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FOUR LETTERS, 
 
 AND 
 
 CERTAIN SONNETS, 
 
 I8PECULLY TODCHINO 
 
 ROBERT GREENE, 
 AND OTHER PARTIES BY HIM ABUSED: 
 
 BDT INCIDENTALLY Of 
 
 DIVERS EXCELLENT PERSONS, 
 
 anU sionw iWatters; of ^ott. 
 
 TO ALL COURTEOUS MINDS THAT WILL VOUCHSAFE THE READING. 
 
 FIRST PRINTED IN 1592. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, 
 
 ■WITH 
 
 A CRITICAL PREFACE. 
 
 OF 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN. 
 
 PRINTED BY T. DAVISON, WIIITEFRIARS. 
 
 1814. 
 
FOUR LETTERS, 
 
 AND 
 
 CERTAIN SONNETS, 
 
 I8PECUI.lv toucuins 
 
 ROBERT GREENE, 
 AND OTHER PARTIES BY HIM ABUSED ; 
 
 BCT INCIDEMT.UXT OF 
 
 DIVERS EXCELLENT PERSONS, 
 
 anU iBionu iWatta:!3! of i^otc. 
 
 TO ALL COURTEOUS MIKDS THAT WILL VOUCHSAFE THE READING. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 IMPRINTED BY JOHN WOLFE. 
 
 1592. 
 
Digitized by tine Ihternet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/fourletterscertaOOharvrich 
 
THS 
 
 PARTICULAR CONTENTS. 
 
 A Preface to courteous Minds. 
 
 A Letter to M. Emanuel Demetrius, with a Sonnet annexed. 
 
 A Letter to M. Christopher Bird. 
 
 A Letter to every favourable or indiflferent Reader. 
 
 Another Letter to the same, extorted after the rest. 
 
 Greene's Memorial, or certain Funeral Sonnets. 
 
 Two Latin Epitaphs ; the one of M. Greene, the other of M. John Harvey. 
 
 A Sonnet of M. Spencer to M. Doctor Harvey. 
 
TO 
 
 ALL COURTEOUS MINDS, 
 
 THAT WILL VOUCHSAFE THE READING. 
 
 AY I crave pardon at this instant, as well for in- 
 diting that is unworthy to he published, as for 
 publishing that was unworthy to be indited : I will 
 liereafter take precise order, either never to im- 
 portune you more, or to solicit you for more especial 
 cause. I was first exceeding loath to pen that is 
 written, albeit in mine own enforced defence, (for I make no differ- 
 ence between my dearest friends and myself), and am now much 
 loather to divulge that is imprinted, albeit against those whose own 
 pamphlets are readier to condemn them, than my letters forward 
 to accuse them. Vile acts would in some respects rather be concealed 
 than recorded, as the darkness of the night better fitteth the nature 
 of some unlucky birds, than the brightness of the day; and Hero- 
 stratus, in a villainous bravery affecting a most notorious and mon- 
 strous fame, was, in the censure of the wisest judgments, rather to he 
 overwhelmed in the deepest pit of oblivion, than to enjoy any relique 
 or shadow of his own desperate glory. But Greene (although 
 pitifully blasted, and how wofully faded ! ) still fourisheth in the me- 
 mory of some green wits, wedded to the wantonness of their own fancy, 
 and enamoured upon every new-fangled toy : and Pierce Pennylesse 
 (although the Devil's orator by profession, and his Dam's poet by prac- 
 tice), in such a flush of notable good fellows, cannot possibly want 
 many to read him; enough to excuse him, a few to commend him, some 
 to believe him, or to credit any that tickleth the right vein, and feedeth 
 the riotous humour of their licentious vanity. To stop the beginning 
 is no bad purpose, where the end may prove pernicious or perilous : 
 
VI 
 
 venom is venom, and will infect : when the dragon's head spitteth 
 poison, what mischief may lurk in the dragon's tail! If any distress 
 be miserable, defamation is intolerable, especially to minds that would 
 rather deserve just commendation, than be any way blemished with un- 
 just slander. They that use to speak well of other, and endeavour to 
 do well themselves (the defects of disability are not to be imputed to 
 endeavour), would be sorry to hear amiss without cause of complaint, or 
 suspicion; and he that like a Lacedemonian or Roman accounteth in- 
 famy worse than death, would be loath to improve his courage, or to 
 employ his patience in digesting the pestilent bane of his life. That is 
 done cannot de facto be undone ; but I appeal to Wisdom, how dis- 
 creetly, and to Justice^ how deservedly it is done; and request the one 
 to do us reason in shame of Impudency, and beseech the other to do us 
 right in reproach of Calumny. It was my intention so to demean my- 
 self in the whole, and so to temper my style in every part, that I might 
 neither seem blinded with affection, nor enraged with passion; nor 
 partial to friend, nor prejudicial to enemy; nor injurious to the worst, 
 nor offensive to any ; but mildly and calmly shew how discredit rebound" 
 eth upon the authors, as dust fiieth back into the wag's eyes, that will 
 needs be puffing it up. Which if I have altogether attained, without 
 the least oversight of distempered phrase, I am the gladder; if failed 
 in some few incident terms, (what tongue or pen may not slip in heat of 
 discourse? ) I hope a little will not greatly break the square, either of my 
 good meaning with humanity, or of your good acceptation with indif- 
 ferency. Favour is a courteous reader, and a gracious patron; and 
 no tnan loveth favour where it is to be loved, or honoureth it where it is 
 to be honoured, more affectionately than I ; yet here I neither desire 
 favour toward lovingest friend, nor wish disfavour toward spitefullest 
 foe, but only request reason toward both; and so briefly recommend 
 both to your foresaid indifferency, as to an equal balance of upright 
 judgment. London, this l6th of September. 
 
 Your thankful debtor, 
 
 G.H. 
 
FOUR LETTERS, &( 
 
 THE FIRST LETTER. 
 
 To the worshipful^ my very good Friend M. Emanuel Demetrius, at his 
 House by the Church in Lime Street, in London. 
 
 [ASTER DEMETRIUS, I earnestly commend 
 this bearer, M. Doctor Harvey, my good friend, 
 unto you, being a very excellent general scholar, 
 who is desirous of your acquaintance and friend- 
 ship, especially for the sight of some of your 
 antiquities and monuments, and also for some 
 conference touching the state of foreign countries, as your leisure 
 may conveniently sei've. You shall assuredly find the gentleman 
 very honest and thankful, and me ready to re-acquite your courtesy 
 and favour to him so shewn, in that I possibly may. And so w^ith 
 the remembrance of my hearty recommendations, with hke thanks 
 for your two letters of foreign news, received the last week, I 
 commit you to the protection of the Almighty. 
 
 Your loving friend, 
 
 Walden, this 29th of August, 1592. 
 
 CHRISTOPHER BIRD. 
 
 Instead of other novels, I send you my opinion, in a plain but 
 true sonnet, upon the famous new work entitled, A Quippe for an 
 upstart Courtier; or, forsooth, A quaint Dispute hetweene Velvet- 
 
2 
 
 breeches and Cloth-breeches : as fantastical and fond a dialogue as I 
 have seen ; and, for some particulars, one of the most licentious and 
 intolerable invectives that ever I read : wherein the lewd fellow, 
 and impudent railer, in an odious and desperate mood, without any 
 other cause or reason, amongst sundry other persons notoriously 
 defamed, most spitefully and villanously abuseth an ancient neigh- 
 bour of mine, one M. Harvey, a right honest man, of good reckon- 
 ing ; and one that above twenty years since bare the chiefest office 
 in Walden with good credit, and hath maintained four sons in 
 Cambridge and elsewhere, with great charges ; all sufficiently able 
 to answer for themselves : and three (in spite of some few Greenes) 
 universally well reputed in both universities, and through the whole 
 realm. Whereof one returning sick from Norwich to Lynn, in 
 July last, was past sense of any such malicious injury, before the 
 publication of that vile pamphlet. Livor post fata quiescat: et bene 
 d singulis audiant, qui omnibus volunt bene. 
 
 A DUE COMMENDATION OF THE QUIPPING AUTHOR. 
 
 Greene the coneycatcher, of this dream the author, 
 
 For his dainty devise deserveth the halter. 
 
 A rakehell, a makeshift, a scribbling fool j 
 
 A famous bayard in city and school : 
 
 Now sick as a dog, and ever brain-sick, 
 
 Where such a raving and desperate Dick ? 
 
 Sir Reverence ; a scurvy master of art, 
 
 Answered enough with a doctor's fart. 
 
 He scorns other answer ; and Envy salutes 
 
 With shortest vowels and with longest mutes. 
 
 For farther trial himself he refers 
 
 To proof and sound judgment, that seldom errs. 
 
 Now, good Robin-Good-fellow, and gentle Greenesleeves, 
 Give him leave to be quiet that none aggrieves. 
 
 Miserrima Fortuna, quae caret inimico. 
 
The origin and progress of the dispute between Robert Greene 
 and Dr. Gabriel Harvey, which gave occasion to the following 
 Letters and Sonnets, has been discussed in the Preface to the new 
 Edition of Greenes Groat's-worth of Wit, printed last year at the 
 Private Press at Lee Priori/, in Kent. It is there observed, and here 
 indeed expressly stated in the First Letter, here reprinted, that the 
 offence was committed by Greene in his Quippe for an Upstart 
 Courtier, or a Quaint Dispute between Velvet-Breeches and Cloth- 
 Breeches\ in which the author made a contemptuous allusion to the 
 station and character of Harvey's father, who was a rope-maker 
 at SaiSfron-Walden, in Essex. 
 
 The agonizing pangs which this sarcasm (certainly unwarrant- 
 able if unprovoked) appears to have inflicted on the pride and 
 vanity of Harvey, vented themselves in torrents of abuse both on 
 this and on future occasions, Avhich seem to the Editor to throw an 
 indelible stigma on the moral character of him Avho suffered his 
 revengeful passions thus to carry him away. 
 
 There is, however, so niuch interesting matter in the present 
 Tract, that while the reader is adjured to guard himself against the 
 infection of the venom with which the memory of poor Greene is 
 here loaded, it cannot be unacceptable to the gratification of his 
 literary curiosity, to furnish him with a production at once so rare 
 and of so singular a cast. 
 
 * Reprinted in the ttarhian Miscellany. 
 
 b 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 That Harvey was a man of great learning, and of a profusion 
 of pedantic rhetoric, will probably be conceived by all. That his 
 intellect was vigorous, and his judgment comprehensive and ge- 
 nerally sound, may also be asserted. But he appears to have been 
 totally deficient as well in taste as in genius. He could therefore 
 as little comprehend, as treat with favour, or even indulgence, the 
 merits of men of more fancy, with less learning, than himself. 
 
 His self-sufficiency was so great as justly to expose him to 
 ridicule : " If I never," says he, " deserve any better remembrance, 
 let me rather be epitaphed The Inventor of the English Hexameter, 
 whom learjied M. Stanihurst imitated in his Virgil, and excellent Sir 
 Philip Sidney disdained not to follow in his Arcadia and elsewhere, 
 than be chronicled T%e Green Master of the Black Art; or the 
 founder of ugly oaths ) or the father of misbegotten Fortunatus ; 
 or the Scrivener of Crossbiters ; or, as one of his own sectaries 
 termed him, the Patriarch of Shifters!" 
 
 Agam, in his 22d Sonnet he says : 
 
 " Some Tales to tell, would I a Chaucer were ; 
 Yet would I not even now an Homer be : 
 Though Spenser me hath often Homer termed, 
 And Monsieur Bodine vow'd as much as he." 
 
 It is true that in the friendship and praises of Spenser he had- 
 much to make him vain : and the following Sonnet, which occurs 
 at the close of the present tract, is repeated in this place in justice 
 to his memory ; for it is candid to confess, that it checks something 
 of the antipathy which is continually rising in the Editor's mind 
 against him. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT, 
 
 SONNET 
 
 To the right uoishipful my singular good friend M. Gabriell Harvey, Doctor of the Laws. 
 
 Hauvey, the happy above happiest men . 
 
 I read : that sitting like a looker-on 
 
 Of this world's stage, dost note with critic pen 
 
 The sharp dislikes of each condition ; 
 And as one careless of suspicion, 
 
 Ne fawnest for die favour of the Great; 
 
 Ne fearest foolish reprehension 
 
 Of faulty men, which danger to thee threat ; 
 But freely dost, of what thee list, entreat, 
 
 Like a great Lord, of peerless liberty. 
 
 Lifting the good up to high Honour's seat ; 
 
 And the evil damning evermore to die : 
 
 For life and deatli is in thy doomful writing : 
 So thy renown lives ever by inditing ! 
 
 Dublin, July 18, 1586. 
 
 It has been remarked, that in the charge of coarseness and 
 virulence which we apply to these Letters, we do not make sufficient 
 allowance for the manners of the age. If, indeed, it be true that 
 all controversies and all personalities were then carried on in lan- 
 guage equally broad and unrefined, no peculiar stigma ought to be 
 fixed on Dr. Harvey. But the remark does not appear to be 
 altogether justified by the general cast of the satirical writings of 
 that brilhant aera. There is an overflowing malice and revenge in 
 Harvey's mind, which distinguishes him from his cotemporaries. 
 
 If he really held Greene in the smallest portion of the con- 
 tempt which he expresses for him, Spenser's commendation might 
 well have preserved his temper from being ruffled at the attacks of 
 one whom he affected to term an ignorant, contemptible, and 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 infamous scribbler. But he probably felt (at least through the 
 medium of public opinion, what perhaps his want of natural sensi- 
 bility might have prevented his being originally impressed with), 
 that there was in Greene's productions a charm beyond the reach 
 of art, the charm of simple and touching genius, which haste could 
 not destroy, which dissolute habits could not extinguish, and which 
 the prejudices of an immoral and degraded name could not with- 
 draw from the public favour. 
 
 It must not lightly be admitted as an universal or even general 
 truth, that popular favour is an unequivocal proof of merit ; and 
 still less that the absence of it is a proof of the contrary. But there 
 must be something of very powerful attraction in those composi- 
 tions, which in spite of the author's bad name, in spite of his 
 poverty and Ioav habits of life, find their way to every one's closet, 
 and a passage through every one's lips. 
 
 If we give credit to the degrading stories divulged by these 
 Letters, the extent of which it must be remembered was strongly 
 denied by T. Nash, the companion and defender of Greene, we 
 cannot peruse the relation without a poignant mixture of sorrow 
 and disgust. Nor can we contemplate such an exhibition of the 
 frailties and inconsistencies of the human character, without asto- 
 nishment as well as pity. It is, however, but an anticipation of the 
 stories of Richard Savage, Samuel Boyse, and Thomas Dermody. 
 
 " How he departed," says Harvey, " his ghostly mother Isam 
 can truliest, and will favourabliest report ! How he lived, London 
 remembereth ! Oh, what a lively picture of vanity ! but, oh, what 
 a deadly image of misery ! and, oh, what a terrible caveat for such 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 and such ! I am not to extenuate or prejudice his wit, which could 
 not any way be great, though some way not the least of our vulgar 
 writers, and many ways very ungracious : but who ever esteemed 
 him either wise, or learned, or honest, or any way credible? How 
 many gentlemen and other say of him, ' Let the paltry fellow go/ 
 Lord, what a lewd companion was he ! What an egregious make- 
 shift ! Where should coney-catchers have gotten such a secretary ? 
 How shall Cosenage do for a new register; or Phantasticality for 
 a new author ? They wrong him much with their epitaphs and 
 other solemn devices, that entitle him not at the least the second 
 toy of London, the stale of Paul's, the ape of Euphues, the vice of 
 the stage, the mocker of the simple world, the flouter of his friends, 
 the foe of himself, and so forth. What durst not he utter with his 
 tongue, or divulge with his pen, or countenance with his face.? Or 
 whom cared he for, but a careless crew of his own associates.'*" &c. 
 
 " Greene, vile Greene!" he says in another place, " would thou 
 werest half so honest as the worst of the four whom thou upbraid- 
 est ; or half so learned as the unlearnedest of the three ! Thank 
 other for thy borrowed and filched plumes of some little Italianated 
 bravery, and what remaineth but fiat impudency and gross detrac- 
 tion, the proper ornaments of thy sweet utterance.''" 
 
 Here is a direct charge against Greene as a plagiarist from the 
 Italians, from whom probably the stories of some of his novels 
 were taken : a charge, which, if true, he only incurred in common 
 with the most eminent of his countrymen, both of his own time, 
 and preceding ages. 
 
ADVERTISjEMENT. 
 
 Thomas Nash is exposed to little less of the vengeance of the 
 enraged orator. Several pages are employed in an attack and 
 ridicule of that writer's pamphlet, entitled, " Pierce Pennilesse's 
 Supplication to the Devil." 
 
 " Lo," says Harvey, " his inwardest companion, that tasted of 
 the fatal herring, cruelly pinched with want, vexed with discredit, 
 tormented with other men's felicity, and overwhelmed with his own 
 misery, in a raving and frantic mood most desperately exhibiteth 
 his Supplication to the Devil !" 8iC. 
 
 Nash answered ; and Harvey replied by his " Pierce's Supero- 
 gation" which is now curious, not so much for the subject that gave 
 rise to it, as for the numerous notices which it contains of the 
 literature of the day : on which account a reprint of it is intended 
 hereafter to form a portion of Archaic a. 
 
