Representative English Comedies, v. 1. From the beginnings to Shakespeare

by Unknown

CRITICAL ESSAY

Life.[1137]—Robert Greene was born in Norwich of estimable parents, and "in his non-age" sent there to school. He was entered November 15, 1575, at St. John's, Cambridge. According to his Short Discourse, he was even then "in his first yeares." We may, therefore, date his birth about 1560. At the university he "light amongst wags" as lewd as himself, and was by them drawn, probably after he had taken his B.A., 1578, "to travell into Italy and Spaine," where he "practizde such villainie as is abhominable to declare." After his return (probably before Part I. of his Mamillia was entered for printing, October 3, 1580,—certainly by March 20, 1581, when his ballad of Youthe[1138] was registered), he "ruffeled out in silks" posing as "malcontent"; but having in 1583,[1139] "by degrees proceeded M.A.," he betook himself to London, where as "Author of Playes and penner of Love Pamphlets" none soon was better known "than Robin Greene." Perhaps he was in Cambridge, September 6, 1583, when the Second Part of Mamillia was registered, for it is dated "from my Studie in Clare hall." Till about August 13, 1584, he was writing similar tales; and, despite a dissolute habit, he maintained favour with some of honourable calling. His Planetomachia appeared in 1585; an edition of his Morando[1140] is licensed during the next year. Between 1584 and 1586 he visited his former home, made a fleeting effort at reform, married a "proper young woman" of Lincolnshire,[1141] had a son by her, "cast her off," and returned to London. Here he gave himself "wholly to the penning of plaies," which with "other trifling pamphlets" were henceforth his "chiefest stay of living." Both kinds brought him popularity and envy.[1142] In July, 1588, he was incorporated M.A. at Oxford. In February, 1589, this "arch play-making poet" steps forth in the rôle of patriot with his Spanish Masquerado; soon after with his Mourning Garment (S. R. November 2, 1590) in that of moralist. The didactic note had been already struck in The Royal Exchange, early in 1590, and the penitential in the Farewell to Follie (S. R. 1587; pub. 1591); but both prevail in Never Too Late,[1143] 1590. The disposition to serve the Commonwealth is further displayed in his series for the exposure of "coosnage," 1591-92. Whatever else he had written he now counts for "apples of Sodom." In July, 1592, he[1144] "canvazed" the brothers Harvey in his Quip for an Upstart Courtier, but of this we have only the eviscerated remains. Soon afterward he indulged in that memorable surfeit of pickled herring and Rhenish wine. The ensuing sickness at the shoemaker's in Dowgate,—Greene's friendless lot, "lousie circumstance," mistresse,[1145] bastard, and corpse,—Gabriel Harvey[1146] has embalmed with the foul peculiar juices of his spite. Those last weeks Greene spent writing his Groatsworth of Wit which is partly, and his Repentance which is wholly, autobiographical, to dissuade men from a like "carelesse course of life." He sent back their son to his wife; and the night of his death received "commendations" from her "whereat he greatly rejoiced," and wrote a pathetic farewell. That was September 3, 1592. Mrs. Isam, his hostess, garlanded the dead poet with bays; and he was laid in the New Churchyard, near Bedlam.

Misapprehensions concerning Greene.—On the title-page of Planetomachia, 1585, Greene subscribes himself "Student in Phisicke"; and from this it has been inferred by most of his biographers that he was then studying medicine. But for Greene, as for Chaucer and Gower, whom he diligently perused, 'phisicke' sometimes meant natural philosophy,[1147] and always included a grounding in 'astronomie.'[1148] The word is here used with reference to the 'magic natural' of his subject,—the book being a narrative dispute of astrological influences.

According to popular assertion, substantiated by the arguments of Dyce, Fleay, Grosart, and others, Greene was at one period a parson. Careful investigation convinces me that this assertion is untrue. Our dramatist cannot have been the Robert Greene who, as unus Capellanorum nostrorum Capellæ nostræ Regiæ, was in 1576 presented by Elizabeth to the rectory of Walkington in Yorkshire; for at that time he was but a freshman at Cambridge. Nor can he[1149] have been the Robert Greene who from June 19, 1584, to February 17, 1586, was Vicar of Tollesbury in Essex; because according to his own story,[1150] that period was covered by other events: to wit, the conviction of sin in St. Andrew's at Norwich (while he was yet "newly come from Italy," end of 1584 or beginning of 1585), a "motion" which vastly amused his "copesmates," but lasted "no longer than the present time"; the relapse; the marriage "soon after to a gentleman's daughter" (sometime in 1585); the brief sequel of "wickedness" during which he "spent up" his wife's marriage-money; the "casting off" of the wife; and the return to play-writing in London. This last, six years before his death; therefore in 1586. Such manner of life is not that of the Vicar of Tollesbury; nor is the recital that of Greene if he ever was vicar of anything.

Mr. Fleay[1151] attempts to identify Greene, as Robert the parson, with one Robert Persj or Rupert Persten of Leicester's troupe acting between December, 1585, and July, 1587, on the Continent. There is, however, no proof that Greene was with these "instrumentalists and acrobats"; nor is the name Persj or Persten, as it appears in the Danish and Saxon records, either the English name Parson or a translation of the calling of parson into Danish or German. Actor King became Koning and Konigk, and actor Pope, Pape and Pabst,—but Persj, Percy, Persten, or Preston was untranslatable. Indeed, if the argument proves anything, it proves too much. For if Mr. Fleay's Persten (or as he coerces it, Priester) is Greene, Vicar of Tollesbury, this Vicar must have been acting abroad three months of the period during which he was preaching at home;—a dual activity terminated, moreover, not by the vestry of Tollesbury, which would appear to have enjoyed this unusual programme, or by the bishop, but by the Vicar himself, whose resignation is recorded as "free and spontaneous."[1152]

It is certainly safer to accept Greene's own story and the publishers' records, which, taken together, show that his marital estate was a debauch with rare intervals of business activity. During this period Arbasto and the enlarged Morando were registered and Planetomachia was printed.

A writer of Greene's self-exhibitive temper would not have hesitated, and one of his didactic tendency could not have failed, to present the world with an account of an episode which, if it existed, was the most sensational of his moral experiences. But in none of his writings, autobiographical, or quasi-autobiographical, does Greene give even remote intimation of taking orders. On the contrary he speaks as a layman, and a very wicked layman, too; as one who from infancy was bred in sin, and who held aloof from God's ministers. So far was he from the possibility of orders that when, in his youth, "once and yet but once" he "sorrowed for his wickedness of life," his comrades could conceive of no huger joke in the world than to wish that he "might have a pulpit." Roberto of the Groatsworth, "whose life in most part agreed" with his, was never a minister, nor was either of Greene's other understudies, Philador and Francesco. In Greene's Vision, which, whether authentic or not, is contemporaneous, the advice given to our dramatist "Be a devine, my sonne," is dismissed as out of the question, though that consummation were most devoutly to be desired. None of his associates of later years[1153] betrays acquaintance with his ministerial career, not Nashe or Burbye or Dekker or Heywood or Chettle. None of his panegyrists. And of his enemies not even Gabriel Harvey.

We may therefore conclude that the famous passage in Martine Marsixtus which (with a context partly relative to Greene) announces that "every red-nosed minister is an author" does not apply to Greene, but to any "unauthorized author who serves a drunken man's humor," or that the insinuation has reference to some sobriquet born of Greene's paroxysms of pentitence and mourning pamphlets. And, indeed, a nickname may have attached itself to this wayward child of circumstance, as early as that critical period in Norwich when his copesmates called him "Puritane and Presizian ... and other such scoffing tearmes." What more likely than "Parson," since they had gone so far, Greene tells us, as to wish him a pulpit? But if he had a pulpit, what becomes of the joke? and of his own word—"the good lesson went quite out of my remembrance ... I went forward obstinately in my misse"?

