y * A r fix f\ B ^f^W^%v; r, \r~ m 1 J ^L? - THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE 3S> ^>^: j s>i3 ££££ foyji^ &>v5i SJfct> ^2*T3K IsiBJLjC^ j^m^ _^S^^ 3> - 3>. » . 5-^5- •-» >*. K ^*> /sja. r^- - 3£ THE DRAMATIC AND POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT GREENE & GEORGE PEELE WITH MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHORS AND NOTES BY THE HEV. ALEXANDER DYCE LONDO\ GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL \HW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE 1883 7)3 3 \ i THE OLD DRAMATISTS AND THE OLD POETS. THE OLD DRAMATISTS. SHAKSPEARE. With Remarks on his Life and Writings by Thomas Campbell ; and Portrait, Vignette, Illustrations, and Index. In One Vol., 8vo, price zos. 6d. cloth. WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND PAR- QUHAR. With Biographical and Critical Notices by Leigh Hunt : and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., 8vo, price i6.y. cloth. MASSINGER AND FORD. With an Introduction by Hart- ley Coleridge; and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., price 16s. cloth. BEN JONSON. With a Memoir by William Gifford ; and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., 8vo, 16s. cloth. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. With Introduction by George Darley; and Portrait and Vignettes. In Two Vols., 8vo, price £1 12s. cloth. JOHN WEBSTER. With Life and Notes by the Rev. Alex- ander Dyce. In One Vol., 8vo, price 12s. cloth. MARLOWE. With a Memoir and Notes by the Rev. Alexander Dyce; and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., 8vo, price 12s. cloth. GREENE AND PEELE'S DRAMATIC WORKS. Edited by the Rev. Alexander Dyce. In One Vol., 8vo, price 16s. cloth. THE OLD POETS. SPENSER. With selected Notes, Life by the Rev. H. J. Todd, M.A. ; Portrait Vignette, and Glossary Index. In One Vol., price 10s. 6d. cloth. CHAUCER. With Notes and Glossary by Tyrwhitt ; and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., price 10.?. 6d. cloth. DRYDEN. With Notes by the Revs. Joseph and John Warton ; and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., price io.r. 6d. cloth. POPE. Including the Translations. With Notes and Life by Rev. H. F. Cary, A.M. : and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., price 10.?. &d. cloth. 1 V v> NOTICE, The Works of George Peele: now first collected. With some account of his writings, and notes: By the Rev. Alexander Dyce, A.B., 2 vols., were published in 1828. A "Second edition with additions" (the title-page slightly varied) appeared during the next year ; and a third volume in 1839. The Dramatic Works of Robert Greene, to ivhich are added his Poems. With some account of the author, and Notes : By the Rev. Alexander Dyce, B.A., 2 vols., were published in 1831. To the latter collection was prefixed a Dedication which I now subjoin, because I am unwilling that it should be forgotten ; — '• To SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART, THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED, AS A SLIGHT MARK OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENITTS, AND RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER, BY HIS OBEDIENT SERVANT, ALEXANDER DYCE." At that period I had the honour of occasionally corresponding with Sir Walter : and in his Life by Lockhart (vol. vii. p. 272) is a letter addressed to me which shows that he intended to make my editions of Greene, Webster, &c, the subject of an article for the Quarterly Review; but his kind intentions were frustrated by the fatal malady from which he vainly sought relief in a foreign land. The present volume contains the whole of the above-mentioned editions of Peele and Greene ; nor is it a mere reprint, important alterations, corrections, and I additions having been made throughout. n «\ ALEXANDER DYCE. r CONTENTS. THE DRAMATIC AND POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT GREENE. PAGE SOME ACCOUNT OF ROBERT GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS .... 