[1283] These old plays were reprinted by Stevens in 1766. Malone, on a laborious comparison of them with the second and third parts of Henry VI., has ascertained that 1771 lines in the latter plays were taken from the former unaltered, 2373 altered by Shakspeare, while 1899 were altogether his own. It remains to inquire, who are to claim the credit of these other plays, so great a portion of which has passed with the world for the genuine work of Shakspeare. The solution seems to be given, as well as we can expect, in a passage often quoted from Robert Greene’s Groat’sworth of Wit, published not long before his death in September 1592. “Yes,” says he, addressing himself to some one who has been conjectured to be Peele, but more probably Marlowe, “trust them (the players) not, for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his tyger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in a country.” An allusion is here manifest to the “tyger’s heart, wrapt in a woman’s hide,” which Shakspeare borrowed from the old play. The Contention of the Houses, and which is here introduced to hint the particular subject of plagiarism that prompts the complaint of Greene. The bitterness he displays must lead us to suspect that he had been one himself of those who were thus preyed upon. But the greater part of the plays in question is in the judgment, I conceive, of all competent critics, far above the powers either of Greene or Peele, and exhibits a much greater share of the spirited versification, called by Jonson the “mighty line,” of Christopher Marlowe. Malone, upon second thoughts, gave both these plays to Marlowe, having, in his dissertation on the three parts of Henry VI., assigned one to Greene, the other to Peele. None of the three parts have any resemblance to the manner of Peele.
Peele. 31. No one could think of disputing the superiority of Marlowe, to all his contemporaries of this early school of the English drama. He was killed in a tavern fray in 1593. There is more room for difference of tastes as to the second place. Mr. Campbell has bestowed high praises upon Peele. “His David and Bethsabe is the earliest fountain of pathos and harmony that can be traced in our dramatic poetry. His fancy is rich and his feeling tender: and his conceptions of dramatic character have no inconsiderable mixture of solid veracity [sic] and ideal beauty. There is no such sweetness of versification and imagery to be found in our blank verse anterior to Shakspeare.”[1284] I must concur with Mr. Collier in thinking these compliments excessive. Peele has some command of imagery, but in every other quality it seems to me that he has scarce any claim to honour; and I doubt if there are three lines together in any of his plays that could be mistaken for Shakspeare’s. His Edward I. is a gross tissue of absurdity, with some facility of language, but nothing truly good. It has also the fault of grossly violating historic truth, in hideous misrepresentation of the virtuous Eleanor of Castile; probably from the base motive of rendering the Spanish nation odious to the vulgar. This play, which is founded on a ballad equally false, is referred to the year 1593. The versification of Peele is much inferior to that of Marlowe; and though sometimes poetical he seems rarely dramatic.
[1284] Specimens of English Poetry, i. 140. Hawkins says of three lines in Peele’s David and Bethsabe, that they contain a metaphor worthy of Æschylus:—
At him the thunder shall discharge his bolt;
And his fair spouse with bright and fiery wings
Sit ever burning on his hateful bones.
It may be rather Æschylean, yet I cannot much admire it. Peele seldom attempts such flights. “His genius was not boldly original; but he had an elegance of fancy, a gracefulness of expression, and a melody of versification which, in the earlier part of his career, was scarcely approached.” Collier, iii. 191.
Greene. 32. A third writer for the stage in this period is Robert Greene, whose “Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay” may probably be placed about the year 1590. This comedy, though savouring a little of the old school, contains easy and spirited versification, superior to Peele, and though not so energetic as that of Marlowe, reminding us perhaps more frequently of Shakspeare.[1285] Greene succeeds pretty well in that florid and gay style, a little redundant in images, which Shakspeare frequently gives to his princes and courtiers, and which renders some unimpassioned scenes in the historic plays effective and brilliant. There is great talent shown, though upon a very strange canvas, in Greene’s “Looking-glass for London and England.” His angry allusion to Shakspeare’s plagiarism is best explained by supposing that he was himself concerned in the two old plays which have been converted into the second and third parts of Henry VI.[1286] In default of a more probable claimant, I have sometimes been inclined to assign the first part of Henry VI. to Greene. But those who are far more conversant with the style of our dramatists do not suggest this; and we are evidently ignorant of many names, which might have ranked not discreditably by the side of these tragedians. The first part, however, of Henry VI. is, in some passages, not unworthy of Shakspeare’s earlier days, nor, in my judgment, unlike his style; nor in fact do I know any one of his contemporaries who could have written the scene in the Temple Garden. The light touches of his pencil have ever been still more inimitable, if possible, than its more elaborate strokes.[1287]
[1285] “Green in facility of expression and in the flow of his blank verse is not to be placed below his contemporary Peele. His usual fault, more discoverable in his plays than in his poems, is an absence of simplicity; but his pedantic classical references, frequently without either taste or discretion, he had in common with the other scribbling scholars of the time. It was Shakspeare’s good fortune to be in a great degree without the knowledge, and therefore, if on no other account, without the defect.” Collier, iii. 153. Tieck gives him credit for “a happy talent, a clear spirit, and a lively imagination, which characterise all his writings.” Collier iii. 148.
[1286] Mr. Collier says, iii. 146, Greene may possibly have had a hand in the True History of Richard Duke of York. But why possibly? when he claims it, if not in express words, yet so as to leave no doubt of his meaning. See the note in p. 377.
In a poem written on Greene in 1594, are these lines:—
Green is the pleasing object of an eye;
Greene pleased the eyes of all that looked upon him:
Green is the ground of every painter’s die;
Greene gave the ground to all that wrote upon him:
Nay more, the men that so eclipsed his fame,
Purloined his plumes, can they deny the same?