As to the manuscript notes in the 1599 copy of The Pinner of Wakefield, the first of which states that Shakespeare said that the play was "written by ... a minister who ac[ted] ye piñers pt in it himself," and the second, in another hand, that Juby said that "ys play was made by Ro. Gree[ne],"—it must be remembered that both attributions are hearsay; that both notes are anonymous; that one or both may be fraudulent; that there is no certain proof that they were written by contemporaries; and finally that, unless their contents are shown to be accurate as well as authentic, and to refer to the same author, they do not connect any Robert Greene with the ministry. Since our Greene's writings show that he was no minister, there is but one hypothesis upon which, assuming the accuracy and relevancy of both these manuscript notes, he can be the person indicated; namely, that the designation, minister, used by Shakespeare, was a nickname. And, conversely, Shakespeare's remark can be credited in its literal significance only if the play was not by our Greene. In the latter event, the attribution of authorship to a minister, taken in connection with Ed. Juby's attribution to a certain Ro. Greene, would denote some parson-playwright to whom no other play has been traced—Robert of Walkington, or Robert of Tollesbury, or some other of this not unusual name. And in that case it would be easy to understand how the name of an obscure author, if mentioned by Shakespeare, should have slipped the memory of the title-page scribe. Internal evidence, as will later be seen, is not conclusive of Greene's authorship; but even if it were, it would not prove that he was a minister.

It may be conceded that, like other Elizabethan dramatists, he assumed a part upon the stage. But that he adopted the calling, or ever stood a chance of enjoying "its damnable excessive gains," is only less improbable than that he was a parson. Dyce's quotation from Harvey to the effect that Greene was "a player" misapprehends the "puissant epitapher" who was merely enumerating the "thousand crotchets" that littered Greene's "wilde head, and hence his stories."[1154] None of his contemporaries hints that Greene was an actor; none regards him in that light. He himself despised the profession.

In respect of his relations with Shakespeare, I cannot but feel that he has been harshly judged. We shall be justified in calling the Shakescene remarks unduly rancorous when it has been ascertained that the "admired inventions" of Greene and of those whom he was addressing in the Groatsworth had not been borrowed by the young actor-playwright; or that Greene should have let himself be plundered without protest by this revamper of plays because the revamper was destined some day to be illustrious, in fact to be the Shakespeare. I have not observed that dramatists et id omne genus, nowadays, offer the cheek with any more Christian grace than characterized Robert Greene.

His Development as a Dramatist: Order of Plays.[1155]—A painstaking investigation of the evidence leads me to conclude that none of the plays assigned to Greene was produced before the end of 1586, or, probably, the beginning of 1587; that their order is as follows: Alphonsus, Looking-Glasse, Orlando, Friar Bacon, James IV.; and that if Selimus and the Pinner are his, they range respectively with Alphonsus and James.

1. The earliest extant exemplar of The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, King of Aragon, by R. G.,[1156] and without motto, "as it hath bene sundrie times acted" was "brinted" by Thomas Creede, London, 1599. The play is generally supposed to have been written in emulation of the Tamburlaine, which was on the stage in 1588,—perhaps, indeed, as early as the end of 1586.[1157] While similarity of diction and conceit might indicate a contemporaneous production, the lines in Alphonsus,—

"Not mighty Tamburlaine,

Nor soldiers trained up amongst the wars,"[1158]

are proof presumptive of the priority of Marlowe's play. Indeed, Dr. Grosart is justified in asserting that "to take Alphonsus without a tacit reference to Tamburlaine is to miss the entire impulse of its writer"; for the dramatist appears to be attempting a burlesque; and the vainglorious claim that he makes for his hero[1159] is a manifest challenge to Marlowe and that bombastic brood. Greene may have been writing the play as early as 1587; he was, at any rate, interested in the hero then, for he mentions him in the Dedication to The Carde of Fancie.[1160] That the Alphonsus was well known in the early spring of 1589 would appear from an allusion in Peele's Farewell,[1161] which couples it with Tamburlaine so closely as further to suggest that it already clung like a burr to its magniloquent predecessor. Whether the series of satiric reprisals in which, between 1588 and 1590, Greene and Nashe indulged at Marlowe's expense,[1162] was stimulated by some counter-burlesque of Alphonsus is uncertain; but that Marlowe shortly before March 29, 1588, had been privy to some public burlesque of a production of Greene's, may reasonably be inferred from Greene's preface to the Perymedes of that date. For there we learn that two "gentlemen poets" had recently caused two actors to make a mockery of his motto Omne tulit punctum, because his verse fell short of the bombast and blasphemy with which Marlowe captivated the vulgar. If it was the verse of the Alphonsus that was derided by these "madmen of Rome," we have here a date before which the play had been both acted and burlesqued. Now, it is interesting to note that our earliest copy of Alphonsus (1599) has neither motto nor colophon. This is strange, for in all other respects the edition is uniform with that of James IV., which had been brought out by the same publisher, Creede, only the year before, with Greene's Omne tulit punctum upon its title-page. In fact, all other plays written by Greene alone, and bearing his name, have a motto of some kind. One may naturally query whether it was to Creede's advantage to dissociate this particular play from some eleven or twelve years' old derision; or, whether he was following, without definite purpose, the policy of some previous edition, now lost, which likewise had omitted the motto.

Be this as it may, there is, in the preface of March 29, 1588, undoubted allusion[1163] to Greene and Lodge's Looking-Glasse, which, as will presently be shown, was written before June, 1587. The Alphonsus must be assigned to a still earlier date, because, in its prologue,[1164] it gives evidence of priority to Greene's other efforts in serious or heroic style. This conclusion is confirmed by an examination of the play. The copious crude employment of mythological lore, the creaking mechanism of the plot, the subordination of vital to spectacular qualities, betray an inexperience not manifest in Greene's other dramatic output. Moreover, in spite of the fact that our edition of Alphonsus appears to preserve the details of the author's holograph, the versification makes a clumsier showing than in the rest of his plays. The lines are frequently rhymed, sometimes within the speeches, but more often in a perfunctory fashion at speech-ends. And, though this practice wanes as the play proceeds, the verses are throughout more frequently endstopped, and the rhythm more mechanical, than in the other dramas. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of the lines have the monotonous cæsura at the end of the second foot; and of the lyric cæsuræ, which should par excellence lend variety to the verse, about eleven-twelfths fall in the middle of the third foot. We may indeed say that in four-fifths of the lines these sources of sameness prevail. Of prose there is no sign. Both in material and style the play is inelastic, only too easily open to attack. That Greene should prefix the Omne tulit punctum of his popular prose romances was natural, but it was also courting the attack of Marlowe, Kyd, or any gentleman-poets derisively inclined.