 Yet in the present Letters it is clear that Harvey was anxious 
 to conciliate Nash. For in another place, after speaking of the 
 fine models of Orpheus, Homer, Pindar, and the excellentest wits 
 of Greece — and then of the Psalms of David, translated by Bu- 
 chanan, he cordially recommends " such lively springs of streaming 
 eloquence to the dear lovers of the Muses ; and namely, to the pro- 
 fessed sons of the same, Edmund Spenser, Richard Stanyhurst, 
 Abraham France, Thomas Watson, Samuel Daniell, Thomas Nash, 
 and the rest, whom he affectionately thanks for their studious en- 
 deavours, commendably employed in enriching and polishing their 
 native tongue, never so furnished or embellished as of late." 
 
 As to the Sonnets annexed to these Letters, they never ap- 
 
ADVERTISEMENT, 
 
 proach to poetry : with the exception of the 18th, which has justly 
 been commended by Mr. Israeh'. On the contrary, the verses 
 inserted in Nash's Supplication are often animated, and marked with 
 poetical feeling and poetical expression. 
 
 But what can art and learning do towards producing poetry 
 without the native inspiration of the Muse ? How little a way will 
 the most ingenious theories of Criticism advance to it.'' How often 
 does a composition charm in defiance of all the Critic's rules ? And 
 how often is that, which is in strict conformity to all his canons, dull, 
 lifeless, and without a particle of attraction ? Animated feelings ; 
 affecting sentiment ; glowing imagery — what cold critic can reason 
 away the delight which the delineation of these can convey ; or the 
 fame which shall follow it ? Or hoAV shall all his puny endeavours 
 confer on the laborious accuracy of the artificial Avriter the popu- 
 larity and lustre which can only be attained by the unborrowed 
 force of genuine and unsophisticated genius ? 
 
 ' See Calamities of Authors. See also Quarrels of Authors, for an account of the 
 controversy between Harvey and Nash. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 While this sheet was correcting, the following notice of a person, abused by 
 Dr. Harvey, met the Editor's ey^ among Bishop Kennett's MSS. in the British Museum. 
 
 " Dr. Andrew Pern E, who died 1 589, was Dean of Ely, and Master of Peterhouse, 
 in Cambridge, and was often entertained, and that with all kindness, by Archbishop Whit- 
 gift, at Lambeth ; and there he died on 26th April, J 589 ; and was from thence, by the 
 Archbishop's order, decently buried in Lambeth Church, and lieth under a gravestone, 
 which now, I think, is gone ; but was in these words : 
 
 D. O. M. 
 
 Andreae Feme, S. T. D. Cathedralis Ecclesiae Eliensis Decano Collegii D. Patri in 
 Academia Cantabrigise Magistro, munifica bene reverendi virtute insigni, Literarum Mecae- 
 nati optimo, hoc monumentum Pietatis et Amoris ergo Richardus Perne, Nepos posuit. 
 Obiit 26 die Aprilis, Anno 1589. 
 
 Scientia inflat : 
 
 Charitas zedificat. 
 
 Some character of this Doctor was given not long after his death, by an author of those 
 times, in answer to a Book written by Gabriel Harvey of Saffron Walden, who had written 
 abusively of him in respect of his compliance in Queen Mary's reign, wherein is hinted the 
 esteem the Archbishop had for him. 
 
 " Dr. Perne is casked up in lead, and cannot arise to plead for himself; therefore I will 
 commit this to ink and paper in his behalf. Few men lived better, though, like David and 
 Peter, he had his fall : yet the University had not a more careful Father this hundred 
 years : and if for no other regard but that a chief Father of our Commonwealth loved him, 
 in whose house he died, he might have spared and forborne him. His hospitality was great 
 as hath been kept before or ever since, upon the place he had (being Master of Peterhouse, 
 and Dean of Ely); and for his wit and learning, they that mislike want the like wit and 
 learning, else they would have more judgment to discern it." — Kennett's MSS. 
 
 *^* Almost all the other names mentioned in these Letters occur so frequently in the 
 literature of the Elizabethan period, which has been lately so copiously elucidated, that it 
 has been deemed superfluous to load this publication with notes regarding them. 
 
o 
 
 FOUR LETTERS, Sfc 
 
 THE FIRST LETTER. 
 
 To the worshipful, my very good Friend M. Emanuel Demetrius, at his 
 House hy the Church in Lime Street, in London. 
 
 Master Demetrius, I earnestly commend this bearer, M. Doctor 
 Harvey, my good friend, mito you, being a very excellent general 
 scholar, who is desirous of your acquaintance and friendship, espe- 
 cially for the sight of some of your antiquities and monuments, and 
 also for some conference touching the state of foreign countries, as 
 your leisure may conveniently serve. You shall assuredly find the 
 gentleman very honest and thankful, and me ready to re-acquite 
 your courtesy and favour to him so shewn, in that I possibly may. 
 And so with the remembrance of my hearty recommendations, with 
 like thanks for your two letters of foreign news, received the last 
 week, I commit you to the protection of the Almighty. 
 
 Your loving friend, 
 
 Walden, this i9th of August, 1592. 
 
 CHRISTOPHER BIRD. 
 
 Instead of other novels, I send you my opinion, in a plain but 
 true sonnet, upon the famous new Avork entitled, A Quippefor an 
 upstart Courtier; or, forsooth, A quaint Dispute betweene Velvet^ 
 breeches and Cloth-breeches : as fantastical and fond a dialogue as I 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 have seen ; and, for some particulars, one of the most hcentious and 
 intolerable invectives that ever I read : Avherein the lewd fellow, 
 and impudent railer, in an odious and desperate mood, without any 
 other cause or reason, amongst sundry other persons notoriously 
 defamed, most spitefully and villanously abuseth an ancient neigh- 
 bour of mine, one M. Harvey, a right honest man, of good reckon- 
 ing ; and one that above twenty years since bare the chiefest office 
 in Walden with good credit, and hath maintained four sons in 
 Cambridge and elsewhere, with great charges ; all sufficiently able 
 to answer for themselves : and three (in spite of some few Greenes) 
 universally well reputed in both universities, and through the whole 
 realm. Whereof one returning sick from Norwich to Lynn, in 
 July last, was past sense of any such malicious injury, before the 
 publication of that vile pamphlet. Livor post fata quiescat: et beni 
 d singulis audiant, qui omnibus volunt bene, 
 
 A DUE COMMENDATION OF THE QUIPPING AUTHOR. 
 
 Greene the coneycatcher, of this dream the author, 
 
 For his dainty devise deserveth the halter. 
 
 A rakehell, a makeshift, a scribbling fool j 
 
 A famous bayard in city and school : 
 
 Now sick as a dog, and ever brain-sick. 
 
 Where such a raving and desperate Dick ? 
 
 Sir Reverence j a scurvy master of art. 
 
 Answered enough with a doctor's fart. 
 
 He scorns other answer ; and Envy salutes 
 
 With shortest vowels and with longest mutes. 
 
 For farther trial himself he refers 
 
 To proof and sound judgment, that seldom errs. 
 
 Now, good Robin-Good-fellow, and gentle Greenesleeves, 
 Give him leave to be quiet that none aggrieves. 
 Miserrima Fortuna, qiuv caret inimico. 
 
THE SECOND LETTER. 
 
 To my loving Friend, Master Christopher Bird, of Walden. 
 
 Master Bird; in the absence of M. Demetrius I delivered your 
 letter unto his wife, whom I found very courteous. My next busi- 
 ness was to enquire after the famous author, who was reported to lie 
 dangerously sick in a shoemaker's house near Dowgate, not of the 
 plague, or the pox, as a gentleman said, but of a surfeit of pickled 
 herring and rhenish wine, or, as some suppose, of an exceeding fear. 
 For in his extremest want he offered ten, or, rather than faily 
 twenty shillings to the printer (a huge sum with him at that 
 instant), to leave out the matter of the three brothers, with con- 
 fession of his great fear to be called Coram for those forged im- 
 putations, A conscious mind and undaunted heart seldom dwell 
 together : he was not the first that bewrayed and punished his own 
 guiltiness with blushing for shame, or trembling for dread, or droop- 
 ing for woe. Many can heap misery enough upon their own heads, 
 and need no more penalty but their own contrition and the censure 
 of other. I would not wish a sworn enemy to be more basely 
 valued, or more vilely reputed, than the common voice of the city 
 esteemeth him that sought fame by defamation of other, but hath 
 utterly discredited himself ; and is notoriously grown a very pro- 
 verb of infamy and contempt. 
 
 I little delight in the rehearsal of such paltry : but who like 
 Elderton for ballading, Greene for pamphleting; both for good 
 fellowship and bad conditions? Railing was the ypocras of the 
 drunken rhymester, and Quipping the marchpane of the mad libel- 
 ler. They scape fair that go scot-free in such saucy reckonings: 
 
I have known some, read of many, and heard of more, that wantonly 
 quipped other and soundly nipped themselves. The hottest blood 
 of choler may be cooled : and as the fiercest fury of wild-fire, so 
 the fiercest wild-fire of fury consumeth itself. Howbeit a common 
 mischief would be prevented : and it generally concerneth all, and 
 particularly behove th every one to look about him when he hekreth 
 the bells ringing backward, and,seeth the fire running forward, and 
 beholdeth even Death in person shooting his peremptory bolts. 
 You understand me without a gloss : and here is matter enough for 
 A new civil war, or shall T say for a new Trojan Siege, if this poor 
 letter should fortune to come in print, 
 
 I deal directly, and will plainly tell you my fancy, if Titius 
 continue to upbraid Caius with every thing and nothing. I neither 
 name Martin-mar-prelate, nor shame Papp with a hatchet, nor men- 
 tion any other but Elderton and Greene ; two notorious mates, 
 and the very ringleaders of the rhyming and scribbling crew. But 
 Titius, or rather Zoilus, in his spiteful vain, will so long flirt at 
 Homer; and Thersites, in his peevish mood, so long fling at Aga- 
 memnon, that they will become extremely odious and intolerable to 
 all good learning and civil government : and in attempting to pull 
 down or disgrace others without order, must needs finally overthrow 
 themselves without relief. 
 
 Orators have challenged a special liberty, and poets claimed 
 an absolute licence ; but no liberty without bounds, nor any licence 
 without limitation. Invectives by favour have been too bold, and 
 satires by usurpation too presumptuous. I overpass Archilochus, 
 Aristophanes, Lucian, Julian, Aretine, and that Avhole venomous 
 and viperous brood of old and new railers. Even Tully and Horace 
 otherwhiles over-reached ; and I must needs say. Mother Hubbard, 
 in heat of choler, forgetting the pure sanguine of her sweet Fairt/ 
 Queen, Avilfully overshot her malcontented self, as elsewhere I have 
 specified at large, with the good leave of unspotted friendship. 
 
Examples in some ages do exceeding much hurt: Sallust and 
 Clodius learned of Tully to frame artificial declamations and 
 pathetical invectives against Tully himself, and other worthy 
 members of Ijiat most flourishing state. If Mother Hubbard, in 
 the vein of Chaucer, happen to tell one canicular tale, father 
 Elderton and his son Greene, in the vein of Skelton, or 
 ScoGGiN, will counterfeit an hundred dogged fables, libels, calum- 
 nies, slanders, lies for the whetstone, what not ; and most currishly 
 snarl and bite where they should most kindly fawn and lick. 
 Every private excess is dangerous, but suchlike public enormities 
 incredibly pernicious and insupportable : and who can tell Avhat 
 huge outrages might amount of such quarrelous and tumultuous 
 causes ? 
 
 Honour is precious ; worship of value ; fame invaluable. They 
 perilously threaten the commonwealth that go about to violate the 
 inviolable parts thereof : many will sooner lose their lives than the 
 least jot of their reputation. Lord, what mortal feuds, what furious 
 combats, what cruel bloodshed, what horrible slaughterdom, have 
 been committed for the point of honour and some few courtly cere- 
 monies ! Though meaner persons do not so highly overprize their 
 credit ; yet who taketh not discourtesy unkindly, or slander displeas- 
 ingly ? For mine own part, I am to make an use of my adversary's 
 abuse ; and will endeavour to reform any default Avhereof I may 
 Justly or probably be impeached. Some emulation hath already 
 done me good ; both for supply of great imperfections, and for 
 increase of small perfections. I have, and who hath not, found it 
 better to be tickled and stinged of a busy enemy, than to be coyed 
 and lulled of an idle friend. 
 
 Plutarch is gravely wise, and Machiavel subtilely politic ; but in 
 either of them what sounder or finer piece of cunning, than to reap 
 commodity by him that seeketh my displeasure, and to play upon 
 the advantage of his detection of my infirmities ? Other cavilling. 
 
6 
 
 or mote-spying malice, confoundeth itself; and I continue my 
 accustomed simplicity, to answer vanity with silence, though, per- 
 adventure, not without danger of inviting a new injury, by enter- 
 taining an old. Patience hath trained me to pocket-up more 
 heinous indignities, and even to digest an age of iron. They that 
 can do little must be contented to suffer much. My betters need 
 not take it grievously to be taunted or reproached in that book 
 where Saint Peter and Christ himself are Lucianically and scoffingly 
 alleged ; the one for begging, the other for granting a foolish boon, 
 (pretended ever since the fatal destiny of the gentle craft). Some 
 men Avill have their swing and their bugges-words, though it be 
 against all Gods-forbid : and what Caesar's might, or Cato's integrity, 
 or what Saint's devotion, can stop such mouths? Yet neither 
 themselves the better, nor other the worse, that depend riot on 
 their allowance, but rely on their own justification ; and desire to 
 confute their impudency not with words, but with deeds. 
 
 Howbeit I am not to prejudice my brother alive, or to smother 
 the wrong offered to my brother deceased, or to tolerate the least 
 defamation of my good father, whom no illwiller could ever touch 
 with any dishonesty or discredit in any sort. Nothing more dear 
 or inestimable than a man's good name; and albeit I contemn 
 such pelting injuries, vainly devised against myself, yet am I not 
 to neglect so intolerable a wrong, so notoriously published against 
 them. There is law for desperatest outlaws, and order for most 
 disorderl}'- fellows : they that cannot govern themselves must be 
 ruled by other, and pay for their folly. 
 
 Whiles I was thus, or to like effect, resolving with myself, and 
 discoursing with some special friends, not only writing unto you, I 
 was suddenly certified that the king of the paper stage (so the gentle- 
 man termed Greene) had played his last part, and was gone to 
 Tarleton : whereof I protest I was nothing glad, as was expected, 
 but unfeignedly sorry ; as well because I could have wished he had 
 
taken his leave with a more charitable farewel, as also because I was 
 deprived of that remedy in law that I intended against him, in the 
 behalf of my father, whose honest reputation 1 was in many duties to 
 tender. Yet to some conceited wit, that could take delight to dis- 
 cover knaveries, or were a fit person to augment the history oi coney- 
 catchers, O Lord ! what a pregnant occasion were here presented, 
 to display lewd vanity in his lively colours, and to decipher the 
 very mysteries of that base art. Petty cozeners are not worth the 
 naming : he, they say, was the Monarch of Crossbiters, and the very 
 Emperor of Shifters. 
 
 I was altogether unacquainted with the man, and never once 
 saluted him by name : but who in London hath not heard of his 
 dissolute and licentious living ; his fond disguising of a Master of 
 Art with ruffianly hair, unseemly apparel, and more unseemly com- 
 pany ; his vain-glorious and Thrasonical braving ; his piperly ex- 
 temporizing and Tarletonizing ; his apish counterfeitmg of every 
 ridiculous and absurd toy ; his fine cozening of jugglers, and finer 
 juggling with cozeners ; his villanous cogging and foisting ; his mon- 
 strous swearing and horrible forswearing ; his impious profaning of 
 sacred texts ; his other scandalous and blasphemous raving ; his 
 riotous and outragious surfeiting ; his continual shifting of lodgings; 
 his plausible mustering and banqueting of roysterly acquaintance at 
 his first coming ; his beggarly departing in every hostess's debt ; his 
 infamous resorting to the Bankside, Shoreditch, Southwark, and 
 other filthy haunts ; his obscure lurking in basest corners ; his pawn- 
 ing of his sword, cloak, and what not, when mone3^ came sl^ort; his 
 impudent pamphleting, fantastical interluding, and desperate li- 
 belling, when other cozening shifts failed; his employing of Ball 
 (surnamed Cutting Ball) till he was intercepted at Tiburn, to levy a 
 crew of his trustiest companions to guard him in danger of arrests ; 
 his keeping of the aforesaid Ball's sister, a sorry ragged queen, of 
 whom he had his base son, Inportunatus Greene ; his forsaking 
 
of his own wife, too honest for such a husband ; particulars are in- 
 finite ; his contemning of superiors, deriding of other, and defying 
 of all good order. 
 
