[18] For comment on this see [p. lviii].
[19] Though we accept the theory of the early composition of A Looking-Glass we fail to follow the arguments of Fleay and Gayley, derived from the introduction of Perimedes (licensed 29th March 1588), that in "the mad priest of the sun," mentioned in connection with Atheist Tamburlaine, Greene can have any reference to the priests of Rasni in Act iv. Scene 3. Certainly Greene could not have held up such tame heroics for comparison with Marlowe's vigorous declamation. Careful scrutiny fails to show that Greene was mentioning a work of his own. The mad priests of the sun would seem rather to be other products of the pen of Marlowe, or to be the work of some other dramatist, possibly Kyd, whom, with Marlowe, Greene was attacking. (See Koeppel in Herrig's Archiv, 102, p. 357.)
[20] Particularly the parts of Adam, Smith, and Alcon. It is hard to suppose that Spenser in his line, "pleasing Alcon," in the Tears of the Muses (1591), could have been referring to Lodge.
[21] As to date of the play we can say only that if Greene's it must be the last one of his extant workmanship. It would not be safe to draw conclusions from the mention of George-a-Greene in Tarlton's News out of Purgatory, as Tarlton was probably alluding to the source of the narrative used by Greene. Nor does the mention of "martial Tamburlaine" in the first scene help further than to indicate that the play was written after 1587.
[22] This name was, however, quite common in this sense, Peele himself using it in his Farewell and in Polyhymnia.
[23] The reference is to the edition in The Shakespeare Apocrypha.
[24] Compare this with a line in James IV. (Act ii. Sc. I). "Better, than live unchaste, to lie in grave."
[25] See Gayley, Representative English Comedies, p. 422. Opinion to-day seems strongly to favour the theory that it was Nash to whom Greene referred in the famous passage in A Groatsworth of Wit, and not Lodge. Considerations of age, of personal association, of the comparative gifts of satire of Nash and Lodge strengthen this view. Nash helped Marlowe in the composition of a tragedy; why not Greene in the composition of a comedy?
[26] disdain: often used.