2. A Looking-Glasse for London and England made by Thomas Lodge, Gentleman, and Robert Greene, in Artibus Magister, is called by Professor Brown the "finest and last" of the plays in which Greene had a hand, and is assigned to a date "after Lodge's return from Cavendish's expedition in 1591." This conjecture may at once be dismissed,[1165] for that expedition did not start till August 26, 1591; none of its ships returned before June 11, 1593; and, by that time, Greene was dead. The play was registered in May, 1594, and our earliest exemplar (Creede) was printed in the same year. Henslowe records the presentation of the play, but not as new, March 8, 1591-92. We have abundant proof of its popularity. Therefore, since only four representations are recorded during the remainder of that season, which lasted till June 22, 1592,[1166] it must have had its run at an earlier date. Spencer's line in The Tears of the Muses, 1591, about the "pleasing Alcon" has been regarded as an allusion to Lodge's authorship of that character in the Looking-Glasse; and with some show of reason, for nearly all the speeches of Alcon are distinctively the work of Lodge.[1167] But an earlier reminiscence of the play may be found in Greene's mention of Ninevie and Jonas in the dedication and epilogue of the Mourning Garment, 1590. Since it appears, moreover, from a passage in Scillaes Metamorphosis, that Lodge had renounced play-writing as early as 1589,[1168] Storojenko and Grosart date the composition of Looking-Glasse between the close of 1588 and the summer of 1589. I am sure that the date was earlier still; for, since the Metamorphosis followed immediately upon Lodge's return from a voyage with Captain Clarke to Tercera and the Canaries, any such playwriting as that of the Looking-Glasse must have been done before the departure of this expedition. According to Mr. Lee,[1169] the Expedition sailed "about 1588." Now the play contains no allusion to the Armada; it is, therefore, antecedently improbable that it was written in 1588 later than the 29th of May. And since a modernized morality of God's wrath impending over London, if written in that year, could not have failed to echo the first mutterings of the Spanish thunderstorm, I am led to fix the composition before June, 1587, when Philip and Sixtus concluded their treaty against England.

The date of first presentation must have been appreciably before March 29, 1588, for a character, the 'priest of the sun,' which figured in the Looking-Glasse, but "in no other early play,"[1170] is mentioned in the introduction to Perymedes, already cited. Here, Greene asserts that even if his verse did not always "jet upon the stage in tragicall buskins," or his "everie worde" blaspheme, he could, an he pleased, fill the mouth "like the fa-burden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heaven with that Atheist Tamburlan"; and, by way of proof, he sets side by side with Tamburlan, the impious ranting of his own "mad preest of the Sonne." The reference is, of course, to the scene in the Looking-Glasse, where the mitred priests of the sun, "carrying fire in their hands," hail Rasni as a "deitie";[1171] and he assumes that the mention of one of the characters will indicate the play,—a justifiable expectation if the play had been before the public for nine or ten months.

Though affected by its moral configuration, the Looking-Glasse is well constructed. In plot, characterization, manners (especially those of low life), in worldly wisdom and fervour, it leaves Alphonsus far behind. The subtler handling of classical adornment and the bubble of the humour would, of themselves, justify us in assigning it to the same period with Orlando and Friar Bacon. The advancing maturity is manifest also in its verse and prose. I do not attribute Greene's improvement in blank verse entirely to Lodge's coöperation; for Lodge's verse in the Civill War, 1587, was not markedly easier than that of the Alphonsus, and his verse in this play[1172] is but a trifle more elastic than in the Civill War. Taking at random fifty-seven of Greene's verses,[1173] I find that some fifty-two avoid the monotone, and, of these, no fewer than twenty-five escape the penthimimeral cæsura as well. In other words, five-sixths of the rhythms are free, and one-half of these skilfully varied. In the prophetic verses the monotone is properly more prevalent. About thirty per cent of Greene's have it. But even there almost half of the 'free' rhythms display artistic handling. Speech-end rhythms are fewer than in Alphonsus; rhyme, indeed, is altogether less in evidence—except in the prophetic rhapsodies. Lodge's lines for Oseas rhyme, however, more than Greene's for Jonas. Not only is the proportion of prose larger than in any other of Greene's plays,—a feature which is, perhaps, due to the fact that each collaborator had his own set of mechanicals to exploit,—but the style of it is more conversational than in any preceding English play.

3. Our earliest impression of Orlando Furioso, One of the Twelve Peeres of France, "as it was playd before the Queenes Maiestie," is published by Burbye, 1594. It had been entered for Danter, December 7, 1593, but was transferred to Burbye on the ensuing May 28. He issued a second edition in 1599.[1174] Greene was accused in 1592[1175] of having sold the play to the Lord Admiral's men while the Queen's company, to which he had previously disposed of it, was "in the country." Now the Queen's men had acted at court for the last time, December 26, 1591; and they did not reappear in London till April, 1593.[1176] But the Admiral's, meanwhile (February, 1592), had entered into a temporary alliance with Lord Strange's,[1177] through Henslowe and Edw. Alleyn; and under the auspices of the latter company almost immediately (February 21) the Orlando was acted in one of Henslowe's theatres.[1178] It was already an old play; and Henslowe records no later performance. During the same period three or four other plays formerly belonging to the Queen's passed into the hands of Lord Strange's company.[1179] The date of the second sale of Orlando would accordingly seem to have been during January or February, 1592. It appears, then, that up to December 26, 1591, it belonged to the Queen's men; and it had probably been presented at court by them, for its classical and Italian features were evidently from the first designed to suit her Majesty's taste.[1180]

That the play was written later than July 30, 1588, may be deduced from a mention (ll. 89-95) of the "rebate" of "mightie Fleetes" which "Came to subdue my Ilands to their king;" for the allusion to the Armada is historically minute (note the conjunction of 'Portingale' with 'Spaniard' in reference to the start from Lisbon), the sequence does not savour of afterthought or actor's clap-trap, and the theme receives attention in other parts of the play.[1181] Now, between the "rebate" of the Armada and the disappearance of the Queen's men from London that company acted at court ten times;[1182] and upon at least one of these occasions I conclude that the Orlando was played. During the year that followed the Armada there are but two such occasions on record, December 26, 1588, and February 9, 1589; and of the latter the notice is open to question.[1183] In any case the former is more likely to be the date of the presentation of Orlando; for the reference to the Armada, and the championing of Elizabeth under the figure of Angelica, would be the policy of a court play acted on the St. Stephen's day following the Spanish defeat. If this was the play, we may be sure that it won her Majesty's approval; and that the dramatist seized the opportunity to further his good fortune. And that is precisely what Greene did. In February, 1589, he brought out his Spanish Masquerado, which was hailed with such enthusiasm that his friend Lodge declared that the name of Greene was become a terror to the gens seditieux, that his laurel was deathless, and that from a mortal he had become a companion of the gods.[1184] Now I incline to think that the success of Orlando contributed to this popularity; there is certainly not enough of political or literary worth in the Masquerado alone to account for it. There is further reason for dating the Orlando before 1590 if the resemblances between it and the Old Wives Tale[1185] are due, as I think they are, to Peele's acquaintance with the former. And if, in his Farewell, the same poet is alluding to our play, under the title of Charlemagne,[1186]—which, considering Orlando's frequent brag of kinship with the emperor, is not unlikely,—the play must have been acted before the spring of 1589. That Greene was occupied with the Orlando at a still earlier date would appear from his repeating in it no less than five of the character-names which he had used in one of the stories of the Perymedes.[1187] Nor does the tracing of certain resemblances to their common source in the epos lessen the general probability that Greene's story and play were written at approximately the same period; the latter following, as the former had preceded, the summer of 1588. Mr. Fleay would, indeed, push the date back to 1587 "when the Admiral's men re-opened after the plague,"[1188] and Professor Brown sets it with that of Alphonsus and Bacon, between 1584 and 1587;[1189] but I do not think that the contents warrant either of these conclusions.