 Compare base fellows and noble men together, and what in a 
 manner wanted he of the ruffianly and variable nature of Catiline or 
 Antony, but the honourable fortunes of Catiline and Antony ? They 
 that have seen much more than I have heard (for so I am credibly 
 informed) can relate strange and almost incredible comedies of his 
 monstrous disposition, wherewith I am not to infect the air, or 
 defile this paper. There be enough and enough such histories, both 
 dead and living, though youth be not corrupted, or age accloyed 
 with his legendary. Truly I have been ashamed .to hear some 
 ascertained reports of his most woeful and rascal estate : how the 
 wretched fellow, or shall I say the Prince of Beggars, laid all to 
 gage for some few shillings ; and was attended by lice ; and would 
 pitifully beg a penny pot of Malmsey ; and could not get any of 
 his old acquaintance to comfort or visit him in his extremity, but 
 Mistress Appleby, and the mother of Infortunatus. 
 
 Alas! even his fellow- writer, a proper young man', if advised 
 in time, that was a principal guest at that fatal banquet of pickle 
 herring (I spare his name, and in some respects wish him well), came 
 never more at him ; but either Avould not, or happily could not per- 
 form the duty of an affectionate and faithful friend. The poor cord- 
 wainer's wife was his only nurse, and the mother of Infortunatus 
 his sole companion; but when Mistress Appleby came, as much to 
 expostulate injuries with her, as to visit him. God help good fellows 
 when they cannot help themselves ! slender relief in the predica- 
 ment of privations and feigned habits. Miserable man, that must 
 perish, or be succoured by counterfeit or impotent supplies ! 
 
 I once bemoaned the decayed and blasted estate of M. Gas- 
 coiGNE, who wanted not some commendable parts of conceit and 
 
 * Thomas Nash. 
 
9 
 
 endeavour; but unhappy M. Gascoigne, how lordly hftppy in 
 comparison of most unhappy M. Greene ! He never envied me so 
 much as I pitied him from my iieart ; especially when his hostess 
 IsAM, with tears in her eyes, and sighs from a deeper fountain (for 
 she loved him dearly), told me of his lamentable begging of a penny 
 pot of Malmsey ; and, Sir Reverence, how lousy he and the mother 
 of Infortunatus were (I would her surgeon found her no worse 
 than lousy) ; and hoAV he was fain, poor soul, to borrow her hus- 
 band's shirt, whiles his own was a washing ; and how his doublet, 
 and hose, and sword, were sold for three shillings ; and beside the 
 charges of his winding-sheet, which was four shillings, and the 
 charges of his burial yesterday, in the new churchyard near Bedlam, 
 which was six shillings and fourpence, how deeply he was indebted 
 to her poor husband, as appeared by his own bond of ten pounds, 
 which the good woman kindly shewed me, and beseeched me to 
 read the writing beneath, which was a letter to his abandoned wife, 
 in the belialf of his gentle host, not so short as persuasible in the 
 beginning, and pitiful in the ending. 
 
 Doll, I charge thee hy the love of our youth, and by my soul's rest, 
 that thou wilt see this man paid : for if he and his wife had not suc- 
 coured me, I had died in the streets. 
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 Oh, what notable matter were here for a green head, or Lu- 
 cianical conceit, that would take pleasure in the pain of such sorry 
 distressed creatures ! whose afflicted case, to every charitable or 
 compassionate mind, cannot but seem most commiserable ; if not 
 for their own cause, yet for God's sake, who deserveth infinitely of 
 them whom he acquitteth, not according to judgment, but accord- 
 ing to mercy. I rather hope of the dead, as I wish to the living, 
 that grace might finally abound where wickedness did ovei'flow; 
 
 c 
 
10 
 
 • 
 
 and that Christ, in his divine goodness, should miraculously forgive 
 the man, that in his devilish badness blasphemously reviled God. 
 The dead bite not; and I am none of those that bite the dead. 
 When I begin to conflict with ghosts, then look for my confutation 
 of his ^ne Quippe, or Quaint Dispute, whom his sweet hostess, for a 
 tender farewell, crowned with a garland of bays, to shew that a 
 tenth Muse honoured him more being dead, than all the nine ho- 
 noured him alive. I know not whether Skelton, Elderton, or 
 some like flourishing poet were so interred : it was his own request, 
 and liis nurse's devotion ; and happily some of his favourites may 
 imitate the example. One that wished him a better lodging than 
 in a poor journeyman's house, and a better grave than in that 
 churchyard in Bedlam, hath performed a little piece of a greater 
 duty to a laureat poet. 
 
 Here lies the man, whom Mistress Isam crown'd with bays; 
 She, she that joy'd to hear her Nightingale's sweet lays. 
 
 Which another no sooner read, but he immediately subscribed, as 
 speaking to the ignorant passenger. 
 
 Here Bedlam is; and here a Poet garish. 
 Gaily bedeck'd, like forehorse of the parish. 
 
 Other epitaphs and faneral devotions I am promised by some, 
 that deeply affect inspired bards, and the adopted sons of the Muses. 
 But you may imagine I have small superfluity of leisure to entend 
 such business, and yet nothing of friend or foe can be unwelcome 
 unto me that savoureth of wit, or relisheth of humanity, or tasteth 
 of any good. In the mean, as ever before for a general defence, so 
 still for a special apology, I refer myself to every indifferent judg- 
 ment, and presume thej'^ will conceive well that perceive no ill. 
 
11 
 
 Charity recommendeth favour to superiors ; amity to equals ; 
 and goodwill to all, that either reverence divinity, or regard hu- 
 manity. Friends have affection, and the wiser sort reason, to value 
 men, not by others' report, but by their own desert, or probable 
 hope; which I would willingly nourish, as I honestly may, till it shall 
 please God to afford some convenient occasion of more actual proof. 
 And as for envy or hatred to any party, I did ever abhor them 
 both ; and I imagine there is not any that either more resolutely 
 disdaineth the one, or more peremptorily detesteth the other, as 
 perhaps may yet long visibly appear, if some other requisites con- 
 cur with my intention, or fall out answerable to my expectation. 
 Promise is debt ; and I had rather perform than promise any thing : 
 but a mind desirous to pleasure friends, to reconcile foes, to dis- 
 please few, to displeasure none. 
 
 They that have little else to win or continue credit had need 
 have humanity, in supply of other defects. Let the world deal with 
 simple men as it pleaseth ; 1 loth to be odious to any, and would be 
 loth to be tedious to you. The next week you may happily have a 
 letter of such French occurrences, and other intelligences, as the 
 credible relation of inquisitive friends, or employed strangers, shall 
 acquaint me withal. That most valorous and brave king wanteth 
 no honourable praises, or zealous prayers. Redoubted Parma was 
 never so matched ; and in so many worthy histories, as well new as 
 old, how few comparable either for virtue or fortune ? The Spaniard, 
 politic enough, and not over-rashly audacious, will be advised before 
 he entangle himself with more wars at once; knowing how the brave 
 Earl of Essex, worthy Sir John Norris, and their valiant knights, 
 have fought for the honour of England ; and for the right of France, 
 of the Low Countries, and of Portugal. 
 
 Thrice happy France, though how unhappy France, that hast 
 such a sovereign head, such resolute hearts, and such invincible 
 hands to fight for thee ; that Avill either recover thee most mightily, 
 
or die for thee most honourably ! Were I of sufficient discourse to 
 record the vahantest and meniorablest acts of the world, I would 
 count it a felicity to have the opportunity of so egregious and he- 
 roical an argument ; not pleasurably devised in counterfeit names, 
 but admirably represented to the eye of France, and the ear of the 
 world, in the persons of roj^al and most puissant knights : how sin- 
 gularly worthy of most glorious and immortal fame ! Gallant Avits, 
 and brave pens, may honourably bethink themselves ; and even 
 ambitiously frame their style to a noble emulation of Livy, Homer, 
 and the divinest spirits of all ages. I return to my private business. 
 Good Master Bird, commend me to my good fiiends : and fare 
 you heartily well. 
 
 Your ever assured, 
 
 London, this 5th of September. 
 
 GABRIEL HARVEY. 
 
 : THE THIRD LETTER. 
 
 : To every deader, favourably or indifferently affected. 
 
 Albeit for these twelve or thirteen years no man hath been more 
 loth or more scrupulous than myself to underlie the censure of every 
 curious conceit or rigorous judgment that pretendeth a deep insight 
 in the perfections of wits and styles, insomuch that even actions of 
 silence and patience have been commenced against me; and al- 
 though I still dwell in the same opinion, that nothing would be 
 committed to a public view, that is not exactly laboured both for 
 matter and manner, and that importeth not some notable use to 
 one or other effectual purpose, yet partly the vehement importunity 
 
13 
 
 of some affectionate friends, and partly mine own tender regard o^ 
 my father's and my brother's good r^utation, have so forcibly over- 
 ruled me, that I have finally condescended to their passionate mo- 
 tion, and in an extraordinary case have respectively yielded my 
 consent to an extraordinary course; which I would unpartially 
 commend to the reasonable allowance of every indifferent peruser 
 that carrieth courtesy in his tongue, or honesty in his heart. For 
 mine own injury, the more I consider the less I estimate the same, as 
 one born to suffer, and made to contemn injuries. He that in his 
 youth flattered not himself with the exceeding con^mendations of 
 some greatest scholars in the world, cannot at these years either be 
 discouraged with misreport, or daunted with misfortune. A pre- 
 meditate and resolute mind lightly shaketh off the heaviest crosses 
 of malice, and easily passeth over a thousand grievances with a 
 smile. Some have learned of Reason, some of Philosophy, some of 
 History, some of Divinity, some of Experience, some of all, to en- 
 dure patiently whatsoever befalleth, and even to make the cruellest 
 pain pleasant, as some make the sweetest pleasure painful. I had 
 rather name Titius or Sempronius, than myself; but the urgent en- 
 treaty of friends, and your eager expectation, have suddenly obtained 
 that, which no personal impeachment, or real enforcement, could 
 in many years extort. 
 
 Howbeit I shall hardly content them to satisfy you, that am 
 neither to offend any but in case of notoriety, nor to defend myself 
 but in case of necessity or honesty. If any have charged me, or do 
 charge me with insufficiency, I confess ; perfection is no common 
 gift : if with ignorance, I grant ; many seem, few are learned : if 
 with simplicity, I yield; wondrous wits are rare birds: if with ill 
 luck, I deny not ; good luck is not every man's lot ; yet who ever 
 heard me complain of ill luck, or once say. Fortune my foe 9 But 
 in "the plainness of my nature, and simplicity of my art, I can easily 
 defy the proudest that dareth call my credit in question, or accuse 
 
14 
 
 me of any dishonest or scandalous part, either in deed or in word. 
 Many things are made offensive in the handhng, that are tolerable 
 enough in their own nature; or fie on an odious circumstance, where 
 the substance itself might be more gracious. Letters may be pri- 
 vately written, that would not be pubhcly divulged. I was then 
 young in years, fresh in courage, green in experience, and, as the 
 manner is, somewhat overweening in conceit; and for variety of 
 study, and some deeper intelligence in the affairs of the world, other- 
 whiles reading invectives and satires, artificially amplified in the 
 most exaggerate and hyperbolical kind, I could hardly refrain from 
 discovering some little part of my reading. I had curiously laboured 
 some exact and exquisite points of study and practice, and greatly 
 misliked the preposterous and untoward courses of divers good 
 wits, ill directed : there wanted not some sharp undeserved dis-i 
 courtesies to exasperate my mind. 
 
 Shall I touch the ulcer.'' it is no such mystery but it may be 
 revealed : I was supposed not unmeet for the Oratorship of the Uni- 
 versity, Avhich in that spring of mine age, for my exercise and credit 
 I earnestly affected ; but mine own modest petition, my friend's 
 diligent labour, our High-Chancellor's most honourable and extraor- 
 dinary commendation, were all pcltingly defeated by a shy practice 
 of the old Fox, whose acts and monuments shall never die. Some, 
 like accidents of dislike, for brevity I overslip : young blood is hot; 
 youth hasty; ingenuity open; abuse impatient; choler stomachous; 
 temptations busy; the invective vein, a stirring and tickling vein; 
 the satirical humour, a puffing and swelling humour ; conceit pen- 
 neth, leisure peruseth, and courtesy commendeth many needless 
 discourses; idleness, the greatest author and variablest reader in 
 the world. Some familiar friends pricked me forward, and I, neither 
 fearing danger, nor suspecting ill measure (poor credulity soon 
 beguiled), was not unwilling to content them, to delight a few other, 
 and to avenge or satisfy myself, after the manner of shrews, that 
 
15 
 
 cannot otherwise ease their cursed hearts but by their own tongues 
 and their neighbours' ears. 
 
 Seignior Immerito (for that name will be remembered) was 
 then, and is still, my affectionate friend ; one that could very Avell 
 abide Gascoigne's Steel Glass, and that stood equally indifferent 
 to either part of the state demonstrative. Many communications 
 and writings may secretly pass between such, even for an exercise 
 of speech and style, that are not otherwise convenient to be dis- 
 closed ; it was the sinister hap of those unfortunate letters to fall 
 into the left hands of malicious enemies or undiscreet friends, who 
 adventured to imprint in earnest that was scribbled in jest (for 
 the moody fit was soon over), and requited their private pleasure 
 with my public displeasure : oh ! my inestimable and infinite dis- 
 pleasure. 
 
 When there was no remedy but melancholy patience, and the 
 sharpest part of those unlucky letters had been over-read at the 
 Council Table, I was advised, by certain honourable and divers 
 worshipful persons, to interpret my intention in more express 
 terms ; and thereupon discoursed every particularity by way of 
 articles or positions, in a large Apologt of my dutiful and entire 
 affection to that flourishing University, my dear Mother; which 
 Apology, with not so few as forty such academical exercises, and 
 sundry other politic discourses, I have hitherto suppressed, as 
 unworthy the view of the busy world, or the entertainment of 
 precious time : but peradventure these extraordinary provocations 
 may work extraordinarily in me ; and though not in a passion, yet 
 in conceit stir me up, to publish many tracts and discourses, that 
 in certain considerations I meant ever to conceal, and to dedicate 
 unto none but unto obscure darkness, or famous Vulcan. 
 
 It were pity, but wondrous wits (give enemies their due) should 
 become more wondrous by comparison : conference maketh excellent 
 things appear more admirable ; and I am so far from being a Saturnist 
 
16 
 
 by nature, or a Stoic by discipline, tliat I can easily frame a certain 
 pleasurable delight unto myself, by ministering some matter unto 
 them, that now are fain to make something of nothing, and wittily 
 to play with their own shadows. It goeth somewhat hard in my 
 harsh legend, when the Father of Music must be mocked, notTubul- 
 cain, as he mistermeth him, but Tuball, whom Genesis vouchsafeth 
 honourable mention ; and the hexameter verse flouted: whereof nei- 
 ther Homer in Greek, nor Virgil in Latin, (how valourous authors !) 
 nor Alexander in conquest, nor Augustus in majesty, (how puissant 
 princes !) were ashamed ; but accounted it the only gallant trumpet 
 of brave and heroical acts : and I wis the English is nothing too 
 good to imitate the Greek or Latin, or other eloquent languages, 
 that honour the hexameter as the Sovereign of Verses, and the High 
 Controler of Rhymes. 
 
 If I never deserve any better remembrance, let me rather be 
 epitaphed the Inventor of the English Hexameter, whom learned M . 
 Stanihurst imitated in his Virgil, and excellent Sir Philip Sid- 
 ney disdained not to follow in his Arcadia, and elsewhere, than be 
 chronicled the Green master of the Black Art, or the Founder of 
 ugly oaths, or the Father of misbegotten Infortunatus, or the 
 Scrivener of Crossbiters, or, as one of his own sectaries termed him, 
 the Patriarch of Shifters. Happy man I ! if these two be my 
 heinousest crimes and deadliest sins : to be the inventor of the 
 English hexameter, and to be orderly clapped in the Fleet for the 
 foresaid letters ; where he that saw me, saw me at Constantinople. 
 
 Indeed Sir James Croft (whom I never touched with the 
 least tittle of detractions) was cunningly incensed and reincensed 
 against me, but at last pacified by the voluntary mediation of. 
 my honourable favourers, M. Secretary Wilson, and Sir Walter 
 Mildmay ; unrequested by any line of my hand, or any word of 
 my mouth. Neither did I otherwise solicit or intreat Sir James, 
 till I had assured notice of his better satisfaction; when I writ unto 
 
17 
 
 him, as became me, in respective and dutiful sort ; not for feai" of 
 any danger, but for love of honourable favour. Which letters, albeit 
 not so ceremoniously pleasing as effectually contenting, the wise 
 knight not only received courteously, but accepted favourably, and 
 commended honourably ; and for myself, earnestly affirmed, I was 
 first wronged by other, and then mistaken by him : but now found 
 another man than I was supposed. 
 
 As for my old controller. Doctor Feme (for he indeed was the 
 man that otherwhiles flattered me exceedingly, otherwhiles over- 
 thwarted me crossly, always played fast and loose with me), he was 
 old enough to answer for himself, and should not be defended by 
 him. Only he wished me to proceed lovingly with the university", 
 Jiowsoever I dealt with that Doctor. 
 
