The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Harvey, Gabriel
1545?–1630?, English author. He studied at Cambridge and became a fellow of Pembroke Hall. There he became friends with Edmund Spenser, who later celebrated Harvey as Hobbinol in The Shepherd’s Calendar. In 1578, Harvey became a fellow of Trinity Hall and began the study of law, but the publication of some satirical verses in 1579 involved him in considerable trouble with the authorities, and his appointment as master was recalled. The publication of the Four Letters (1592), a scurrilous post-mortem attack on Robert Greene, involved Harvey in the heated Martin Marprelate controversy, which was terminated in 1599 by the intervention of the government. Much of Harvey’s Martinist writings contained personal rebuffs, particularly to Thomas Nashe, who had described Harvey as an arrogant, tactless misfit.