Though the Orlando must be of later date than the Alphonsus,[1190] it betrays the influence of the still earlier Tamburlaine. But it is more than a sensational or spectacular play; it is a parody of the ranting "mad plays" which were then the rage. Numerous characteristics which appear to some critics to be defects of construction are proof of this. Orlando's sudden insanity and the ridiculously inadequate occasion of it, the headlong dénouement, the farcical technique, the mock-heroic atmosphere, the paradoxical absence of pathos, the absurdly felicitous conclusion,—all seemingly unwitting,—are purposive and satirical. Of such a burlesque the author of The Spanish Tragedy,[1191] perhaps of the pre-Shakespearian Hamlet, may have been the butt. Greene and Nashe had no affection for Kyd. The raving and bombast of this play—the stuff, too, that the actor Alleyn injected—suggest a parody of Kyd; and the dates accord. At any rate I think it likely that the Orlando[1192] was produced while the pre-Shakespearian Hamlet was fresh; and this consideration also looks toward 1588.

Many similarities of style may be pointed out between Orlando and other of Greene's productions during 1588 and 1589.[1193] The resemblances to Friar Bacon not merely in diction, imagery, and allusion,[1194] but in quality of verse, are numerous. In respect of this last the plays may be considered together since they are of a piece. They were apparently written within a year of each other, both with a view to presentation at Court.

4. The earliest impression of The Honorable Historie of frier Bacon and frier Bongay (as it was plaid by her Maiesties servants) is of 1594, and was printed for Edward White, in whose name (substituted for Adam Islip's, erased) it had been entered, S. R. May 14, of the same year.[1195] The earliest record of its presentation is Henslowe's of 1591-92: "Rd at fryer bacone, the 19 of febrary, satter-daye ... xvijˢ iij.ᵈ" The play is first in the list of those performed by "my Lord Strange's men"; but is not marked "new." It is, however, a drawing play: Strange's men act it about once every three weeks, between February 19 and May 6; and once a week, between the ensuing January 10 and January 30, while Queen's and Sussex act it twice in an engagement of a week beginning April 1, 1593-94. It must have preceded the anonymous play Faire Em, the Miller's Daughter of Manchester, which imitates it[1196]—perhaps with ironic intent. Indeed, Bacon would seem to have been acted as much as twelve months before Faire Em appeared. For in Greene's Epistle (about the middle of 1591) prefixed to the Farewell to Follie, where he reproaches the imitating dramatist with general lack of invention and with profane borrowing from the Scriptures, he further twits him with having consumed "a whole year" in "enditing" his foolish and inartistic play.[1197] That is to say, a whole year from the production of the play which it so evidently imitated. Now, what was the date of Faire Em? If, as Professor Schick[1198] points out, its main source was Jacques Yvers's Printemps d'Iver, it would probably follow the fresh editions of that book of 1588 and 1589. And it did. I place its date between that of Greene's Address to the Gentlemen Schollers prefixed to the Mourning Garment and that of the Address prefixed to his Farewell. For in the former he undertakes to forestall, in general, the "fooles" who may "scoffe" at his repentance, and in the latter while he makes a show of ignoring the "asses" that "strike" at him (i.e. at his Mourning Garment) he specifies one "ass" who may be expected to flout his Farewell, viz., the author of Faire Em,—that being indicated by quotations. In other words the Faire Em is to be dated between November 2, 1590 (when the Mourning Garment was registered),[1199] and the middle of 1591 (when the Farewell with this prefatory Address) appeared.[1200] Since the "blasphemous rhetoricke" of Faire Em was well known when Greene criticised it, we may suppose that the play had been in existence since November or December, 1590. And if its author had been "a whole year enditing" this imitation of Friar Bacon, Friar Bacon must have been a notable play in November or December, 1589. But if Englands Mourninge Gowne, which was registered July 1, 1590, be Greene's Mourning Garment under another name,[1201] then Faire Em may have appeared as early as July or August of the same year; and Friar Bacon, preceding Faire Em by a twelvemonth, might be dated July or August, 1589. Even if we do not strictly construe Greene's "whole year," we must allow some such opportunity for the vogue of Friar Bacon, and for the composition, presentation, and vogue of Faire Em, before the publication of Greene's retort in the 1591 edition of the Farewell to Follie. Hence the period between July and the end of 1589 will probably cover the production of Friar Bacon; but the latter limit might include the spring of 1590.

Mr. Fleay,[1202] reasoning from the insertion of Greene's longer motto as colophon to the 1594 exemplar, places Friar Bacon earlier than the Menaphon (S. R. August 23, 1589), in which he says Greene's shorter motto[1203] is first used. Of the validity of this test I am not convinced. Much more convincing is the argument based by the same indefatigable scholar upon a date suggested within the drama. St. James's Day, July 25, is mentioned (Sc. i.) as falling on a Friday. Mr. Fleay insists that in such cases dramatic authors used the almanac for the current year; and he shows that 1589 is the only year of such coincidence that will meet the conditions of this play. Since the attribution of the exact day of the week to a movable feast is more likely to follow than to precede the observance, I should regard July 25, 1589, the limit before which the Bacon was not finished. Now, not only the eulogy of Elizabeth at the end, but the euphuistic and classical style of the play, shows that it was intended for presentation at court. The only dates within the limits above prescribed on which the Queen's men played before her Majesty were December 26, 1589, and March 1, 1590. I lean to the former, St. Stephen's Day, as that on which Friar Bacon was performed.

The relation of this play to Dr. Faustus throws additional light upon the question under discussion. We must first eliminate the assumption that Marlowe's "wall of brass"[1204] was borrowed from Friar Bacon. The sources of the conception were common to both playwrights: the Famous Historie of frier Bacon, a story-book popular at the time, and "the tradition already borrowed from Giraldus Cambrensis by Spenser."[1205] And it is evident that Marlowe drew the scene where Robin conjures with one of Faustus's books directly from the story-book, not at all from Greene's play.[1206] I agree with Dr. Ward that Greene's play was suggested by Marlowe's, and that "it is hardly too great an assumption to regard Bacon's victory over Vandermast as a cheery outdoing by genuine English magic of the pretentious German article in which Faustus was the representative traveller." Greene's play is a romantic but humorous, sometimes burlesque, treatment of a theme like Marlowe's, but familiar to the audience, and attractive because domestic. It may, indeed, be surmised that some scenes in Friar Bacon are parodies of their pompous analogues in Dr. Faustus.[1207] I think it has not been noticed that in the title of Greene's play we have a clue to his intention: the 'Honorable Historie' is in evident contrast with the 'Tragical Historie' of Dr. Faustus. For the word 'honorable' was not derived from the title of the story-book. That is a 'Famous Historie.' If he had acted in accordance with custom, Greene might have replaced 'famous' by 'comical,' to indicate the fortunate ending of his fable. No other drama that I know of, up to 1589, had been denominated an 'honorable' history. But, in this case, Greene had every provocation to emphasize the quality 'honorable.' For his purpose was to vaunt the superiority of the English magician above the tragically concluding German.

This consideration confirms the assignment of Friar Bacon to some time within a year after the production of Dr. Faustus (1588 end or 1589 beginning). So, also, the resemblances in style to Greene's other writings of that period. The love theme in Friar Bacon is similar to that in Tullie's Love (1589); the style is akin to that of Orlando (December, 1588). These two are also closely related as dramatic productions. The earlier, to be sure, confines itself more narrowly to the satirical intent, while the later aims in æsthetic respects, also, to surpass its Marlowan predecessor. It is, consequently, an improvement upon Orlando in construction and characterization. The dramatist is now working with free hand, and, for the first time in this field, employs the ease and invention for which, as a story-teller, he was already famous. In versification these two plays continue the methods of the Looking-Glasse; but the rhymed lines are sensibly fewer. In Orlando they appear at the end of the first half-dozen speeches; in Friar Bacon they are to seek. In both plays, about three-quarters of the verses avoid the singsong pause at the end of the second foot. In the Orlando, I should say that more than a third of the verses escape, in addition, the penthimimeral cæsura; in the Friar Bacon, almost a third. The dodecasyllable with which Greene is experimenting in the interest of freedom, is somewhat frequent in both plays. For the reason already given, there is not so much prose as in the Looking-Glasse, perhaps only half as much. Still, of Orlando, one-fifth is written in prose, and of Friar Bacon nearly a fourth.