 And that was all the fleeting that ever I felt, saving that another 
 company of special good fellows (whereof he was none of the mean- 
 est that bravely threatened to conjure up one which should massacre 
 Martin's wit, or should be lambacked himself with ten years' pro- 
 vision) would needs forsooth very courtly persuade the Earl of 
 Oxford, that something in those letters, and namely, the Mirror of 
 Tuscanismo, was palpably intended against him ; whose noble Lord- 
 ship I protest I never meant to dishonour with the least prejudicial 
 word of my tongue or pen, but ever kept a mindful reckoning of 
 many bounden duties toward the same : since in the prime of his 
 gallantest youth he bestowed angels upon me in Christ's College 
 in Cambridge, and otherwise vouchsafed me many gracious favours, 
 at the affectionate commendation of my cousin M. Thomas Smith, 
 the son of Sir Thomas, shortly after Colonel of the Ardes in Ireland. 
 But the noble Earl, not disposed to trouble his jovial mind with 
 such saturnine paltry, still continued, like his magnificent self: and 
 that fleeting also proved, like the other, a silly bullbear, a sorry 
 puff of wind, a thing of nothing. 
 
 But a strong imagination pierceth deeply, and the paper fleet 
 
 D 
 
18 
 
 will not be so answered. Jesu, what would such notable fellows 
 write, or rather would they not write, if they could probably say, or 
 fantastically surmise by me, as I can evidently prove by them ! But 
 I seek not the condemnation of the dead, or the disgrace of the liv- 
 ing, but the good amendment of the one by the naughty example of 
 the other. And for mine own farther justification in the premises, or 
 otherwise, I had rather my larger writings and other actions should 
 plead for me, than this, or any slight letter ; wherein I am not to in- 
 form pregnant conceits, that may imagine more by a little, or to 
 address any piece of mine own history, though wiser men, in case of 
 unworthy reproach, have not made me to undertake their own de- 
 fence, and even to- labour their own commendation. The plausible 
 examples of Tully,Cato,Marius, Scipio, divers such virtuous Romans, 
 and sundry excellent Greeks, are famously known, but not greatly 
 fit for every man's imitation. Were other of my disposition, small 
 time should be lost in avenging or debating verbal injuries, especially 
 to myself, who can very well suifer poor spite to shoot at me, and 
 to hit himself; and sometime smile at the silly fly, that will needs 
 martyr itself in my candle. But methinks the wildest head and 
 desperatest mind should consider, they that speak ill must not look^ 
 to hear well ; the world is not given to pocket up infamies : Who 
 cannot return home a quip, or requite one libel with another ? 
 
 Nothing more common in books, or more ready in mouths, 
 than the invective vein, and the whole art of railing. Some scholars 
 have choice of nimble pens, and smooth tongues at commandment; 
 and there was a time when, peradventure, I could speak with them 
 that talked with me : though the case be altered, and I now none 
 of the hastiest to strive for those bucklers, yet a general, a special, 
 a glowing, a piercing indignity, may rekindle some little sparks of 
 courage, and affection will be affection, though not in proper re- 
 venge, yet the common duty. I am not to dispute the nature of 
 force, or the force of nature ; Who knoweth not how violently force 
 
19 
 
 provoketh force, or how mightily nature worketh in compatible 
 natures ? But how far public objections, or famous imputations, 
 require public ansAvers ; or how insufficient the formallest judicial 
 remedy in any one court may seem, in case of a printed defamation, 
 that with the wings of malice in some, of envy in more, and of 
 lenity in most, flieth through the realm and over the sea, be it 
 indifferently decided by every discreet judgment or reasonable con- 
 sideration ; especially when the guilty part is deceased, and the 
 injury not the less, but the more notorious. 
 
 The best is, the persons abused are not altogether unknown, 
 they have not so evil a neighbour that ever read or heard those op- 
 probrious villanies (it is too mild a name for my brother Richard's 
 most abominable legend, Avho frameth himself to live as chastely as 
 the lewd writer affected to live beastly), but hath presently broken 
 out into some such earnest, or more passionate speeches. Oh, pes- 
 tilent knavery ! whoever heard such arrant forgeries and rank lies ? 
 A mad world, where such shameful stuff is bought and sold ; and 
 Avhere such roisterly varlets may be suffered to play upon whom 
 they lust, and how they lust. 
 
 Is this Greene Avith the running head and the scribbling hand, 
 that never linnes putting forth new, newer, and newest books of the 
 maker ? If his other books be as wholesome gear as this, no marvel 
 though the ga3'^-man conceive trimly of himself, and stately scorn all 
 beside. Greene, vile Greene, would thou Averest half so honest 
 as the Avorst of the four Avhom thou upbraidest, or half so learned 
 as the unleamedst of the three ! Thank other for thy borrowed and 
 filched plumes of some little Italianated bravery; and what remain- 
 eth but flat impudency and gross detraction, the proper ornaments 
 of thy sweet utterance ? 
 
 I allege not mine own inventions (Avho cannot forget the tAvo 
 Athenian temples of impudency and calumny Avhen I remember him.) 
 I could nominate the gentleman, and substantial yeoman, gentle- 
 
 / 
 
20 
 
 men's fellows, that uttered much more by his life, and can hardly 
 forbear him since his death : and who of acquaintance with him, or 
 them, whom he depraveth, could either partially excuse the one, or 
 reasonably accuse the other ? Their lives effectually speak for them- 
 selves ; and he that lived not to see nine and twenty years, died not 
 till the university of Cambridge had bestowed upon him a grace to 
 be a doctor of his faculty, and till he was reputed in Norfolk, Avhere 
 he practised physic, a proper toward man, and as skilful a physician, 
 for his age, as ever came there : how well beloved of the chiefest 
 gentlemen and gentlewomen in that shire, themselves testify. Tliat is 
 gone to heaven cannot be recovered on earth ; it is our comfort that 
 he lived in good credit, and died in good mind. I must ever remem- 
 ber some of his notable sayings (for indeed so they were) ; and can 
 never forget that sweet voice of the dying cygnet : ofrater, Christus 
 est optimus medicus, ^ mens solus medicus. Vale Gale?ie, valete humancE 
 artes : nihil diviniim in terris, prater' animum aspirantetn ad ccelos. 
 That best, and his only physician, knoweth what spiritual physic I 
 commended unto him, when 1 beheld in his meagre and ghastly 
 countenance that I cannot rehearse Avithout some fit of compassion. 
 We must in order follow him that should in nature have gone 
 before him ; and I know not by what destiny he followed him first 
 that foled him last. How he departed, his ghostly mother Isam 
 can truliest, and will favourablest report ; how he lived, London re- 
 membereth. Oh, what a lively picture of vanity ! but oh, what a 
 deadly image of misery ! and oh, what a terrible caveat for such 
 and such ! I am not to extenuate or prejudice his wit, which could 
 not any Avay be great, though some way not the least of our vulgar 
 writers, and many ways very ungracious : but whoever esteemed 
 him either wise, or learned, or honest, or any way credible? How 
 many gentlemen and other say of him. Let the paltry fellow go : 
 Lord, what a lewd companion was he ! What an egregious make- 
 shift! Where should coney-catchers have gotten such a secretary I 
 
21 
 
 How shall cosenage do for a new register, or phantasticality for d 
 new author ! They wrong him much with their epitaphs, and other 
 solemn devices, that entitle him not at the least the second toy of 
 London, the stale of PauFs, the ape of Eiiphues, the vice of the 
 stage, the mocker of the simple world, the flouter of his friends, the 
 foe of himself, and so forth. What durst not he utter with his 
 tongue, or divulge with his pen, or countenance with his face ? Or 
 whom cared he for, but a careless crew of his own associates ? 
 Peruse his famous books, and instead of Omne tulit punctum, qui 
 miscuit utile dulci (that forsooth was his professed poesy) lo ! a 
 wild head, full of mad brain and a thousand crotchets; a scholar, 
 a discourser, a courtier, a ruffian, a gamester, a lover, a soldier, a 
 traveller, merchant, a broker, an artificer, a botcher, a pettifogger, 
 a player, a cozener, a railer, a beggar, an omnigatherum, a gay 
 nothing, a storehouse of bald and baggage stuff, uuAvorth the an- 
 swering or reading; a trivial and triobular author for knaves and 
 fools, an image of idleness, an epitome of fantasticality, a mirror 
 of vanity : Vanitas vanitatiim, et omnia vanitas. 
 
 Alas ! that any should say as I have heard divers affirm, his wit 
 was nothing but a mint of knavery; himself a deviser of juggling 
 feats, a forger of covetous practices, an inventor of monstrous oaths, 
 a derider of all religions, a contemner of God and man, a desperate 
 Lucianist, an abominable Aretinist, an arch atheist, and he arch- 
 deserved to be well hanged seven years ago. Twenty and twenty 
 such familiar speeches I -overpass, and bury the whole legendary of 
 his life and death in the sepulchre of eternal silence. 
 
 I will not condemn or censure his works, which I never did so 
 much as superficially overrun, but as some few of them occursively 
 presented themselves in stationers' shops, and some other houses of 
 my acquaintance. But I pray God they have not done more harm by 
 corruption of manners, than good by quickening of wit ; and I would 
 some buyers had either more reason to discern, or less appetite to 
 
22^ 
 
 desire such novels. The world is full enough of fooleries, though the 
 humour be not feasted with such luxurious and riotous pamphlets. 
 How unlike Tully's sweet offices, or Isocrates' pithy instructions, or. 
 Plutarch's wholesome morals, or the delicate dialogues of Xenophon 
 and Plato, or the sage tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, or the 
 fine comedies of the daintiest Attic Avits, or other excellent monu- 
 ments of antiquity, never sufficiently perused ! Yet the one as stale 
 as oldest fashions ; and what more freshly current for a while than 
 the other? Even Guicciardine's silver history, and Ariosto's golden 
 cantos, grow out of request; and the Countess of Pembroke's Arca- 
 dia is not green enough for greasy stomachs, but they must have 
 Greene's Arcadia; and I believe most eagerly longed for Greene's 
 Fairy Queen. 
 
 Oh, strange fancies ! oh, monstrous new-fangledness ! The wit- 
 tier sort tasteth and flieth, as the dog from Nilus ; other wantons 
 find experience the mistress of fools, and need no other penance 
 but their own repentance. The very time confuteth vanity ; and 
 the very place requireth sobriety. No public security without 
 private moderation ; and the more bonds of government, the more 
 indefeasible assurance. Due circumspection may do much good ; 
 ^nd an abundant cautele can do little hurt. Youth is youth, and 
 ftge corruptible. Better an hundred Ovids were banished, than the 
 state of Augustus endangered, or a sovereign empire infected, espe- 
 cially in a tumultuous age, and in a world of war; wherein not 
 Bacchus, but Mars ; not Venus, but Mercury ; not riot, but valour ; 
 not fancy, but policy, must strike the stroke. 
 
 Gallant gentlemen, bethink yourselves of the old Roman dis- 
 cipline, and the new Spanish industr}^ : and I am not to trouble you 
 with any other accusation of them, that condemn themselves ; and 
 need no other shame or punishment, but their own works. Only I 
 request some busy pens to stay their wisdoms, and either to publish 
 a justifiable truth, or to conceal their bad disposition. Woe to that 
 
93 
 
 study, that mispendeth precious time, and consumeth itself in need- 
 less and bootless quarrels. Comparisons, they say, are odious ; but 
 invectives more odious : and what so abominable as forged and 
 suborned calumnies ? One or two miserable examples may stand for 
 an hundred ; 1 will not aggravate or discourse particulars : a pitiful 
 case, that such lusty beginnings should have such sorry ends : and 
 who can tell what doughty yonker may next gnash with his teeth ? 
 Terrible creatures, and the curst cow, have sometime short horns. 
 The wildest colt is soon tamed; and belike neither death, nor shame, 
 nor misery are afraid of them, that vaunt themselves, like unto death, 
 and Will Sommer, in sparing none. God help, and Charity pity them, 
 that have neither ability to help, nor wit to pity themselves, but 
 will needs try a conclusion between their heads and the next wall. 
 
 I have heard of giants in conceit, and pigmies in performance; 
 young Phaetons, young Icary, young Chora3bi, and I shall say young 
 Babingtons; and how many millions oi green youths have, in over- 
 mounting, most ruefully dismounted, and left behind them full 
 lamentable histories .'' For the very mention of some direful trage- 
 dies were horrible ; and what so wretched as headlong enterprises, 
 or so hideous as the desperate attempt of impossibilities ? Philostra- 
 tus, in his Icones, pleasurably reporteth, according to the tradition 
 of Greek poets, how on a time, a resolute band of doughty pigmies 
 triumphantly marched to invade Hercules asleep. Woe to such 
 brave adventures ! jEsop's toad, a proud aspiring creature, shame- 
 fully overmatched her swelling, and bursten self. 
 
 Great and small things may in some proportion be compared to- 
 gether ; and behold as miserable a spectacle in their kind. Flourish- 
 ing M. Greene is most wofuUy faded ; and Avhilst I am bemoaning 
 his over-piteous decay, and discoursing the usual success of such 
 rank wits, loi all on the sudden, his sworn brother, M. Pierce Pen- 
 niless, (still more paltry — but what remedy? we are already over 
 shoes, and must now go through) lo ! his inwardest companion, that 
 
24 
 
 tasted of the fatal herring, cruelly pinched with want, vexed with 
 discredit, tormented with other men's felicity, and overwhelmed 
 with his own misery, in a raving and frantic mood most desperately 
 exhibiteth his Supplication to the devil. A strange title, an odd wit, 
 and a mad whoreson, I warrant him. Doubtless it will prove some 
 dainty devise, quaintly contrived, by Avay of humble supplication, to 
 the high and mighty Prince of Darkness ; not dunsically botched 
 up, but right formally conveyed, according to the style and tenor 
 of Tarleton's president, his famous play of the Seven Deadly Sins. 
 Which most dealy, but most lively play, I might have seen in 
 London ; and was very gently invited thereunto at Oxford, by 
 Tarleton himself: of whom I merrily demanding which of the 
 seven was his own deadly sin, he bluntly answered after this manner : 
 " By God, the sin of other gentlemen, lechery." " Oh, but that, 
 M. Tarleton, is not your part upon the stage ; you are to blame, 
 that dissemble with the Avorld, and have one part for your friend's 
 pleasure, another for your own." " I am somewhat of Doctor Perne's 
 religion," quoth he : and abruptly took his leave. Surely it must 
 needs be current in matter, and authentical in form, that had first 
 such a learned precedent; and is now pleasantly interlaced with 
 divers new-found phrases of the tavern, and pathetically intermixed 
 with sundry doleful pageants of his own ruinous and beggarly ex- 
 perience. For the poor tenement of his purse (quoth himself, 
 gramercy, goodTARLEXON) hath been the devil's dancing school any 
 time this half year ; and 1 pray God (quoth another) the poor tene- 
 ment of his heart hath not also been the devil's fencing school twice 
 as long. 
 
 Particulars and circumstances are tedious, especially in sor- 
 rowful and forlorn causes ; the sum of sums is, he tossed his ima- 
 gination a thousand ways, and I believe searched every corner of 
 his grammar-school wit (for his margin is as deeply learned, as 
 Faust e precor gelida)^ to see if he could find any means to reUeve 
 
25 
 
 his estate ; but all his thoughts and marginal notes consorted to hii^ 
 conclusion, that the world Avas uncharitable, and he ordained to 
 be miserable. It Avere cruelty to add affliction to affliction. What 
 flint}'^ heart Avould not sigh, or rather melt, to hear the bcAvailful 
 / moan of that sobbing and groaning Muse, the daughter of most 
 pregnant but most Avretched Niobe : 
 
 AVhy is't damnation to despair and die. 
 When life is my true happiness* disease ? 
 
 And a httle after : 
 
 Divines and dying men may talk of Hell, 
 But in my heart her several torments dwell. 
 
 And so forth, most hideously ; for the text is much more doleful 
 than the gloss. And who would not be moved with more pitiful 
 compunction, to hear the lamentable farewel : 
 
 England, adieu ! the soil that brought me forth j 
 Adieu, unkind ! where skill is nothing worth : 
 
 Than to read that profound quotation, 
 
 Hei mihi, quam paucos hscc mea dicta movent ? 
 
 Which Avas thought pathetical out of cry. 
 
 Forgive him, God, although he curse his birth. 
 Since misery hath daunted all his mirth. 
 
 NoAv, good sAveet Muse, I beseech thee by thy dehcate wit, 
 and by all the quaintest inventions of thy deviceful brain, cast not 
 thy dreary self headlong into the horrible gulf of desperation ; but, 
 being a creature of so singular and Avonderful hope as thy inspired 
 fcourage divinely suggesteth, and still rear up mountains of highest 
 
 E 
 
hope, and either gallantly advance thy virtuous self, maugre for- 
 tune, (what impossible to aspiring industry ?) or mightily enchant 
 some magnificent Maecenas (for thou canst do it) to honour himself 
 in honouring thee ; and to bliss the eyes of the gazing Avorld with 
 beholding those miracles which some round liberality, and thy 
 super- thankful mind, would hugely enable thee to work. Let it 
 never be said that the minion of the Muses should forsake himself, 
 or abandon them, whose very shadows he adoreth. A brave heart 
 in extremest distress never laniiuisheth : no such affriohting death, 
 or gnashing hell, as the devouring abyss of despair. Yet better a 
 man without money, than money without a man : pennyless is not 
 his purse, but his mind ; not his revenue, but his resolution. A man 
 is a man though he have but a hose upon his head : for every curse 
 there is a blessing; for every malady a remedy; for every winter a 
 summer ; for every night a day ; a dog hath a day. 
 
