In the height of his glory Nash was never ashamed of receiving adulation.  He was as fond of flattery as Le Grand Monarque—­and he paid for it too—­whether it came from a prince or a chair-man.  Every day brought him some fresh meed of praise in prose or verse, and Nash was always delighted.

But his sun was to set in time.  His fortune went when gaming was put down, for he had no other means of subsistence.  Yet he lived on:  he had not the good sense to die; and he reached the patriarchal age of eighty-seven.  In his old age he was not only garrulous, but bragging:  he told stories of his exploits, in which he, Mr. Richard Nash, came out as the first swordsman, swimmer, leaper, and what not.  But by this time people began to doubt Mr. Richard Nash’s long-bow, and the yarns he spun were listened to with impatience.  He grew rude and testy in his old age; suspected Quin, the actor, who was living at Bath, of an intention to supplant him; made coarse, impertinent repartees to the visitors at that city, and in general raised up a dislike to himself.  Yet, as other monarchs have had their eulogists in sober mind, Nash had his in one of the most depraved; and Anstey, the low-minded author of ’The New Bath Guide,’ panegyrized him a short time after his death in the following verses:—­

    ’Yet here no confusion—­no tumult is known;
     Fair order and beauty establish their throne;
     For order, and beauty, and just regulation,
     Support all the works of this ample creation. 
     For this, in compassion to mortals below,
     The gods, their peculiar favour to show,
     Sent Hermes to Bath in the shape of a beau: 
     That grandson of Atlas came down from above
     To bless all the regions of pleasure and love;
     To lead the fair nymph thro’ the various maze,
     Bright beauty to marshal, his glory and praise;
     To govern, improve, and adorn the gay scene,
     By the Graces instructed, and Cyprian queen: 
     As when in a garden delightful and gay,
     Where Flora is wont all her charms to display,
     The sweet hyacinthus with pleasure we view,
     Contend with narcissus in delicate hue;
     The gard’ner, industrious, trims out his border,
     Puts each odoriferous plant in its order;
     The myrtle he ranges, the rose and the lily,
     With iris, and crocus, and daffa-down-dilly;
     Sweet peas and sweet oranges all he disposes,
     At once to regale both your eyes and your noses. 
     Long reign’d the great Nash, this omnipotent lord,
     Respected by youth, and by parents ador’d;
     For him not enough at a ball to preside,
     The unwary and beautiful nymph would he guide;
     Oft tell her a tale, how the credulous maid
     By man, by perfidious man, is betrayed: 
     Taught Charity’s hand to relieve the distrest,
     While tears have his tender compassion exprest;