5. Storojenko[1208] holds that The Scottish Historie of James the Fourth betrays a novel tendency toward native themes and simple style, and that, with Bacon and The Pinner, it furnished the model for Shakespeare's romantic comedies. Professor Brown, pointing out that James IV. is "among the first plays to have an acted prologue and interplay," thinks that Shakespeare followed Greene's example in the Taming of the Shrew and the Midsummer Night's Dream; and he groups James IV. with The Pinner and the Looking-Glasse as later than the three other plays of Greene, and free from their "alluring pedantry."[1209] But we have already seen that the Looking-Glasse preceded both Orlando and Bacon; and I think it can be proved that James IV. followed them. The unique exemplar, printed by Creede, "as it hath bene sundrie times publikely plaide," is of 1598, and is probably a reprint of a lost edition of 1594.[1210] Henslow makes no mention of the play; nor have we record of its acting. Storojenko conjectures some date after the summer of 1589 for its composition; Brown, some date between 1587 and 1592; Ward, about 1590; Fleay, after August 23, 1589,[1211] because it uses the shorter motto (but elsewhere,[1212] 1591—probably in collaboration with Lodge).

The following observations will, I think, fix the limits as 1590-1591. Ida's lines, 270-279 in Act I., beginning "And weele I wot, I heard a shepheard sing,"[1213] are a reminiscence of the Heard-groome wᵗ his strawberrie lasse in Peele's Hunting of Cupid: "What thing is love? for (wel I wot) love is a thing," etc.[1214] Notice the recurrence in Drummond's version of the "weele I wot." The "shepheard" to whom Ida has reference is, of course, one of the swains of the Hunting, or Peele himself. The Hunting was not registered for printing till July 26, 1591; but then with the proviso "that if it be hurtful to any other copy before licensed ... this to be void." The proviso was frequently mere form, but it suggests that Greene may have drawn the verses from a manuscript copy, or from the public performance before July 26, 1591. I do not think that the Hunting was written very long before it was registered, because the atmosphere and phraseology are still fresh in Peele's mind when he writes his Descensus Astrææ, October, 1591. But it is interesting to note that there occurs a premonition or echo of these same verses on Love in Greene's Mourning Garment,[1215] which had been registered in 1590, from eight to twelve months before the registration of the Hunting. We may, with reasonable latitude, assign the composition of the Hunting to the year 1590, and that of James IV. to a later date in proximity to that of Greene's Mourning Garment—say about July, 1590. Confirmation of this conclusion may be found in other resemblances of sentiment and style between James IV. and the Mourning Garment,[1216] as well as in Dorothea's reference to the Irish wars, which may have been suggested by the contemporary rising in Fermanagh; for, since the suppression of Desmond, in 1583, there had been comparative quiet in Ireland. Though the play exhibits little of the affected style which Elizabeth demanded, it is courtly, and the graceful compliment to the queen and the (English) rose in the laudation of Dorothea's attributes, together with that heroine's forecast of a union between Scotland and England,[1217] might indicate a view to court presentation, and a date of composition when such union was favourably contemplated. The further boast of Dorothea:—

"Shall never Frenchman say an English maid

Of threats of forraine force will be afraid,"[1218]

was doubtless intended for the ear of the virgin queen, who, in 1590 and 1591, was busily landing forces in France to thwart the schemes of her implacable enemies, the Guises. This play may, therefore, have been presented by Greene's company, at court, on December 26, 1590, or as one of their five performances during 1591.

The moral atmosphere is that of the penitential pamphlets; while the pictures of roguery coincide with those of the conycatching series. The portrayal of character is that of a mature dramatist; the plot is more skilfully manipulated than in Friar Bacon, and covers a larger canvas; but, though it smacks of the folk, it has hardly the simple domestic interest of that drama. Still, Ward calls it the happiest, Brown the most perfect, of Greene's plays; in fact, "the finest Elizabethan historical play outside of Shakespeare."

The versification of James IV. gives proof of a mature quality of experimentation. Because rhyme prevails, Collier assigned the play to Greene's earlier period; but the criterion is inconclusive. Though Greene conformed to the blank verse fashion as early as 1588, he made it clear, at the time, that he was no convert.[1219] And, while in 1590-91 he recognizes the merits of a richer and more varied rhythm, he is not yet convinced that rhyme should be abandoned; in tender and gently romantic passages he counts it utile as well as dulce. Some of the scenes in which Ida and the queen figure are, accordingly, almost altogether rhymed. The rhythmical movement is, however, no less liberal than in Orlando and Bacon; the proportion of monotone and penthimimeral is as low; and as many as fifty per cent of the cæsuræ are lyrical. Fully one-quarter of the play is in prose.

Having a regard only to the unquestioned plays of Greene, we notice that his employment of dramatic prose dates from the association with Lodge in the Looking-Glasse; that his renunciation of rhyme was short-lived, and that its resumption did not hamper the freedom of rhythmical movement. In none of the later plays, however, is the verse so elastic as in his own dramatic portions of the Looking-Glasse. And there the mobility was probably due to a desire for contrast with the prophetic monologues.

Attributions.—Various other plays have, in whole or in part, been assigned to Greene; A History of Jobe,[1220] not extant; part of The Troublesome Raigne of King John,[2] and of the First and Second Parts of Henry VI.;[1221] Fair Emm[1222] (with no show of reason), and others mentioned by Dyce; Titus Andronicus;[1223] The Pinner of Wakefield, Selimus, and A Knack to Know a Knave.[1224] We can consider only the last three.

1. The earliest extant exemplar of George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield is in the Duke of Devonshire's library. The author's name does not appear. But the printer, publisher, year, vignette, and motto (Aut nunc aut nunquam) are the same as on the title-page of the 1599 Orlando; and the same printer, Burbye, had, in 1592, published other works of Greene: the Third Part of Conny-Catching and The Repentance. These items do not, however, prove anything concerning the identity of the author. The play was entered to Burbye, April 1, 1595. We learn from the title-page that the Sussex company acted it; and Henslowe records five of these performances between December 29, 1593, and January 22, 1594. But, though the Sussex men soon afterwards twice assisted Greene's former company in the presentation of Friar Bacon, they do not seem at this, or any previous period, to have owned any of the unquestioned plays of Robert Greene. Henslowe does not mark this one 'new,' and the dramatic contents give no indication of its date, save that one of the dramatis personæ refers to Tamberlaine.[1225] No light is thrown upon the authorship by contemporary publications; and, as late as Kirkman's Catalogue, 1661, the play was still anonymous. It has been assigned to Greene on the manuscript evidence which has already been shown to be inconclusive.[1226] In the last resort our decision must depend upon the detection of Greenian characteristics. Dr. Ward has observed that the play possesses "one of Greene's most attractive notes,—a native English freshness of colouring,"—glimpses of which may also be had in Friar Bacon and James IV. This is true. The representation of the characters, manners, and speech of the middle and lower classes is such as might have contributed to Chettle's estimate of the dramatist,—"the only comedian of a vulgar writer in this country."[1227] In the "plotting," also, of the play, no ordinary skill is evinced, and that is the "quality," says Nashe, wherein Greene was master of his craft.[1228] The material is a popular story, like the material of Friar Bacon. One of the incidents, indeed, existed not only in the popular story, but in the experience of Robert Greene as well.[1229] The rhetorical style here and there affords an inkling of this "very supporter" of native comedy: a word that seems to be his,[1230] a phrase or trick of the tongue,[1231] a figure or two,[1232] occasionally a bejewelled verse,[1233] and once, at least, a sentiment,—

"The sweet content of men that live in love

Breeds fretting humours in a restless mind."