 Nocte pluit tota : redeunt spectacula mane. 
 
 Right Magnanimity never droopeth ; sweet Music requickneth 
 the heaviest spirits of dumpish melancholy : fine Poetry abhorreth 
 the loathsome and ugly shape of forlorn pensiveness : what gentle 
 mind detesteth not cursed and damnable desperation ? All abject 
 dolefulness is wofully base, and basely woful. The die, the ball, 
 the sponge, the sieve, the wheel of fortune. Fortune herself — a trifle, 
 a jest, a toy in philosophy, and divine resolution. Be a musician 
 and poet unto thyself, that art both, and a ringleader of both imto 
 other ; be a man, be a gentleman, be a philosopher, be a divine, 
 be thy resolute self; not the slave of fortune, that for every flea- 
 biting crieth out, alas ! and for a few hungry meals, like a Greek 
 parasite, misuseth the tragedy of Hecuba ; but the friend of virtue, 
 that is richest in poverty, freest in bondage, bravest in jeopardy, 
 cheerfullest in calamity : be rather v/ise and unfortunate with the 
 
27 
 
 silver swan, than fortunate and unwise with the golden ass : remem- 
 ber thine OAvn marginal emblem, Fort una favet fat ids. Oh, solace 
 thj miraculous self, and cheer the Muses in cheering tlij dainty 
 soul, sweetly drunken w ith their delicious Helicon, and the restora- 
 tive nectar of the gods. What can I say more? That cordial 
 liquor, and that heavenly restorative, be thy sovereign comfort ; and 
 scorn the baseness of every erased or fainting thought, that may 
 argue a degenerate mind. 
 
 And so much briefly touching thy dear self, whom I hope 
 never to find so pathetically distressed, or so tragically disguised 
 again. Now, a word or two concerning him who in charity 
 kisseth thy hand, and in pity wisheth thee better luck. May it 
 please gentle Pierce, in the divine fury of his ravished spirit, 
 to be graciously good unto his poor friends, Avho would be some- 
 what loth to be silly sheep for the wolf, or other sheep-biter. 
 I dare undertake, the abused Author of the Astrological Discourse 
 (every page thereof, under correction of inspired and supernatural 
 conceits, discovereth more art and judgment than the whole sup- 
 plication of the parturient mountain), notwithstanding the no- 
 torious diabolical discourse of the said Pierce, a man better 
 acquainted with the devils of hell, than with the stars of heaven, 
 shall unfeignedly pray for him, and only pray him to report the 
 known truth of his approved learning and living, Avithout favour : 
 otherwise it were not greatly amiss a little to consider, that he, 
 which in the ruff of his freshest jollity was fain to cry M. Church- 
 yard a mercy in prmt, may be orderly driven to cry more peccavis 
 than one. I would think the counter, M. Churchyard, his hos- 
 tess Penia, and such other sensible lessons, might sufficiently have 
 taught him, that Pennilesse is not Lawless; and that a poet's or 
 painter's licence is a poor security to privilege debt or defamation. 
 I would wish the burned child not to forget the hot element ; and 
 would advise overweening youths to remember themselves, and the 
 
m 
 
 good ancient oracle of sage Apollo. There is a certain thing called 
 modesty, if they could light upon it; and, by my young master's 
 leave, some pretty smack of discretion would relish well. 
 
 The Athenians were noted for lavish am})lifying; the Cretensians 
 for crafty lying ; the Thessalians for subtle cogging ; the Carthagi- 
 nians for deceitful perfidy; Hannibal, Fabius, Agathocles, Iphicrates, 
 Ulysses, and a thousand such, for counterfeit policy : but all their 
 forgeries were seasoned with the salt of probability, and only used, 
 at occasions of advantage. And although the Grecians generally 
 were over-lightheaded and vain spoken, yet their levity savoured 
 of elegant wittiness, and the Hying bird carried meat in the movith. 
 Even Lucian's true tales are spiced with conceit; and neither his 
 nor Apuleius's ass, is altogether an ass. 
 
 It is a piece of cunning in the most fabulous legends, to inter-, 
 lace some credible narrations and very probable occurrences, ta 
 countenance and authorize the excessive licentiousness of the rest. 
 Unreasonable fictions palpably bewray their odious grossness ; and 
 he that will be a famous deviser in folio, must be content with the 
 reward of a notable liar, not to be credited when he avoweth a 
 truth. The pleasant man talketh of a bachelor's hood turned over 
 his ears for abusing of Aristotle, and imagineth goodly matters of 
 casting the heavens water, of anatomizing the skies entrails, of the 
 Universal adultery of planets, of the bawd of those celestial bodies, 
 how Saturn and Jupiter proved honester men than all the world 
 took them for. 
 
 Oh, brave Tarleton ! thou wert he, when all is done : had not 
 Aretine been Aretine when he was, undoubtedly thou hadst been 
 Aretine : gramercy, capricious and transcendent wit, the only high 
 pole arctic, and deep mineral of an incomparable style. Yet 
 Tarleton's jest is not sufficient, but Roscius must have his stale 
 to make him more admirable ; all were nothing, unless Elderton's 
 ale-craumied nose had been consumed to nothing in bear-baiting 
 
29 
 
 him with whole bundles of ballads, that forsooth is not so good a 
 gentleman (for every heir of a Nash is a good gentleman at the 
 least), as the herd of Thomas Nash, the master butler of Pembroke- 
 Hall, whose grave countenance, like Cato, able to make him run out 
 of his wits for fear, if he look sternly upon him, and I wot not what, 
 and what trumpery else, as childish and garish stuff" as ever came, 
 in print ; yet what pack of vanity is not in print ? I will not cry. 
 absurd, absurd, as he madly exclaimeth monstrous, monstrous! 
 
 But who in that university can deny but M. Harvey read the 
 public philosophy lecture with special good liking, and many will say 
 with singular commendation, Avhen this mighty lashing gentleman 
 (now well read in the late exploits of untruss, and for Tarleton's 
 amplifications A per se A) was not so much as idoneus auditor civi^ 
 lis scienfice. What he is improved since, excepting his good old 
 Flores Poetarum, and Tarleton's surmounting rhetoric, with a* 
 little Euphuism and Grceness enough, which Avere all prettily stale 
 before he put hand to pen. I report me to the favourablest opinion 
 of those that know his prefaces, rhymes, and the very timpany of 
 his Tarletonizing wit, his Supplication to the Devil; oh ! that is the 
 devil and all. 
 
 I am so far from doting upon mine own or my brother's 
 writings, in any matter of moment, that I use to censure them 
 with a more curious and rigorous judgment than I examine any- 
 thing else ; wherein my ear is so loth to flatter me, and my con-* 
 ceit so afraid to cozen me, that my mind ever remaineth unsatifr* 
 fied ; and nothing hitherto could fulfil my desire, insatiably 
 covetous to do better. But as those perfunctory discourses are 
 (which were more hastily than speedily published without my 
 privity), let the best of them go for waste paper, and serve the 
 basest shops, if the worst of them import not more public or private 
 use than his gayest flower, that may thank Greene and Tarletost 
 |br his Garland! Were my brother not my brother, but some 
 
m 
 
 familiar acquaintance, I might in truth, and should in reason, make 
 other comparisons with applause enough (for what indifferency 
 seeth not the difference? or what so silly as he could make Pierce 
 with voice or pen? notwithstanding those miracles of the white 
 raven in the clouds) ; but the university, the city, the Avhole realm, 
 all good learning and civil government, be their judge, and my 
 mouth especially, in this Martinish and Counter-Martinish age, 
 wherein the spirit of contradiction reigneth, and every one super- 
 aboundeth in his own humour, even to the annihilating of any other 
 without rhyme or reason. 
 
 Some would be mutes, if they might be suffered to be, as were 
 meetest for them, and only to dwell in the excellent monuments of 
 divine wits, whose sweet company they cannot enjoy enough ; but 
 what is to be done when vowels are coursed, and mutes haunted, 
 and that heavenly conference hellishly disturbed ? God or good 
 order circumcise the tongues and pens that slander without cause, 
 and rail without effect, even in the superlative degree of raving ! 
 
 Aretine and the devil's orator might very well be spared in 
 Christian or politic commonwealths, Avhich cannot want contagion 
 enough, though they be not poisoned Avith the venomous potions 
 of inkhorn witches. Fine pleasant wit was ever commendable, and 
 judicial accusation lawful ; but fie on gross scurrility and impudent 
 calumny, that will rather go to hell in jest than to heaven in ear- 
 nest, and seek not to reform any vice, to backbite and deprave every 
 person that feedeth not their humorous fancy. A vile mind ; and 
 what a pestilenter villany ? But some odd wits, forsooth, will needs 
 be accounted terrible bull beggars, and the only killcows of their 
 age ; for how should they otherwise keep the simple world in awe, 
 or scare multitudes of plain folk, like idiot crows and innocent 
 doves ? All the invective and satirical spirits are their familiars ; 
 scoffing and girding is their daily bread : other profess other facul- 
 ties, they profess the art of railing ; noble, reverend, or whatsoever. 
 
31 
 
 all peasants and clowns, gouty devils and buckram giants, Midasses 
 and golden asses, cormorants and drones, dunces and hypocritical 
 hotspurs, earthworms and pinchfart penny-fathers, that feed not 
 their hungry purses and eager stomachs ; they have terms, quoth a 
 manellous doer, steeped in aquafortis and gunpowder, that shall 
 rattle through the skies, and make earthquakes in such peasants' 
 ears as shall dare to send them away Avith a flea in their ear ; (how 
 might a man purchase the sight of those puissant and hideous 
 terms ?) they can lash poor slaves, and spurgall asses mightily ; 
 they can tell parlous tales of bears and foxes, as shrewdly as Mother 
 Hubbard, for her life ; they will domineer in taverns and stationers' 
 shops, to die for't ; they will be as egregiously famous as ever was 
 Erastratus, or Pausanias, or Kett, or Scoggin : Agrippa and Rabe- 
 lais but cyphers to them; they have it only in them. 
 
 Would Christ they had more discretion in them, and less ran- 
 cour against other, that never wished them the least evil, but still 
 beseech God to increase the best, and to pardon the worst in them. 
 The quip knoweth his reward, and the Supplication to the Devil, 
 expressly dedicated to the prince of darkness, I commit to the cen- 
 sure of wisdom and justice, with favour; only requesting that mighty 
 bombarder of terms to spare quiet men that mean him no haiin, 
 and to keep the huge main shot of his rattling babies for buckram 
 giants. 
 
 Alas ! what should I touch their parents, or twit them by their 
 other friends ; let it be one of their jollities to offer, and one of our 
 simplicities to suffer that injury, which neither impaireth the repu- 
 tation of the father, nor abuseth the credit of the sons, nor argueth 
 any thing but the impudent despightfulness of the libeller. Few sons 
 have feelinger cause to love, or reverence, or defend their fathers, 
 'than myself: but his deahng is such where he tradeth, and his living 
 such where he converseth, that he may easily shame himself which 
 goeth about to shame him, or us in him. I will not trouble you with 
 
32 
 
 the rehearsal of his inheritance, which I could have wished more than 
 it was ; yet was it more by the favour of that terrible thundersmith 
 of terms, than the inheritances of both their fathers together. Put 
 case, I have enquired what special cause the Penniless gentleman 
 hath to brag of his birth, Avhicli giveth the woful poverty good 
 leave, even with his Stentor's voice, and in his rattling terms, to 
 revive the pitiful History of Don Lazarello de Thoemes ; to contend 
 with cold, to converse with scarcity, to be laid open to poverty, 
 to accuse fortune, to rail on his patrons, to bite his pen, to rend his 
 papers, to rage in all points like a madman, to torment himself in 
 that agony a long time, to be miserable, to be vacuus viator, to 
 have opus and usus knocking at his door twenty times a week Avheu 
 he is not within, to seek his dinner in pools with Duke Humphrey^ 
 to lick dishes, to be a beggar, 
 
 To ban the air, wherein he breathes a wretch ; 
 
 to be the devil's distressed orator, to proclaim his own desolate and 
 abject estate : in these and such other most base and shameful 
 complaints, scarcely beseeming the rascallest Sizer in an university, 
 or the beggarliest mendicant friar in a country. 
 
 Forgive him, God, although he curse his birth. 
 
 I, but who so excessively thankful to his other friends ? One kind 
 friend, more worth than two unfriendly kinsmen : affection will 
 relieve where nature faileth : he must needs abound in devoted and 
 bountiful friends, that shcAveth himself so meritoriously friendly, 
 and so unspeakably grateful. 
 
 O friends, no friends, that then ungently frown. 
 When changing fortune casts us headlong down. 
 
 I had nigh-hand over-skipped the learned allegation in the mar- 
 gin, solemnly avouched with a very pathetical Pol, Pol me occidistis 
 
33 
 
 amici : all which, and most of the premises, I had altogether omit- 
 ted, but that the two unmeet companions, a lord's heart and a 
 beggar's purse, must somewhat remember themselves, or be a little, 
 as it Avere, pulled bj' the ragged sleeve. Young scholars can tell 
 how Ulysses handled Irus ; and old truants have not altogether for- 
 gotten how saucj the Harpies were, till they were entertained accord- 
 ingly. But Avhat though the decayed gentleman so commendeth 
 his own worshipful birth and trusty friends? many noble houses 
 have seen their own ruins ; and sometime the brothers of the prodigal 
 son will not stick to curse where they should reverently bless. The 
 table-fellow of Duke Humphrey and Tantalus might learn of him 
 to curse Jupiter, and to ban not only the four elements, but also, 
 the seven planets, and even the twelve houses of heaven. 
 
 And what though the other sorry Magnifico, as very a Bisonian 
 as he for his life, would swear in a bravery, his father was of four and 
 twenty religions, and himself a divine from his mother's womb, an 
 image of both churches, and both synagogues too, a natural Perne 
 artificially improved, the thrice and thrice learned son of his four 
 and twenty times learned father.'* So Greene would flourish. 
 Every man is to answer for his own defaults, my trespass is not my 
 father's, nor my father's mine ; a Gibeline may have a Guelph to 
 his son, as Barthol saith ; and hath never a saint had a reprobate to 
 his father ? are all worthy minds the issues of noble houses, or all 
 base minds the offspring of rascal stocks ? Were it not a felicity to 
 be the worst of a thousand, that being descended of meanest parent- 
 age have proved, as histories testify and the world daily confirmeth.? 
 Or might not Greene, and his 'complices, have been much better 
 than they were, or are, although their parents had been much 
 Avorse than they were, or are .'* What saith the afflicted suppliant 
 himself.'* 
 
 Ah, worthless wit, to train me to this woe : 
 
 111 thrive the folly that bewitch'd me so. 
 
 p 
 
34 
 
 Have we not a number of excellent industrious men and valor- 
 ous knights, not greatly beholden unto fortune for their progeny ? 
 
 Malo pater tibi sit Thersites, who knoAveth not that only art of 
 heraldry ? 
 
 Qudm te Thersita similem prodncat Achilles! The argument of 
 nobility is a gallant and plausible argument; but what common^ 
 place so brave and honourable as the common-place of virtue? Can 
 any thing be obscure where desert is famous, or any thing famous 
 where desert is obscure? Gra'mercy, sweet margin, for that notable 
 poes\', meritis expendite causam; in earnest, a singular rule of infal- 
 lible judgment, and I imagine himself deserveth something that 
 specially allegeth desert. 
 
 It is long since I declaimed upon any theme, but who would 
 not plead virtue's cause in whatsoever subject? or what honest 
 eloquence is not furnished with Catilinaries and Philippics against 
 vice? Not the father and the son, but virtue and vice, the efficients 
 of honour and dishonour. He only base, he only simple, he only 
 contemptible, that hath vice to his father, and ignorance to his 
 mother, the only parents of rascality. And may I not truly affirm . 
 that not only Osorius or Patricius gallantly prove, but all wise 
 authors seriously approve, and even virtue and skill themselves, 
 with their own sovereign mouth, honourably profess? No right 
 son and heir apparent of theirs, either unnoble in himself, or 
 obscure in the world, or despised in the highest, or unregarded 
 of the lowest, or dishonourable in his life, or inglorious after his 
 death? I speak not for any person, but for the matter; and cannot 
 either condignly praise the valorous seed of the one, or sufficiently 
 bless the fruitful womb of the other. 
 
