“ HARVEY, GABRIEL (c. 1545–1630) , English writer, eldest son of a ropemaker of Saffron-Walden, Essex, was born about 1545. He matriculated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1566, and in 1570 was elected fellow of Pembroke Hall. Here he formed a lasting friendship with Edmund Spenser, and it has been suggested (Athen. Cantab., ii. 258) that he may have been the poet’s tutor. Harvey was a scholar of considerable weight, who has perhaps been judged too exclusively from the brilliant invectives directed against him by Thomas Nashe. ”

“ Needes to thy bowes will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto”—
afford a fair sample of the success of Harvey’s metrical experiments, which presented a fair mark for the wit of Thomas Nashe. “He (Harvey) goes twitching and hopping in our language like a man running upon quagmires, up the hill in one syllable, and down the dale in another,” says Nashe in Strange Newes, and he mimics him in the mocking couplet:
“But eh! ”

“ In 1585 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford, and is found practising at the bar in London. Gabriel's brother, Richard, had taken part in the Marprelate controversy, and had given offence to Robert Greene by contemptuous references to him and his fellow wits. ”