority over 
him; or, if that seems too harsh a judgment, in exploiting the 
linguistic resources of the language for his own amusement.”