 And what so ungentle in nature, or so unnoble in fortune, as 
 their contraries ? How barbarously opposed against that divine race 
 and heavenly generation, that cannot stir unaccompanied with envy 
 and a world of motes ! Yet neither the unhappiest creature, utterly 
 
35 
 
 devoid of all graces (I praise something in Elderton and Greene), 
 nor the excellentest personage, thoroughly accomplished with all 
 perfections, (ah, that Sir Humphry Gilbert and Sir Philip Sid- 
 ney had been as cautelous as adventurous!) nor they that object, 
 nor we that answer, nor any, but a few singular men, the miracles 
 of the world, either for wit wonderous, or for art exquisite, or for 
 action admirable, or for integrity notable. I wis, we little need to be 
 charged with our fathers' offences ; it is enough for one, yea, for the 
 best one, to carry the burthen of his own transgressions and errors. 
 Errors are infinite ; and follies, how universally rife ! even of the 
 wisest sort. Oh, that virtues were as like the stars of heaven, or 
 the birds of the air, as vices are like the sands of the sea, and the 
 beasts of the earth ! He that seeth least, seeth much amiss ; the fine 
 discoverer, and curious intelligencer, go invisible, and stratagemati- 
 cally descry many hidden privities of public and private misgovern- 
 ment : there is an eye that pierceth into the secretest sins and most 
 inscrutable thoughts of profoundest hypocrisy, in whose pure sight 
 nothing is justifiable but by pardon. Divinity flieth high, and 
 wadeth deep ; but even in humanity, and in the view of the world, 
 who liveth inculpable.'* or who is not obnoxious to some criminal 
 or civil actions ? or, 
 
 Where should I find that I seek, a person clear as a crystal? 
 Where man God to man ? where one not devil to another ? 
 Where that zeal divine, whose heavenly sunshine acheereth 
 The dreariest drooping, and fellest rancor allayeth ? 
 Where those same melting bowels of tender agreement. 
 That mildly conquer most rough and hideous outrage ? 
 Where Moses' meekness ? where David's sweetness Olympic ? 
 Where that same gentle kindness, that bounty renowned. 
 That gracious favour, that whilom beautified honour. 
 That love advanced, that abandoned odious hatred. 
 That syrenized Furies, that rocks adamantine 
 Mollified : arreared pillars of glory triumphant ? 
 
36 
 
 and so forth, for the verse is not unknown ; and runneth in one 
 of those unsatirical satires, which M. Spencer long since em- 
 braced with an overloving sonnet ; a token of his affection, not a 
 testimony of his judgment. 
 
 What should I labour a needless point ? or what should I 
 weary you with tediousness, that may much better bestow your 
 vacant hours ? Enough to any is enough, to some over much. God 
 knoweth, and who knoweth not, how sensually corrupt some good 
 fellows were, and are, that so sharply and bitterly noted, and do 
 note, so many imaginative corruptions in other. Would God 
 they had been as quietly disposed as their parents, or as advisedly 
 stayed as some of their friends, that wished them a milder course ; 
 and some of our pens might have been employed to better use 
 than this idle business, or rather busy idleness : whereof I desire no 
 other fruit, but some little contentation of friends, and some reason- 
 able mitigation of ill-willers ; unto whose good I am diligently to 
 address, and even affectionately to dedicate any my endeavour. If 
 in some terms I have used a little plain dealing, albeit not without 
 respect (but every one seeth not into another's considerations, and 
 divers circumstances alter the- case), I crave pardon for the least 
 oversight, and will be as ready to commend any little good, even 
 in an adversary, as I was unwilling, but enforced, to touch some 
 palpable bad, which I would wish amended where it may be re- 
 dressed, and quite forgotten where it ought to be buried. My 
 meaning was not to displeasure and maintain the credit of those, 
 unto whom I owe many duties, as well in special consideration as 
 in natural affection. 
 
 Had I not been more deeply stinged in them than in myself, 
 who have made comedies of such tragedies, and with pleasure 
 given such Hotspurs leave to run themselves out of breath, what 
 folio of folly might not for me have passed untouched ? or who 
 for me might not have flourished or lashed in Paul's church-yard, 
 cum gratia et privilcgio ? It were good that they, which have a 
 
37 
 
 dexterity in writing trimly upon every matter, white or black, 
 should also have a felicity in speaking Avell upon every person tliat 
 deserveth not ill, especially such as can say something and think 
 more. The terriblest terms may be repaid home with advantage ; 
 I have known the railingest sophister in an university sit non plus; 
 and have seen the mad-brainest roister-doister in a country dashed 
 out of countenance. There is logic enough to answer carters' logic, 
 and plaj' enough to tame horse-play. Wronged men are seldom 
 tongue-tied ; the patientest creature wanteth not blood in his heart 
 or ink in his pen, and although his blood be not wildfire, yet it is 
 blood, that will not be cooled with a card, or daunted with bug's 
 words ; and although his ink be not pitch or poison, yet it is ink, 
 that will neither blush for shame nor wax pale for fear, but will 
 hold his own when perhaps gayer colours shall lose their colour, 
 and aquafortis valiantly eat his own heart. 
 
 Good sweet masters, quiet yourselves, or think not much to 
 bear a little for company, that are so forward to load other without 
 jnercy. No man leather than m^^self to contend with desperate 
 malcontents, or to overthwart obstinate humourists, or to encounter 
 ink-horn adventures ; nor to quarrel with any sort of wrangling com- 
 panions (scolding is the language of shrews, and railing the style of 
 rake-hells), or so much as to call busy heads by their usual and 
 proper names (the things are paltry, and the very names savour of 
 rascality) ; but there is a time when such doughty warriors must be 
 appeased, and such wise men answered according to their wisdom. 
 
 Howbeit, in favour of a private and pubhc quietness, I will 
 thank the honest fellows the more the less occasion they give me 
 to interrupt better exercises to trouble the Avorld with trifling dis- 
 courses upon pelting matters, to disease themselves to pleasure none 
 but the printer, and idle creatures, the only busy readers of such 
 novelets. I would gladly be specially beholden unto them for this 
 courtesy, and dare undertake it shall redound more to their credit. 
 
to approve their desire of reconciliation by silence, than to con- 
 tinue the opinion of their rooted despight by stirring more coals. 
 I hope this wind hath not shaken any such corn, but fellow- 
 scholars (as Doctor Caius would say), and now, forsooth, fellow- 
 writers, may be made friends Avith a cup of white wine and some 
 Uttle familiar conference in calm and civil terms. I offer them 
 my hand, and request their, which I will accept thankfully, and 
 kiss lovingly, and ever commend the good nature that would, 
 and the better government that could, master affection with rea- 
 son, and sweeten gall with humanity ; for it is not my energetical 
 persuasion, but their own pathetical motion that must do it, as 
 the enchanting Muse of Orpheus redeemed the ghastly ghost of 
 his own Eurydice out of hell. Such an experiment of profound 
 and divine art as I would compassionately recommend to every 
 amiable mind, disguised Avith hellish passion, the foulest deformity 
 of any fair wit. Otherwise, if it stand more with their credit 
 to be reputed Avilful than wise, or if a perverse and froward reso- 
 lution be the better policy, they are free-men, and have ink at 
 will, and paper at commandment ; and a number of greedy ears, 
 that eagerly long, and, as it were, dance attendance to hear those 
 dreadful invincible terms, steeped in aquafortis and gunpoAvder. 
 
 The intoxicate sprite of the grisly Eurydice (I speak to a poet, 
 and cannot more mildly term that infernal fury) may eftsoons return 
 to her accursed lodging, and instead of heavenly Orpheus, embrace 
 the hellish Orator of the Black Prince, whom I Avill not any way 
 make Avorse, but Avould Avish infinitely better than he hath made 
 himself; for I thank God, I am neither so profanely uncharitable as 
 to send him to the sance-bell, to truss up his life Avith a trice, nor 
 so abjectly timorous, as for extreme fearfulness to Avish, Avith a pro- 
 fessed devotion : So be it : Pray pen, ink, and paper on their 
 knees, that they may not be troubled Avith him any more. 
 , Good Lord, Avhat fantastical pangs are these ! Whoever indited 
 
39 
 
 in such a style, but one divine Aretine in Italy, and two heavenly 
 Tarletons in England, the sole platformers of odd elocution, and 
 only singularities of the plain world ? Two of them, that so wantonly 
 played with the highest and deepest subjects of spiritual contem- 
 plation, heaven and hell, paradise and purgatory, know their local 
 repose, and seriously admonish the third to be advised how he lavish 
 in such dalliance. No variety, or infinity so infinite, as invention, 
 which hath a huge world and a main ocean of scope to disport and 
 range itself, though it arrear not vain hyperboles of the reverend 
 mysteries of God. 
 
 Good sweet orator, be a divine poet indeed ! and use heavenly 
 eloquence indeed ! and employ thy golden talent with amounting 
 usance indeed ! and with heroical cantos honour right virtue, and 
 brave valour indeed! as noble Sir Philip Sidney and gentle 
 Master Spencer have done, with inmiortal fame, and I will 
 bestow more compliments of rare amplifications upon thee, than 
 ever any bestowed upon them, or this tongue ever aflbrded, or 
 any Aretinish mountain of huge exaggerations can bring forth. 
 Right artificiality (whereat I once aimed to the uttermost power 
 of my slender capacity) is not mad-brained, or ridiculous, or absurd, 
 or blasphemous, or monstrous ; but deep-conceited, but pleasurable, 
 but delicate, but exquisite, but gracious, but admirable; not accord- 
 ing to the fantastical mould of Aretine or Rabelais, but according 
 to the fine model of Orpheus, Homer, Pindarus, and the excellentest 
 wits of Greece, and of the land that flowed with milk and honey. 
 For what festival h^^mns so divinely dainty as the sweet psalms of 
 King David, royally translated by Buchanan ? or what sage gnomes 
 so profoundly pithy as the wise proverbs of King Solomon, notably 
 also translated.'' 
 
 But how few Buchanans ! Such lively springs of streaming 
 eloquence, and such right Olympical hills of amounting wit, I 
 cordially recommend to the dear lovers of the Muses ; and. 
 
40 
 
 namely, to the professed sons of the same, Edmund Spencer, 
 Richard Stanihurst, Abraham France, Thomas Watson, 
 Samuel Daniell, Thomas Nash, and the rest, whom I affection- 
 ately thank for their studious endeavours, commendably employed 
 in enriching and polishing their native tongue, never so furnished 
 or embellished as of late. For I dare not name the honourable 
 sons and nobler daughters of the sweetest and divinest Muses that 
 ever sang in English, or other language, for fear of suspicion of that 
 which I abhor ; and their oAvn most delectable and delicious exer- 
 cises (the fine handy-work of excellent nature, and excellenter art 
 combined) speak incomparably more than I am able briefly to 
 insinuate. 
 
 Gentle minds and flourishing Avits Avere infinitely to blame, 
 if they should not also, for curious imitation, propose unto them- 
 selves such fair types of refined and engraced eloquence. The right 
 novice of pregnant and aspiring conceit Avill not overskip any pre- 
 cious gem of invention, or any beautiful floAver of elocution, that 
 may richly adorn, or gallantly bedeck, the trim garland of his bud- 
 ding style. I speak generally to every springing Avit, but more 
 specially to a fcAv, and at this instant singularly to one, Avhom I 
 salute Avith a hundred blessings, and entreat with as many prayers, 
 to love them that love all good Avits, and hate none, but the devil 
 and his incarnate imps, notoriously professed. I protest it was not 
 thy person that I any Avay disliked, but thy rash and desperate 
 proceeding against thy Avell-Avillers ; which in some had been unsuf- 
 ferable, in a youth was more excusable, in a reformed youth is 
 pardonable, and rather matter of concordance than of aggrievance. 
 
 I persuade myself rather to hope the best, than to fear the Avorst ; 
 and ever Avish unto other as I Avould Avish other to Avish unto me. 
 It is my earnest desire to begin and end such frivolous altercations 
 at once, and AA^ere it not more for other than for myself, assuredly 
 I would be the first that should cancel this impertinent pamphlet. 
 
41 
 
 and throw the other two letters, with the sonnets annexed, into the 
 fire. Let them have their swing, that affect to be terribly singular; 
 I desire not to be a black swan, or to leave behind me any period 
 in the style of the devil's orator, or any verse in the vein of his 
 dam's poet; but rather covet to be nothing in print, than any 
 thing in the stamp of needless or fruitless contention. As I am 
 over-ruled at this present, and as it standeth now, I am not to be 
 mine own judge or advocate, but am content to be sentenced by 
 every courteous or indifferent peruser, that regardeth honesty in 
 persons, or truth in testimonies, or reason in causes. Or seeing 
 some matters of fame are called in question, 1 am not only willing, 
 but desirous to underlie the verdict even of Fame herself, and to 
 submit our whole credits to the voice of the people, as to the voice 
 of equity and the oracle of God; to whose gracious favours he re- 
 commendeth your courtesy, that neither fiattereth the best, nor 
 slandereth the worst, nor wilfully wrongeth any ; but professeth 
 duty to his superiors, humanity to his equals, favour to his inferiors, 
 reason to all : and by the same rule, oweth you amends for the 
 premises, not speedily dispatched, but hastily bungled up, as you 
 see. 
 
 London, this 8th and Qth of September. 
 
 The friend of his friends, and foe of none. 
 
42 
 
 THE FOURTH LETTER. 
 To the same favourable or indifferent Reader. 
 
 Honest gentlemen (for unto such I especially write), give me leave, 
 in this slender pamphlet, only to fulfil the importune requests of a 
 few, Avith your small delight and mine own less contentment : and 
 pardon me though I no way affect to feed the dainty humour of 
 curious conceits, carried with an insatiable expectation of I wot not 
 what imagined perfection, which may easily display itself where 
 it is, but cannot possibly appear where it is not. I presume I can- 
 not less satisfy any, than I have satisfied myself, Avho, having Avedded 
 myself to private study, and devoted my mind to public quietness, 
 took this troublesome pen in hand Avith such an alacrity of courage 
 as the sorry bear goeth to the stake ; and now rejoice in that which 
 with more haste than speed is dispatched, as ^Esop's hart, Avith 
 more affection than reason, gloried in his horns till he found his 
 fugitive legs his surer friends. 
 
 For, in many cases, I take it a better policy to use the flying 
 leg, than the cumbersome horn ; and at this instant I should much 
 more have pleased myself if I had still practised my former resolu- 
 tion, to scorn the stinging of a peevish wasp, or the biting of an 
 elvish gnat, or the quip of a mad companion ; and rather to pocket 
 up a pelting injury, than to entangle myself Avith trifling business, or 
 any way to accrcAv to the most contemptible felloAvship of the scrib- 
 bling crcAV that annoyeth this age, and never more accloyed the 
 world. 
 
 Alas ! he is pitifully bestead, that in an age of policy, and in 
 a world of industry (Avherein the greatest matters of government 
 and valour seem small to aspiring capacities), is constrained to 
 
43 
 
 make woeful Greene, and beggarly Pierce Pennylesse, (as it 
 were a grasshopper and a cricket, two pretty musicians, but silly 
 creatures), the argument of his style ; and enforced to encounter 
 them Avho only in vanity are something, in effect nothing, in 
 account less than nothing ; howsoever, the grasshopper enraged 
 would be no less than a green dragon, and the cricket malcontented, 
 not so little as a black bellwether, but the only unicorn of the 
 Muses. Some in my case would perhaps be content, for their own 
 credit, to have them notoriously so reputed ; and in cunning 
 would, peradventure, not stick to strain at a gnat as it were at a 
 camel. But plain dealing useth no such rhetoric ; they that have 
 eyes can see, and they that have ears can hear as sensibly as I ; 
 and I must in reason leave them, as in proof I find them, either 
 mere paper bugs, and inkhorn pads, or a great deal Avorse, so far 
 as the ringleaders of lewd licentiousness are more pestilent than 
 the platformers of vain fantasticality, or the • poison of corrupted 
 minds is more pernicious than the venom of disguised wits. Any 
 slightness curious enough, and any cost too much, upon such an 
 argument ; a subject of loss to the writer, of gain to none : but duty 
 must obey, and courtesy yield : and it is the luck of some pelting 
 comedies to busy the stage, as well as some graver tragedies. 
 
 Were nothing else discoursively inserted (as some little else 
 occasionally presented itself), what paper more currently fit for the 
 basest mechanical uses, than that which containeth the vile mis- 
 demeanours, and, truth will say, the abominable villanies of such 
 base shifting companions ; good for nothing, in the opinion of good 
 minds, but to cast away themselves, to spoil their adherents, to 
 prey upon their favourers, to dishonour their patrons, to infect the 
 air where they breathe. Might Pierce be entreated to qualify his 
 distempered vein, and to reclaim his unbridled self, as some bold 
 Gawins, upon milder consideration, have been glad to do (good 
 Pierce, be good to thy good friends, and gentle to thy gentle self), 
 
44 
 
 I assuredly would be the first that should wrap up such memorials, 
 not in a sheet of waste paper, but in the winding-sheet of oblivion ; 
 and will not stick to embalm the dead corpse of a professed enemy, 
 to sweeten the living spirit of a wished friend, howsoever extremely 
 mean or famously obscure. The gracious law of amnesty, a sove- 
 reign law ; but the divine law of charity, the law of laws. Who 
 cannot contemn the insolentest arrogancy ? but who must not con- 
 descend to any reasonable accord ? He that w as never dismayed 
 with any necessary distress, yet ever escheweth all unnecessary 
 trouble ; and he that least feareth the sword of unjust calumny, 
 yet most dreadeth the scabbard of just infamy, and would gladly 
 avoid the lightest suspicion of that which he abhorreth. 
 
