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.