But in Greene's undoubted productions the Greenian attributes are not so far to seek: the curious imagery, the precious visualizing, the necromantic monstrous toys. With his brocaded rhetoric fancy is captivated and judgment disarmed. He gluts each appetite in turn with 'semblances,'—rare, remote, and meretricious. His silks are gay with 'sparks' and margarites, redolent of sandalwood and spice, stiff with oriental gold. They rustle richly on the ear. The atmosphere is sense idealized; the melody, a bell. I do not find these earmarks in The Pinner; nor the coloured negligence of Greene, the studied, off-hand blush, the conscious affectation of unconscious art. Of such devices James IV., indeed, is by no means compact; but, in its first fifth, there are four or five times as many references to the foreign, the historical, astrological, mythical, as in all The Pinner. The three or four classical allusions in The Pinner are stark. But Greene's employment of the mythological is never unattractive; it is sui generis. It has always a quiddity of the indirect, the unexpected: a relish of distinction. These bald "Cæsars" and "Helenas" of The Pinner are not Greene. On the contrary, we come across many words, fashions of prose dictions and comic devices, that savour of Lodge as we know him in the Civill War and the Looking-Glasse, and suspect him in Mucedorus. The conversations are sometimes reminiscent of Greene; but, on the whole, they fail of his humorous indirection and his craft.

The verse is so vilely divided in the original that even after Dyce's attempt at reconstruction, no basis for conclusive attribution of authorship is available. Prose forms a large proportion; indeed, it looks as if the author were trying to see how near prose he might come without ceasing to produce unrhymed pentameters. Fragmentary lines, dodecasyllables, feminine endings, and rhetorical pauses abound. These last are to me more suggestive of Greene's association with the play than is any other feature; for more than once or twice they yield the genuinely Greenian rhythm.[1234] If Greene had a hand in The Pinner, the metrical style would fix its date just before or after James IV. It has the ease and variety of Bacon, but is as signal an experiment in conversational blank verse as was James IV. in rhymed dramatic; and it is a fairly successful experiment.

2. The First Part of the Tragicall Raigne of Selimus (Creede, 1594) has been reclaimed for Greene by Dr. Grosart, principally on the evidence of England's Parnassus (1600) which assigns to Greene two passages taken from Selimus.[1235] For Dr. Grosart's presentation of the case the reader may be referred to the Introduction to his edition of Greene.[1236] It is worthy of the most careful study. Dr. Ward after examining the interval evidence decides adversely to Dr. Grosart's results.[1237] The following additional considerations incline me to the same decision. The weight of the evidence depends, not upon the number of passages from Selimus assigned by Allott to Greene, but upon the style of each passage. In the Parnassus, Allott has assigned to Greene passages from other works, which do not belong to him; two, for instance, which have been traced to Spenser. If the passages from Selimus on Delaie and Damocles have not Greene's characteristic, then twenty such assignments do not prove that he wrote Selimus. They would more logically prove that the collector, in this as in other cases, is an uncertain guide. Now there is no trace, not the faintest, of Greene's diction, sentiment, poetic quality, or rhythmical form, in the tintinnabulation of the Delaie, or the platitude of the Damocles. And so throughout the play. Neither the defects nor the merits appear to me to be Greene's. Many of the lines are, indeed, resonant, scholarly, and strong, but not in Greene's quality. If the play were written by Greene, it could not have been written later than the Alphonsus: stanzaic form, and the crudities of rhythm, diction, and technique determine that; nor, on the other hand, could it have been written earlier than the Alphonsus, for with Alphonsus Greene began "to treat of bloody Mars." It is not incumbent upon me to find an author for Selimus, but I think that the probabilities indicate Lodge (circa 1586-87). It has perhaps not been noted that Bullithrumble's lines (1955-1958) about godfathers are duplicated by Lodge's Alcon in the Looking-Glasse (l. 1603); and that the parlance of Bullithrumble is paralleled by Curtall and Poppey in Lodge's Civill War (circa 1587). The dogberryisms, clipped words, and inverted phrases of the same character are of a piece also with those of Mouse in Mucedorus[1238]—a play which has indeed so many of the idiosyncrasies that mark the Civill War that Mr. Fleay is not without warrant in conjecturing the authorship of Lodge. It should in addition be remarked that several of the expressions which Dr. Grosart finds in Selimus, and considers to be peculiarly Greene's, are to be found in the Civill War and the Mucedorus; and that some non-Greenian characteristics of the Selimus appear in one or the other of these plays. The "to-fore," for instance, which Dr. Grosart marks as Greenian in Selimus occurs four times in Mucedorus alone. The blank verse of the Selimus finds its parallel in that of the Civill War; so, also, the quaint stanzaic form, and the apparently Greenian moralizing on 'content'[1239] (ll. 2049-2053). And conversely, the profound and easeful soliloquies and serious imagery of the Civill War are nearer akin to those of the Selimus than to anything of Greene's.

3. 'Young Juvenall' and the 'Comedie lastly writ.'—"With thee" says Greene to Marlowe in the Groatsworth, "I joyne young Juvenall, that byting satirist, that lastly with mee together writ a comedie. Sweete boy, might I advise thee," etc. Simpson and Grosart disprove the conjecture[1240] that the play was the Looking-Glasse and the 'Juvenal,' Lodge: The Looking-Glasse had not been lately written; the epithet 'Juvenal' did not at any time apply to Lodge; nor would Greene, in 1592, have called him a "sweete boy" as he calls this fellow-dramatist, for Lodge, born 1557, was thirty-five at the time and older than Greene by three years. It is argued that 'Juvenal' was Nashe as follows: Nashe was already proficient in satire; he had, between 1589 and 1592, published half a dozen pasquinades which had met with immediate success; he calls himself and is called by others 'Pasquil' or 'Aretine' or the 'railing Nashe'; and Meres in 1598 addresses him as "gallant young Juvenal" and mentions him with Greene among the "best writers of comedie." It must also be remembered that Nashe was 'young'—not quite twenty-five in 1592—"and that a difference of seven years made him a 'sweete boy' in Greene's regard."[1241] To these considerations I add the following: First,—Chettle feigning a letter[1242] from the dead poet to Nashe (Robert Greene to Pierce Pennilesse), makes Greene use almost the epithet of the Groatsworth, "Awake, secure boy, revenge thy wrongs." It may be surmised that the older poet was in the way of thus affectionately terming the younger, and that Chettle, who had edited the Groatsworth, had the pamphlet in mind when he conceived this letter. Second,—The pains taken by Nashe, in his Strange Newes, to disclaim anything like continuous companionship are occasioned by the fact that he and Greene had "lastly" been "together." He writes, in September, 1592, "Since first I knewe him [Greene] about towne, I have beene two yeares together and not seene him."[1243] The "first" refers to 1588-89 when Nashe was championing Greene's Menaphon and scoring Greene's rivals in The Anatomie. The "two yeares" bring us to 1591, when he was engaged with Greene in the controversy with the Harveys[1244] which he here recounts with such detail as to indicate no slight acquaintance with Greene's motives and movements at the time. In that year appeared Nashe's Astrological Prognostication, and in the next, Greene's Quip, both bearing upon the subject on hand. We may infer that the revival of their literary association was connected with the 'canvazing' of the rope-maker's sons.[1245] Greene's concluding counsel is such as we should expect him to give the 'young Juvenall' with whom he had lately engaged against a common enemy.[1246] Nashe informs us also that he had occasionally, of late, caroused with the poet and that he was present at that "banquet of Rhenish and pickled herrings" from which Greene took his death.[1247] Third,—When Dekker, some fifteen years later, tells in his Knight's Conjuring of the habitants of the "Fieldes of Joye," he introduces Nashe as one of that group which is exclusively restricted to the poets, and the editor, of Greene's Groatsworth. "Marlow, Greene, and Peele," writes he, "had got under the shades of a large vyne laughing to see Nash [the favourite of the group, and even yet the 'sweete boy'] that was but newly come to their colledge, still haunted with the sharpe and satyricall spirit that followed him heere upon earth...." And why there? He had "shorten'd his dayes by keeping company with pickle-herring" [many another night, no doubt, than that of August, 1592, with Will Monox and Ro. Greene,—but that night persisted]. And with what do they greet him? "How [do] poets and players agree now?" A precise Groatsworth issue to which Nashe responds in proper Groatsworth phrase, with echo as well from his Preface to the Menaphon, and with a parting fling at Harvey.[1248] Then, as if to round out the company, there enters Kind Hart, a-puffing,—Chettle, himself, the conservator of the 'Colledge.' Thus Dekker the contemporary of the Groatsworth group fixes the identity of its 'Juvenall' on earth and under. And the 'comedie' was writ in 1591 or the first half of 1592.