 Though the painted sheath be as it is, (for it needeth no other 
 painter to portray itself), yet never child so delighted in his rattling 
 baby, as some old lads of the castle have sported themselves with 
 their rapping babble. It is the proper weapon of their profession ; 
 they have used it at large, and will use it at pleasure, howsoever the 
 patient heal himself at their cost. It were a work of importance; 
 to answer that weapon ; I long since gave them over in the plain 
 field, and am now become a suitor to their towardest scholars, to 
 remember the glorious conquest of their witty masters. I would 
 willingly please or not displease, as I may ; but no life Avithout self- 
 contentment, no performance of any action without resolution. The 
 least may think upon Fabius Maximus, avIio with an honourable 
 obstinacy pursued the course of his own platform, notwithstanding 
 a thousand impeachments ; and although slowly, with much mur- 
 muring, yet effectually with more reputation, achieved his politic 
 purpose ; like an expert pilot, that in a hideous tempest regardeth 
 not the foolish shriekings, or vain outcries of disorderly passengers, 
 but bestirreth himself, and directcth his mariners according to the 
 >yise rules of orderly navigation. 
 ,:^, A wavering and fleeting mind seldom or never accomplisheth 
 
45 
 
 any negociation of value. It is none of the least comforts in distress 
 that patience is an excellent quality, and constancy the honourablest 
 virtue in the world. 1 am not to dilate, Avhere a sentence is a dis- 
 course, and a word more than enough. It hath been my desire to 
 conform my intentions to my quality, and my exercises to my 
 intentions; but as they are, it shall go very hard before I begin to 
 abandon hope, or relent to frivolous motions, or forget myself and 
 my friends to remember my enemies, who are best remembered 
 when they are most forgotten. Some are cunning, and can ima- 
 ginatively cast beyond the moon : but he is a simple temporiser 
 that would attempt to raise a fantastical or putative opinion in an 
 active world, and who so kindly cozeneth himself as that he seeketh 
 a cloak to cover his own sluggish idleness, or unwieldy insufficiency? 
 Let them affect mystical commendation that profess occult 
 philosophy ; and let them crossbite themselves that can find no 
 other coney-catchers to play that part. It was a principal maxim 
 in Socrates' discipline, that every one should contend to be indeed 
 whatsoever he would covet to seem in appearance : some that have 
 often recommended that maxim unto other, and often called it the 
 sovereign rule of sound and honourable proceeding, were never for- 
 warder to allow his precept in discourse, than ready to follow his 
 example in practice. There be other enough to make a gallant 
 show ; and some trim fellows will not stick to maintain a brave para- 
 dox, that the opinion and semblance of things neither ever was, nor 
 is now, inferior to the very things themselves, but in preferment and 
 reputation many times superior. I am not here to argue the case. 
 Fortune is a favourable lady to some forward adventurers ; they may 
 easily swim that are holden up by the chin; such and such have 
 lived in estimation, and purchased lands, but what did they ever 
 effectuate of any worth, or wherein appeared their sufficiency to 
 discharge any weighty function, or to perform any notable act.? A 
 reed is a sorry staff', and fortune as changeable as the moon : no 
 
46 
 
 counterfeit or pretended commendation endureth long ; only desert 
 holdeth out infallibly when many a goodly gentleman beshreweth 
 himself: I must not stand upon particularities : no education to 
 the trainment of Cyrus, nor any proceeding to the employment of 
 Caesar. 
 
 Pregnant rules avail much, but visible examples amount in- 
 credibly : experience, the only life of perfection, and only perfection 
 of life. Whatsoever occasion causeth me to be mistaken, as over 
 much addicted to theory, without respect of action (for that is one of 
 the especialest points which I am importuned to resolve), I never 
 made account of any study, meditation, conference, or exercise, 
 that importeth not effectual use, and that aimeth not altogether at 
 action, as the singular mark whereat every art and every virtue is to 
 level. I love method, but honour practice : must I shew the differ- 
 ence ? Either art is obscure, or the quickest capacity dull, and 
 needeth method, as it were the bright moon, to illuminate the dark-, 
 some night ; but practice is the bright sun that shincth in the day, 
 and the sovereign planet that governeth the world, as elsewhere I 
 have copiously declared. 
 
 To excel there is no way but one, to marry studious art to 
 diligent exercise ; but where they must be unmarried, or divorced, 
 give me rather exercise without art, than art without exercise. 
 Perfect use worketh masteries, and disgraceth unexperienced art. 
 Examples are infinite, and daily display themselves. A world with- 
 out a sun ; a body without a soul ; nature without art ; art without 
 exercise : sorry creatures. Singular practice the only singular and 
 admirable workman of the world. 
 
 Must I dispatch the rest that is exacted ? It is no fit place, and 
 the least little will seem too much. As in other things, so in arts, 
 formality doth well, but materiality worketh the feat. Were artists 
 as skilful as arts are powerful, wonders might be achieved by art 
 improved ; but they that understand little write much, and they 
 
47 
 
 that know much write httle. The vain peacock with his gay colours, 
 and the pratthng parrot with his ignorant discourses (I am not to 
 offend any but the peacock and the parrot), have garishly disguised 
 the worthiest arts, and deeply discredited the profoundest artists, to 
 the pitiful defacement of the one, and the shameful prejudice of the 
 other. Rodolph Agricola, Phihp Melancthon, Ludovike Vives, 
 Peter Ramus, and divers excellent scholars, ""have earnestly com- 
 plained of arts corrupted, and notably reformed many absurdities ; 
 but still corruption engendereth one vermin or other, and still that 
 precious trainment is miserably abused which should be the fountain 
 of skill, the root of virtue, the seminary of government, the founda- 
 tion of all private and public good. 
 
 The methodist and discourser might be more material, the 
 theorist and practitioner more formal, all four more effectual; or 
 how Cometh it to pass, that much more is professed, but much less 
 performed, than in former ages ? especially in the mathematics, and 
 in natural magic, which being cunningly and extensively employed 
 (after the manner of Archimedes, Archy tas, Apollonius, Regiomon- 
 tanus. Bacon, Cardan, and such like industrious philosophers, the 
 secretaries of art and nature), might wonderfully bestead the 
 commonwealth with many puissant engines, and other commodious 
 devices, for war and peace. In actual experiments and poly- 
 mechany, nothing too profound ; a superficial slightness may seem 
 fine for sheets, but proveth good for nothing : as in other business, 
 so in learning, as good never a whit, according to the proverb, as 
 never the better ; one perfect mechanician worth ten unperfect phi- 
 losophers : an ignorant man less shameth himself, less beguileth his 
 friend, less disableth the commonwealth, than a putative artist; a 
 whole natural wit more serviceable and more sufficient than a demi- 
 scholar, who, presuming on that which he hath not, abateth the 
 force of that which he hath. 
 
 He must not dream of perfection, that improveth not the per- 
 
18 
 
 fectest art with most perfect industry. A snatch and aAvay, with 
 Neoptolemus and the common sort of students, may please a httle, 
 but profiteth nothing. It is the body, not the shadow, that dispatch- 
 eth the business. The flower dehghteth to-day, and fadeth to- 
 morrow ; the fruit edifieth and endureth ; the vizard, the painted 
 sheath, and such terrible braveries, can best report their own enter- 
 tainment : the peacock and the parrot have good leave to prank up 
 themselves, and leisure enough to revive and repolish their expired 
 works. What can last always? quoth the neat taylor, when his 
 fine seams began to crack their credit at the first drawing-on. I 
 appeal to Paul's churchyard, whether lines be like unto seams ; 
 and whether the deft Avriter be as sure a workman as the neat taylor. 
 There may be a fault in the reader as well as in the weaver ; but 
 every man content himself to bear the burthen of his own faults : 
 and, good sweet authors, inform yourselves before you undertake 
 to instruct other. 
 
 Excellent effects must flow from the spring of excellent causes ; 
 and nothing notable without notable endeavour. The print is 
 abused that abuseth, and earnestly beseecheth flourishing writers 
 not to trouble the press, but in case of urgent occasion or important 
 use. Or if you conceive extraordinarily of your own pregnancy, 
 and will needs employ your youthful talent, remember that cor- 
 ruptions in manners, and absurdities in art, have too lately over- 
 flowed the banks of all good modesty and discretion. He that 
 hath but half an eye can see no less : and he that hath but half a 
 tongue may say more : I only note by the Avay, that hindereth 
 many a gallant wit in the way ; and, without impeachment to any, 
 wish all rather to be excellent with Socrates, than to seem famous 
 with the philosopher of the court. 
 
 My meaning is not to teach, but to-touch : and, albeit, I have 
 cursorily spoken something for myself, and something as it Avere 
 against other ; yet the one little, and the other less, are both uttered 
 
49 
 
 with a mind that will ratlier excuse other than myself, and rather 
 accuse myself than other, wheresoever I find the least reason for 
 them, or the least cause against myself: and if in any thing I am any 
 thing, it is in nothing so much as in a zealous desire to see learning 
 flourish, virtue prosper, the good proceed from better to better, the 
 bad amend, the body cherish the members, the members tender the 
 body; all generally maintain concord with all; every one particu- 
 larly nourish accord with every one. Howbeit at this instant I must 
 crave licence to stand upon such terms, not as I would most willingly 
 choose, but as the present occasion forcibly suggesteth. No man 
 loather to minister the least, or to take the greatest occasion of 
 public contention, or private discontentment; choler is as soon 
 inflamed as flax ; and small sparkles of dissension have kindled 
 horrible fires of faction ; there be wranghng and quarrelling Hot- 
 spurs enough, though I be none. Ignis fatuus never so spritishly 
 busy, never so many threatening comets, never such a terrible sky 
 of blazing and falling stars, never such lusty stirring of lively coals 
 and dead cinders; every Martin junior and puny Pierce a 
 monarch in the kingdom of his own humour ; every pert and crank 
 wit, in one odd vein or other, the only man of the university, of the 
 city, of the realm, for a flourish or two ; who but he, in the flush 
 of 'his overweening conceit.'* give him his peremptory white rod in 
 his hand, and good-night all distinction of persons, and all differ- 
 ence of estates : his pen is his mace, his lance, his two-edged sword, 
 his sceptre, his Hercules's club, and will bear a predominant sway 
 in despite of vain-glorious titles and ambitious degrees. Lords 
 must take heed how they lord it in his presence ; but he, forsooth, 
 may play the lord great master, cum gratia; and a saucy sophister 
 take upon him, like a mighty tyrant, cum privilegio. 
 
 God help, when Ignorance and Want of Experience, usurping 
 the chair of scrupulous and rigorous Judgment, will, in a fantastical 
 imagination, or, percase, in a melancholy mood, presume farther, by 
 
 u 
 
50 
 
 infinite degrees, than the learnedest men in a civil commonwealth, or 
 the sagest counsellors in a prince's court. Our new-new writers, the 
 loadstones of the press, are wonderfully beholden to the ass, in a 
 manner the only author, Avhich they ailed ge : the world was ever 
 full enough of fools, but never so full of asses in print ; the very 
 elephant, a great ass ; the camel, a huge ass ; the bear, a monstrous 
 ass; the horse, an absurd ass; the fox himself a little ass, or, for 
 variety, an ape ; who not an ass, or an ape in good plain English, 
 that chanceth to come in the wise ass-makers" and mighty ape- 
 dubbers' way ? 
 
 They are fine men, and have many SAveet phrases : it is my 
 simplicity that I am so slenderly acquainted with that dainty 
 style, the only new fashion of current eloquence m esse; far 
 surpassing the stale vein of Demosthenes or Tully, Jewel or 
 Harding, Whitgift or Cartwright, Sidney or Spenser. But I could 
 wish Ignorance would favour itself; and it were not amiss, that 
 Want of Experience should be content to be a little modest, or 
 somewhat quiet; and both enforce less occasion to be termed, as 
 they will needs notoriously proclaim themselves, as it were with a 
 public oyez, or a general Noverint imiversi per prcEsentes. For if 
 any thing, indeed, be a right ass in print, it is the one ; and if any 
 thing, indeed, be a right calf in print, it is the other: Ignorance the 
 famousest ass, and Want of Experience the notablest calf in the 
 world. Yet the one the terrible controller, the other the singular 
 reformer of the world : both the busiest adventurers, and doughti- 
 est doers in a world. They trouble many much, some exceedingly, 
 themselves most, me little, who can very Avell leave them to the 
 jollity of their own swing, or only pray them to stay the nimble 
 course of their forward wisdoms, till they have soberly read, and 
 heard a little, and a little more (for I wis something resteth un- 
 considered) ; and till they have effectually seen and tried a great 
 deal, and a great deal more (for much remaineth unapproved), I 
 
51' 
 
 love not to solicit them greatly that love to importune all other 
 excessively. 
 
 That little I have done, I have done compelled, and would 
 wish undone, rather than any storm of debate, or the least fit of 
 mahce, should ensue thereof. Let them glory in pen scolding and 
 paper brabbling, that list; I must not, I cannot, I will not. I hate 
 to intend such arrant paltry ; not for fear, but for contempt ; not 
 for laziness, but for weightier business. Good honest youths, spare 
 an old truant, meeter now to play the dumb dog, with some ancients, 
 than the bawling cur, or the hissing snake, with you springals : a 
 thousand examples pierce deep, and over-sensibly teach me the 
 miserable inconvenience of such mischief, and the miserable mis- 
 chief of such inconvenience : better a peck of troubles than a load of 
 agonies ; no plague to irksome vengeance, no joy or treasure to 
 industrious employment, no felicity to a commodious intercourse of 
 sweet study, sweeter conversation, and sweetest action ; that want- 
 eth must be supplied, as sufficient as it may ; extraordinary incum- 
 brances little need ; time is precious, and would not be prodigally 
 wasted in waste paper, or contemptuously thrust out by the 
 shoulders. 
 
 My first letter was in a manner voluntary, my second in sort 
 necessary, this wholly superfluous, but violently extorted after 
 the rest ; all wearisome unto me, but this most tedious, and any 
 thing more would seem intolerable, especially in the invective vein ; 
 the little fury of this age, and great incendiary of the world, whose 
 unmeasurable outrage I would rather mitigate with twenty insinua- 
 tive and persuasive orations, than any way aggravate with one 
 offensive or defensive letter. 
 
 Some comical jars may be endured, but no act so joyful 
 as the plaudit; and whatsoever the beginning happeneth to be, 
 I would always wish a pleasant or amicable end, the scope 
 whereat I as diligently aim, as any that most religiously affecteth 
 
0% 
 
 unity. Only my determination is, rather to be a sheep in wolfs 
 print, than to suffer myself, or my dearest friends, to be made 
 sheep in the wolf's walk ; and only my request is, that every dis- 
 creet and courteous mind, will as considerately weigh the cause, 
 as censoriously note the effect. 1 hope there neither is nor shall 
 be any default committed, but may in convenient time be redressed 
 with some reasonable amends ; until which time I am not to dedi- 
 cate any thing unto any personage of name, but a mind affection- 
 ately desirous to honour the worthiest, to reverence the wisest, to 
 commend the learnedest, to embrace the best, to appease the worsts 
 to injure none, to render every one the uttermost of his desert or 
 other quality ; which mind I entirely recommend unto you all, and 
 you all unto God, whom I beseech to accomplish that which I can-* 
 not efiect, and even to work a miracle upon the deaf. 
 
 London, this llfh and 12 th of September. 
 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 G. H. 
 
GREENE'S MEMORIAL; 
 
 OR CERTAIN 
 
 FUNERAL SONNETS. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 FORES.\ID MASTER EMANUEL DEMETOIUS, MASTER CHRISTOPHER BIRD, 
 AND ALL GENTLE WITS THAT WILL VOUCHSAFE THE RESIDING. 
 
 SONNET I. 
 
 His Repentance that meant to call Greene to his Answer. 
 
 Alas ! that I so hastily should come 
 To terrify the man with fatal dread, 
 That deemed cmiet Pennes, or dead or dumb, 
 And stoutly knock'd poor Silence on the head. 
 
 Enough can say, dead is the dog of spite : 
 I, that for pity praised him alive, 
 And smil'd to hear him guar, and see him bite. 
 Am not Avith sorry carcasses to strive. 
 
 The Avorst, I list, of famous him report : 
 Paul's hath the only pregnant author lost. 
 Ah me ! xjuoth Wit, in lamentable sort, 
 What worthy Avight shall now command the roast ? 
 Fame heard the plaint, and pointed at a man 
 As green as Greene, and Avhite as Avhitest swan. 
 
54 
 
 SONNET II. 
 
 His Misfortune, in being spitefully injured by some whom he 
 
 partially commended. 
 
 Unluckv I, unhappiest on earth, 
 That, fondly doting upon dainty wits. 
 And deeply ravish'd Avith their luring fits, 
 
 Of gentle favours find so hard a dearth. 
 
 Is it my fate, or fault, that such fine men 
 Should their commender so unkindly bite. 
 That loves to love, in spite of rankest spite. 
 
 And hates to hate, with heart, or tongue, or pen ? 
 
 Sweet writers, as ye covet to be sweet. 
 Nor me, nor other, nor yourselves abuse ; 
 Humanity doth courteously peruse 
 
 Each act of friend, or foe, with favour meet. 
 
 Foul Devil, and fouler Malice, cease to rave ! 
 For every fault I twenty pardons crave. 
 
 SONNET III. 
 His Admonition to Greene's Companions. 
 
 The flourishing and gaily springing wight, 
 That vainly me provok'd with vile reproach. 
 Hath done his worst, and hath no more to broach ; 
 
 Maugre the devil of villanous despite. 
 