But it is not easy to determine its name. A plea might be made for Summer's Last Will and Testament,[1249] on certain counts of R. W.'s diatribe in Martine Marsixtus,[1250] but I doubt whether it would convince. Simpson thinks that the 'comedie' was not improbably A Knack to Know a Knave, which had been acted as new, June 10, 1592. Fleay,[1251] however, asserts that there is not the slightest ground for this conjecture; and Grosart[1252] is sure that "no one who reads A Knack can possibly find in it one line from either Greene or Nashe." I shall not undertake to prove that Mr. Simpson was right: it must, however, be observed that the subject of A Knack was not foreign to the genius of Nashe; that two of the characters, the satirical commentator and the Welshman, have their counterparts in his Summer's Last Will; and that Greene had with godly intent written up and published the whole truth about knaves and 'coosnage' only within the past year and a half. As for the plot, it may have no analogue in Nashe's works, but in one[1253] at least of its threads it parallels Friar Bacon, and in another[1254] the Looking-Glasse; and four or five of its situations[1255] reproduce peculiarities and language of those plays. As for the speeches, though more than one is reminiscent of Greene's rococo,[1256] the style is more like that of the Last Will. To be sure there are septenarii in the Knack, and none in the Will; but the blank verse, such as it is, might readily have been chipped from Nashe; so also the short irregular rhymed lines, and much of the prose. The vocabulary is not unlike his. Nashe might have been capable of the classical excrescences; Greene certainly was not. These coincidences are, of course, merely suggestive. For me they indicate possibly that if Greene had no hand in the play, some one who lacked his touch and most of his cunning has freely plundered him;[1257] and that, if he had an interest in the play, it was limited to the suggestion of plot and treatment. Nashe may have thrown the material into shape. It is a small matter, but perhaps worth recording, that the Knack calls itself "a most pleasant and merie new Comedie," that Greene calls the play "lastly writ" a 'comedie,' and that no other play connected with his name save the doubtful Pinner is so described. Also that the date of the Knack accords with the conditions: it was played about two months before the Groatsworth was begun, and by a company that then was acting three dramas known to be Greene's.

Friar Bacon: Stage History and Materials.—The position of Greene's plays in the history of English comedy is indicated in Professor Woodberry's article. The play here under discussion was acted with some frequency between 1591 and 1594, sometimes at important seasons, always with fair attendance, and occasionally with large profits. It was performed at court as late as 1602, and was occasionally revived under James I. and Charles I.[1258]

The necromantic theme with its instruments, the characters primarily concerned (Bacon, Bungay, Vandermast, Miles), and the catastrophes connected with the 'wonderfull glasse,' i.e. the materials for Scenes ix., xi., xiii., are derived from The Famous Historie of Frier Bacon, already mentioned—"a popular story-book probably written toward the end of the sixteenth century, and founded upon accretions of the legendary history of Roger Bacon."[1259] The same source afforded also the suggestion of Scenes ii. and vi.—the exposure of Burden's intrigue and the interrupted wedding. The romantic theme, its characters and incidents, and the enveloping action are of Greene's devising. What slight resemblance the last bears to history need not here be recapitulated. For that, and for the literary career of the magical devices, the readers may consult the admirable summaries of Ward[1260] and Ritter, to which I have nothing to add save that there exists a prior suggestion of the 'head of brass,' in English drama, in the Conflict of Conscience, III. iii. 5, and, in the same play, an instance of the 'crystal clear' or 'gladsome glass.' The latter might seem, indeed, to be anticipated by the 'Glass of Reson' in Redford's Wyt and Science, but that is a different thing. The 'glass prospective' is adapted in Friar Bacon to a species of stage business which is unique: the scene beside a scene,—a device essentially distinct from the play within the play. While the persons to whom we owe the disclosure of this parallel scene are no less surprised thereby than are we, the persons of the scene disclosed not only vitally affect the main action by the unaffected pursuit of their own interests, but incidentally present the fact that is stranger than fiction. To the double illusion of the play concocted within a play, this impromptu enlistment of nature in the ranks of art adds the illusion of unconscious drama. Moreover, in the glass prospective scenes, the piquancy of the preternatural is surpassed by that of the natural; the artless eclipses the artificial, and the result is an artistic irony. And, after all, these scenes beside the scene are but the dear device of eavesdropping purged of the keyhole and the sneak. They are not the strategic contrivance of the inner play of the Spanish Tragedy or Hamlet, nor a mere mechanism for diversion as in James IV. and Midsummer Night, nor an episode as in Love's Labor, nor a substitute for the initial movement like the play within the Old Wives' Tale, but a something that combines qualities from each. The parallel scene is at the same time its own raison d'être, and a reflex of its principal which it multiplies and raises to a higher power.

The motif—the wooing by proxy—is, of course, as ancient as the Arthuriad, and as modern as Miles Standish; indeed, older and younger yet. This appearance precedes, however, several other dramatic instances, such as those of Faire Em, the Knack, and, I believe, 1 Henry VI. There are likewise to be found precursors of Edward's renunciation, as in the Campaspe, and later instances, as in the Knack and other plays. The apparently motiveless abandonment of Peggy is, however, a novelty, and uniquely handled; a capital instance of 'comic' irony, invested with solemnity, and introduced with a wink.

Dramatic Construction.—The pedant might find it easy to break this plot upon a wheel; but the plot is none the less a dramatic success. It may be that the climax is reached too soon; but the scene is none the less effective for its suddenness and in its consequence. The sham desertion exists merely because Greene was put to it, after his climax, to string out the romantic interest. In itself it is an absurdity, but a delicious absurdity; and, unsympathetic as we may be with the mediæval test of constancy, the event somehow suffices,—perhaps because it unfolds phases of Margaret's character which owe their witchery to their unlikelihood. It may be said that the title thread is, for us, of secondary interest; but such a judgment would by no means hold true of an Elizabethan audience. That, indeed, would delight in the necromantic 'business,' with its elements of sensation and amaze, its contribution to 'humours,' and its intermittent influence upon plot. It may be said that the intersection of the threads is not of necessity, but of external agency; that the tragic minor motive is imported, and the enveloping action thin. But why measure the beautiful by rule of thumb? The quality here is sui generis, residing in scenes rather than fable—scenes idyllic, spectacular, amusing, so ordered that movement shall be continuous and interest unflagging. The interest is not primarily of character or solution; it proceeds from the pageant: and the continuity from the manager. Greene, the story-teller, has suborned Greene, the impresario; there results this panel-romance, a drama of the picturesque. On no previous occasion had sentimental, comic, sensational, mysterious, sublime, and tragic been so blended upon an English background for a comedy of English life. This was something novel for the pit; a spectacle kaleidoscopic, rapid, innocuous; a heart-in-the-mouth ecstasy, a circus of many rings. How artistically it was contrived appears when one considers the sequence and grouping of the scenes. These fall into series, which happen to be five in number; but to indicate them as acts in the text might impair the charade-like simplicity of the show. The series are: First, Scenes i.-iv., four groups and four environments, the material of all future combinations of scene and sensation: the courtiers on the country side—chivalric and idyllic; the doctors and the colleges—scholastic, necromantic; the country folk and their fair—pastoral, romantic; the royal residence and the court—spectacular; time, about two days. Second, Scenes v.—vii., Oxford: street, cell, and regent-house—the riotous, magical, romantic, and spectacular; apparently the day after Scene i., but actually some two days. Third, Scenes viii.-x., the next day: country, college, and country again—romance, black art, peril, and pathos. Fourth, Scenes xi.-xiii., sixty days later; college, court, and college—magic, majesty, and collapse of the supernatural. Fifth, Scenes xiv.-xvi., the next day: country, college, and court—mock heroics and the pastoral, burlesque of the supernatural, the smile of royalty, and couleur de rose. Throughout, the action is sustained, the crises are frequent, the reversals of fortune unexpected and absorbing, the suspense sufficient.

In spite of the author's efforts to make a prig of Margaret, and in spite of all disparity between her station and her style, the "lovely star of Fressingfield" shines first and fairest of her daughters in English comedy,—of country wenches born to conquer. Innocent, coy, standing upon her "honest points," she is neither unsophisticated nor crude—but a perilous coquette. In wit, yielding not to the Lincoln earl, and in diplomacy one too many for the prince, she hardly needs to warn them or us that she has had lords for lovers before. "Stately in her stammell red," she toys with Edward, for whom she doesn't care; but his deputy-lover she corners at first chance, and it is then "marriage or no market" with this maid. She outplays the irate Prince of Wales by sheer loyalty to his rival: "'Twas I, not Lacy, stept awry;" and if her lover be to fall, she will join him "in one tomb." When it comes to Lacy's desertion of her, the dramatist fills her mouth with piety, but the girl bubbles through. As between the convent and the court she vastly prefers the latter, and her farewell to the world is eloquent of gowns. In spite of the pother with which she welcomes "base attire," her "flesh is frayle"; and when her lover, with "enchanting face," comes riding back, and the "wedding-robes are in the tailor's hands," it doesn't take Peggy long to decide between "God or Lord Lacy." In simple dignity she is most like her Greenian sisters, Ida and Angelica. But she is also the predecessor of many a heroine not so simple as men have thought: of Alfrida in the Knack, Bridget in Every Man in his Humour, Harriet in the Man of Mode, Dorinda in the Beaux' Stratagem, Lucinda in the Conscious Lovers. As for her lover, his type is that of Alfrida's Ethenwald, more manly to be sure than he, but lacking leagues of what a Lacy should have been. Even the Post is at pains to apologize for him. Still, Lacy excels his master—an ordinary Lothario of the purple, noised abroad as generous, admired of his associates and his dramatic creator, but of unregal stuff. In reality, Edward is less magnanimous than his counterpart in Lyly's play. If he appears more ready than Alexander was to yield his victim, it is only because a keeper's daughter and a princess are "sisters under the skin." The Castile Elinor awaits him: Edward is as moral as a jelly-fish; and a swap of mistresses is no hardship. The characterization of Warren and Ermsbie, though but a score of lines, is clear-cut. Blunt Anglo-Saxons they are, prompt with the sword, with women dubious—a complementary pair. Also complementary are the fools—one of the court, the other of the home: Rafe the jester, Miles the blunderer; the latter halfway between vice and clown. Like the clown, he stimulates progress by the spur of his stupidity; like the vice, he jogs without concern to his predestined place. With Longtongue and Ragan he is of the kin of disputatious servants, a brother to Greene's Jenkin, Adam, and Slipper, and, like the last two, a "philosopher of toast and ale." Lentulo of the Rare Triumphs was an ancient relative of his, and, like him, educated in that school whence later proceeded the Dogberrys and their cousins german—Poppev, Curtall, and Mouse. This is the stock and discipline that Kemp's Gothamites bewray when their tongues blossom into counsel.

Previous Editions and the Present Text.—The first quarto is White's, of 1594. The copy in the British Museum (C. 34, c. 37) lacks all after 44 from the words, "for to pleasure" (xv. 49); that in the Duke of Devonshire's library "lacks a leaf between A 3 and B, and one at end" (Grosart). Dyce, Ward, and Grosart mention a reprint of 1599; but I do not find it in B.M. or the Bodleian. The quarto which Dr. Ward supposes to be of 1599 (viz. Malone, 226 in the Bodleian) is exactly like the 1630 quarto, except that it lacks the title-page and is badly clipped. The attribution to 1599 seems to rest upon (1) Malone's Ms. note on the fly-leaf of 1630 quarto (Bodl. Malone, 227): "See the edit. of 1599 in Vol. 69," and (2) the hand-written date, 1599 (probably, also, by Malone) on the upper right-hand corner of the first page of the quarto contained in the volume 69, which is the Malone 226 mentioned above. But that Malone 226 and 227 should be respectively of 1599 and 1630, and, nevertheless, identical, would be odd: especially when we remember that the copyright had been transferred from Mrs. White to Mrs. Aldee in 1624, and that Mrs. Aldee's publication of 1630 was a fresh edition "as it was lately plaid by the Prince Palatine his servants." I think that the supposed 1599 copy is of 1630. The 1630 edition (another copy of which is in B. M.) varies considerably from the original of 1594. The copyright passed into Oulton's hands in 1640, and in 1655 a new edition appeared. Modern issues are those of Dodsley, Dyce, Ward, and Grosart (Do., Dy., W., G.), the last of which, alone, retains the original forms, those of the Chatsworth, 1594. The present edition follows the B.M. quarto of 1594, and, when that ends, Grosart's (Huth Library) reprint of the Chatsworth. Variations in the 1630 quartos (Malone) have been indicated in the footnotes. Q 1 stands for ed. 1594, Q 3 for 1630, Q 4 for 1655.

Since most of the emendations made by preceding editors plead as their excuse the metrical irregularity of the quartos, I have found it necessary to justify my retention of the original text, by an explanation of Greene's metrical practice in this play. This apologia, which, in some degree, applies to all of his plays, will be found in the Appendix. We should, perhaps, be troubled with fewer emendations of the Elizabethan drama if we could bring ourselves to believe that playwrights regulated their rhythms more frequently than is supposed, by dramatic and rhetorical conditions of utterance; and that the plays of the sixteenth century were not written in the eighteenth.

Charles Mills Gayley.