55 
 
 I cannot rail, whatever cause to rail ; 
 
 For charity I lovingly embrace, 
 
 That me for envy odiously deface ; 
 But in their highest rage extremely fail. 
 1 can do him no harm that is in heaven ; 
 
 I can do him no good that is in hell ; 
 
 I wish the best to his survivors fell. 
 Deeply acquainted with his six : and seven. 
 
 O be not like to Death, that spareth none ! 
 Your greenest flower and peacock^s tail is gone. 
 
 SONNET IV. 
 
 The miserable End of wilful Desperateness, 
 
 The jolly fly dispatched his silly self: 
 
 What stories quaint, of many a doughty fly 
 That read a lecture to the vent'rous elf? 
 
 Yet he will have his lusty swing to die. 
 Courage and stirring wit in time do well ; 
 
 But that same obstinate Desperation, 
 A furious fiend of self-devouring hell, 
 
 Rushing with terrible commination, 
 (What storm so hideous as Rage's spell ?) 
 
 Concludes with horrible lamentation. 
 Each blessed tongue accurse malediction. 
 
 The ugly mouth of ruthful confusion. 
 
 Nothing so dulcely sweet, or kindly dear, 
 As sugared lips, and heart's delicious cheer. 
 
m 
 
 SONNET V. 
 
 The Learned should lovingly affect the Learned. 
 
 I AM not to instruct where I may learn, 
 But where I may persuasively exhort ; 
 Nor over dissolute, nor over stern — 
 A courteous honesty I would extort. 
 
 Good loathes to damage or upbraid the good ; 
 Gentle, how lovely to the gentle wight ! 
 Who seeth not how every blooming bud 
 Smileth on every flower fairly dight, 
 
 And biddeth foul ill-fa vouredness good-night ? 
 Would Alciafs Emblem, or some scarlet hood, 
 Could teach the pregnant sons of shiny light 
 To interbrace each other with delight ! 
 
 Fine Mercury conducts a dainty band 
 Of Charities and Muses, hand in hand. 
 
 SONNET VI. 
 His Palace of Pleasure. 
 
 I WOT not what these cutting hiiff-snufFs mean ; 
 Of alehouse daggers I have little skill ; 
 I borrow not my phrase of knave or quean. 
 But am a debtor to the civil quill. 
 
57 
 
 It is restorative unto my heart 
 
 To hear how gentle Che eke and Smith conversed ; 
 No daintier piece of dehcatest art, 
 
 Than cordial stories charmingly rehears'd, 
 That whilom rudest woods and stones empiercM. 
 
 Who now begins that amiable part? 
 Haddon farewel, and Ascham thou art stale. 
 And every sweetness tastes of bitter bale. 
 Oh, let me live to interview the face 
 Of fair Humanity, and bounteous Grace. 
 
 SONNET VII. 
 His unfeigned Wish. 
 
 Never Ulysses or JEneas tir'd 
 
 With toiling travails, and huge afflictions, 
 As arrant pen and wretched page bemir'd 
 
 With nasty filth of rank maledictions. 
 I seldom call a snarling cur, a cur ; 
 
 But wish the gnarring dog as sweet a mouth, 
 As bravest horse, that feeleth golden spur ; 
 
 Or shrillest trump, that soundeth north or south ; 
 
 Or most enchanting Siren's voice uncouth. 
 Self-gnawing hearts, and gnashing teeth of murr. 
 
 How fain would I see Orpheus revived. 
 
 Or Suadas' honey bees in you re-hiv'd ! 
 Oh, most delicious honey dews, infuse 
 Your daintiest influence into their Muse ! 
 
58 
 
 SONNET VIII. 
 
 A Continuation of the same Wish. 
 
 Let them forget their canker'd peevishness, 
 
 And say to Clioler fell, " thou wert our fall ; 
 Hadst thou not boiled in fretting waywardness, 
 
 We might have laugh'd at Fortune's tossing ball. 
 Choler, content thy malecontented self; 
 
 And clearest Humour, of right sanguine pure, 
 Neatly refin'd from that felonious elf. 
 
 With jovial graciousness thyself enure. 
 If ever silver conduits were abroach. 
 
 Of streaming Wit, and flowing Eloquence ; 
 Ye floods of milk and honey re-approach. 
 
 And bounteously pour out your quintessence. 
 Gently assemble, delicacies all. 
 And sweetly nectarize this bitter gall!" 
 
 SONNET IX. 
 
 His Revival of a former Motion ; added at the Instance of an 
 
 especial Friend. 
 
 Were I as meet as willing to advise, 
 
 I would in amicable terms entreat 
 Some forward wits to change their headlong guise, 
 
 And less in print, and more in mint to sweat. 
 
59 
 
 Pythagoras and Apollonius sage, . 
 Two wonders of capacity divine, 
 Trained their followers to temper rage, 
 
 And tongue with curious silence to refine. 
 There is a time to speak, a time to write. 
 
 But blessed be the time that sees and hears : 
 Let petty stars suppress their twinkling light, 
 And glorious sun advance his beamy peers I 
 
 O you of golden mould, that shine like sun. 
 Display your heavenly gifts, and I have done. 
 
 SONNET X. 
 
 A more particular Declaration of his Intention. 
 
 Yet let Affection interpret self, 
 
 Arcadia brave, and doughty Faery Queen, 
 Cannot be stain'd by Gibelin or Guelph, 
 
 Or goodliest legend that Wit's eye hath seen. 
 The dainty hand of exquisitest art. 
 
 And nimble head of pregnantest receipt. 
 Never more finely played their curious part 
 
 Than in those lively crystals of conceit. 
 Other fair wits I cordially embrace. 
 
 And that sweet muse of azure dye admire ; 
 And must in every sonnet interlace 
 
 The earthly sovereign of heavenly fire. 
 A fitter place remaineth to implore, 
 Of deepest artists the profoundest lore. 
 
60 
 
 SONNET XI. 
 His Desire to honour excellent Perfections in the best. 
 
 ANOTHER ADDITION. 
 Inserted at the Request of one that might command. 
 
 Black Art, avaunt! and hail, thrice graceful Grace, 
 
 That whitest white on earth or heaven exceeds 
 In purity, and sovereignty immense ! 
 
 Or lock my mouth, or school my infant lips. 
 Resplendent lights of Milky Way to sing. 
 
 Rare subjects of thy indulgence supreme. 
 Yet what should I conspicuous mirrors sing, 
 
 That radiantly display their beauteous beams 
 Of glist'ring Virtue and reshining Wit, 
 
 The luminaries great of little world ? 
 Folly impossibilities attempts ; 
 
 Astonishment such brightness best becomes. 
 Or lend me, Pegasus, thy mounting wings» 
 And let me hear how choir of Angels sings. 
 
61 
 
 SONNET XII. 
 
 His Court of Honour. 
 
 Were fine Castillo the heir of grace, 
 
 What gallant port more graciously fine ? 
 As dainty Petrarch was sweet Siren^s son, 
 What Avitching tune more Orpheously sweet ? 
 
 Him, him, the Ida high, and deep abyss 
 Of noble excellence, I would proclaim. 
 But what should drowsy muse of phantoms dream r 
 Cast glancing eye into queen Pallas^ court. 
 
 And scorn the dimness of thy dazzled sight, 
 Astound with lord and lady graces' view ; 
 Idas how high, abysses how profound. 
 Of valour brave, and admirable worth ! 
 Poor glimmering gems, and twinkling stars, adieu ! 
 Here, here the sun and moon of Honour true. 
 
 SONNET XIII. 
 
 His Intercession to Fame. 
 
 Live ever, valorous renowned knights; 
 
 Live ever, Smith and Bacon, peerless men; 
 Live ever, Walsingham and Hatton wise ; 
 Live ever, Mildmay's honourable name. 
 
62 
 
 Ah! that Sir Humphrey Gilbert should be dead; 
 
 Ah! that Sir Philip Sidney should be dead; 
 
 Ah! that Sir William Sackville should be dead; 
 
 Ah! that Sir Richard Grinville should be dead ; 
 Ah! that brave Walter Devereux should be dead; 
 
 Ah ! that the flower of knighthood should be dead ! 
 
 Which, maugre deadliest deaths and stoniest stones, 
 
 That cover Avorthiest worth, shall never die. 
 Sweet Fame, adorn thy glorious triumph new, 
 Or virtues all, and honours all, adieu. 
 
 SONNET XIV. 
 
 A Repetition of the former Petition. 
 
 But Virtues all, and Honours all, survive ; 
 
 And Virtues all, and Honours all, inflame. 
 
 Brave minds to platform, and redoubted hands 
 
 To do such deeds, and such exploits achieve. 
 As they, and they courageously performed. 
 
 Egregious men, and memorable knights ; 
 
 Ay, memorable knights, whiles sun shall shine. 
 
 And teach industrious worth to shine like sun, 
 To live in motion and action hot ; 
 
 To eternize Entelechy divine, 
 
 Where Plutarch's Lives, where Argonautiques brave. 
 
 Where all heroic wonderments concur. 
 
 Oh ! Oh ! and Oh ! a thousand thousand times, 
 That thirsty ear might hear archangels' rhymes. 
 
63 
 
 SONNET XV. 
 
 Then would I so my melody adulce, 
 And so attune my harmony to theirs, 
 That fellest Fury should confess herself 
 Enchanted mightily with charms divine; 
 
 And in the sweetest terms of sacred leagues, 
 With pure devotion reconcile her rage. 
 Meanwhile I seek, and seek, but cannot find 
 That jewel rare, of preciousest worth. 
 
 Gentle Accord and sovereign Repose, 
 The paradise of earth and bliss of heaven. 
 Be it in earth, oh ! heaven direct my course ; 
 Be it in heaven alone, oh ! earth farewel. 
 Or well fare Patience, that sweetens sour. 
 And rears on hellish earth an Heavenly Bower. 
 
 SONNET XVI. 
 
 His professed Disdaiii to answer Vanity in some, or to envy 
 
 Prosperity in any. 
 
 Some me have spited with a cruel spite. 
 But Fount of Mercy so recleanse my sin. 
 
 As I nor them malign, nor any wight. 
 
 But all good minds affect, hke dearest kin. 
 
64 
 
 Small cause I have to scorn in any sort. 
 
 Yet I extremely scorn to answer some, 
 That banish conscience from their report, 
 
 And over wantonly abuse the dumb. 
 God keep low countrymen from high disdain : 
 
 Yet I disdain, with haughtiest contempt, 
 To envy any person's fame or gain. 
 
 Or any crooked practice to attempt. 
 
 Jesu, that we should band, like John O'Neal, 
 That tenderly should melt in mutual zeal. 
 
 SONNET XVII. 
 His Exhortation to Atonement and Love. 
 
 O MINDS of heaven, and wits of highest sphere. 
 
 Molten most tenderly in mutual zeal ; 
 Each one with cordial indulgence forbear, 
 
 And bonds of love reciproquely enseal. 
 No rose, no violet, no fragrant spice, 
 
 No nectar, no ambrosia so sweet 
 As gracious love, that never maketh nice, 
 
 But every one embraceth, as is meet. 
 Magnes and many things attractive are. 
 
 But nothing so allective under skies. 
 As that same dainty amiable star. 
 
 That none but grisly mouth of hell defies. 
 That star illuminate celestial hearts. 
 And who but Rancour feeleth irksome smarts .'' 
 
65 
 
 SONNET XVIII. 
 John Harvey's Welcome to Robert Greene. 
 
 Come, fellow Greene, come to thy gaping grave, 
 
 Bid Vanity and Foolery farewel ; 
 Thou over long hast played the mad brain'd knave, 
 
 And over loud hast rung the bawdy bell. 
 Vermin to vermin must repair at last ; 
 
 No fitter house for busy folk to dwell ; 
 Thy Coney-Catching pageants are past, 
 
 Some other must those arrant stories tell. 
 These hungry worms think long for their repast ; 
 
 Come on, I pardon thy offence to me. 
 It was thy living ; be not so aghast ; 
 
 A fool and a physician may agree. 
 
 And for my brothers never vex thyself, 
 They are not to disease a buried elf. 
 
 SONNET XIX. 
 His Apology of himself and his Brothers, 
 
 Yet fie on lies, and fie oh false appeals : 
 No minister in England less affects 
 
 Those wanton kisses that lewd Folly steals 
 Than he whom only Ribaldry suspects. 
 
66 
 
 Were I a fool (what man plays not the fool ? 
 
 The world is full of fools, and full of sects). 
 Yet was John never spoiled with the tool 
 
 That Richard made ; and none but none infects. 
 The third is better known in court and school, 
 
 Than thy vain Quip, or my Defence shall be ; 
 Whose eye but his that sits on Slander's stool. 
 
 Did ever him in Fleet or prison see ? 
 
 Loud Mentery small confutation needs, 
 
 Avaunt ! black beast, that sows such cursed seeds. 
 
 SONNET XX. 
 
 His Apology of his good Father. 
 
 Ah, my dear Father, and my parent sweet. 
 
 Whose honesty no neighbour can impeach i 
 That any ruffian should, in terms unmeet. 
 
 To your discredit shamefully outreach. 
 O rakehell hand, that scribbled him a knave. 
 
 Whom never enemy did so appeach ; 
 Repent thy wicked self, that so didst rave. 
 
 And cancel that which Slander's mouth did teach. 
 Nor every man, nor every trade is brave ; 
 
 Malt, hairs, and hemp, and sackcloth, must be had : 
 Truth, him from odious imputations save : 
 
 And many a gallant gentleman more bad. 
 
 Four sons him cost a thousand pounds at least ; 
 Well may he fare, and thou enjoy thy rest ! 
 
67 
 
 SONNET XXI. 
 
 His charitable Hope, and their eternal Repose. 
 
 Let memory of gross abuses sleep ! 
 
 Who over-shooteth not in reckless youth ? 
 Were sins as red as reddest scarlet deep, 
 
 A penitential heart preventeth ruth. 
 Well-Avishing Charity preumes the best ; 
 
 Nothing impossible to powerful Truth : 
 Body to grave, and soul to heaven addrest. 
 
 Leave upon earth the follies of their youth. 
 Some penury bewail, some fear arrest ; 
 
 Some Parma's force, some Spaniards' gold adread ; 
 Some underlie the terrible inquest ; 
 
 Some carry a jealous, some a climbing head. 
 
 We that are dead, releas'd from living woes. 
 Soundly enjoy a long, and long repose. 
 
 SONNET XXII. 
 
 L'Envoy : or an Answer to the Gentleman that drunk to Chaucer 
 
 upon View of the former Sonnets, and other Cantos, 
 
 in honour of certain brave Men. 
 
 Some tales to tell, would I a Chaucer were : 
 
 Yet would I not even now an Homer be ; 
 Though Spencer me hath often Homer term'd. 
 
 And Monsieur Bodine vow'd as much as he. 
 
68 
 
 Envy and Zoilus, two busy wights, 
 
 No petty shade of Homer can appear, 
 But he the devil, and she his dam display, 
 
 And Furies fell annoy sweet Muse's cheer. 
 Nor Martins I, nor Counter-martins squib : 
 
 Enough ado to clear my simple self: 
 Momus 'gainst heaven, and Zoilus 'gainst earth, 
 A quip for Gibeline, and whip for Guelph. 
 
 Or purge this humour, or woe-worth the state. 
 That long endures the one or other mate. 
 
 Robertus Grenus, utriusque Academic Artium MagisteVy 
 
 de Seipso. 
 
 Ille ego, cui risus, rumores, festa, puellae 
 
 Vana libellorum scriptio, vita fuit : 
 Prodigus ut vidi Ver, ^statemque furoris, 
 
 Autumno, atque Hyemi, cum Cane dico vale. 
 Ingenii bullam ; plumam artis ; fistulam Amandi ; 
 
 Ecquse non misero plangat avena tono ? 
 
 Gabriel Harveius, desideratissima anima Joannis fratris. 
 
 At Junioris erat, Seniori pangere carmen 
 
 Funebre, ni Fati lex violenta vetet. 
 Quid frustra exclamem, Frater, fraterrime Frater.? 
 
 Dulcia cuncta abeunt; tristia sola manent. 
 Totus ego funus, puUato squallidum amictu, 
 
 Quamvis ceelicolse, fiebile dico vale. 
 
69 
 
 To the Right Worshipful my singular good Friend, 
 M. Gabriell Harvey, Doctor of the Laws. 
 
 Harvey, the happy above happiest men, 
 
 I read, that sitting hke a looker-on 
 Of this world's stage, dost note, with critic pen, 
 
 The sharp dislikes of each condition ; 
 And, as one careless of suspicion, 
 
 Ne fawnest for the favour of the great, 
 Ne fearest foolish reprehension 
 
 Of faulty men, which danger to thee threat. 
 But freely dost, of what thee list, entreat. 
 
 Like a great lord of peerless liberty. 
 Lifting the good up to high Honour's seat. 
 
 And the evil damning evermore to die. 
 
 For hfe and death is in thy doomful writing. 
 So thy renown lives ever by inditing. 
 
 Dublin, this I8th of July, 1586. 
 
 Your devoted friend during hfe, 
 
 EDMUND SPENCER. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
From the Private Press of 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, UEES, ORME, AND BROWN. 
 
 Printed by T. DAVISON, Whilefriars, London. 
 
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