1 LIST OF GREENE'S PROSE-WORKS 76 ORLANDO FURIOSO . 85 A LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND 113 FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY 149 SPECIMEN OF THE FAMOUS HISTORIE OF FRYER BACON 179 JAMES THE FOURTH 1S3 ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON 221 GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD 249 SPECIMEN OF THE HISTORY OF GEORGE-A-GREENE 269 BALLAD, THE JOLLY PINDER OF WAKEFIELD, WITH ROBIN HOOD, SCARLET, AND JOHN 270 A MAIDENS DREAM 273 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 283 POEMS FROM MORANDO, THE TRITAMERON OF LOVE 285 MENAPHON 2S6 PERIMEDES, THE BLACKSMITH 292 PANDOSTO, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME 294 NEVER TOO LATE 294 THE MOURNING-GARMENT 304 THE FAREWELL TO FOLLY 309 THE GROATSWORTH OF WIT 310 CICERONIS AMOR, TULLY'S LOVE 311 PHILOMELA, THE LADY FITZ WATER'S NIGHTINGALE . .314 THE SECOND PART OF MAMILLTA 316 THE ORPHARION 316 PENELOPE'S WEB 317 ARBASTO 313 ALCIDA 318 GREENE'S VISION 320 ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS 320 vi CONTENTS. THE WORKS OF GEORGE PEELE. PA' SOME ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS 323 THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS 347 EDWARD THE FIRST 371 A WARNING-PIECE TO ENGLAND AGAINST PRTDE AND WICKEDNESS, &c. . 373 THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR 417 THE OLD WIVES' TALE 441 DAVID AND BETHSABE 459 SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES 487 DEVICE OF THE PAGEANT BORNE BEFORE WOLSTAN DIXIE . . . .535 DESCENSUS ASTR^EiE 539 A FAREWELL TO SIR JOHN NORRIS AND SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, &c. AND A TALE OF TROY 545 AN ECLOGUE GRATULATORY, &c 559 POLYHYMNTA 565 SPEECHES TO QUEEN ELIZABETH AT THEOBALD'S 575 THE HONOUR OF THE GARTER 581 ANGLORUM FERINE, ENGLAND'S HOLIDAYS 591 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 599 LINES ADDRESSED TO THOMAS WATSON GDI THE PRAISE OF CHASTITY 601 LOVE 603 CUPID'S ARROWS 603 CORIDON AND MELAMPUS' SONG 603 FRAGMENTS OF THE HUNTING OF CUPID FROM DRUMMOND'S MSS. . . 603 A MERRY BALLAD OF THE HAWTHORN-TREE 604 PEELE'S MERRY CONCEITED JESTS 607 INDEX TO THE NOTES ON GREENE 621 INDEX TO THE NOTES ON PEELE 623 ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA. — » — P. 228. In the line, " Naples, I mean, that city of renowm," alter "renowm" to "renown." Ibid. Dele note f. P. ?,"S. " Longshanlc is afterwards repeatedly mentioned in the same Diary." I on 'lit to have added, that the Appendix to the same Diary, p. 276, contains an inventory of tho apparel of the Lord Admiral's Players, 1598, in which occurs " Ijongeshankes scute." p. '176. P. 164. Qy. if in the lino, " That, for their homage to her sovereign joyt," — the word "joys" should he "eyes"? THE DRAMATIC AND POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT GREENE. SOME ACCOUNT OF ROBERT GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. Robert Greene was a native of Norwich.* The date of his birth has not been ascertained : in all probability it may be fixed about the year 1550. * Greene, dedicating his Maiden's Dream, 1591, to Lady Elizabeth Hatton, declares that he is her "ladyship's poor countryman," and signs himself "R. Greene, Nordovicensis.''' In 1592 was printed a piece by Lodge, entitled Euphues Shadow, the Battaile of the Sences, &c. : it was edited by Greene, who prefixed to it the following Address ; " To the Right Honourable Robert Ratcliffe, Viscount Fitzwaters, Robert Greene wisheth increase of honour and vertue. "Ever desirous (right honorable) to shew my affectionate duty to your lordship, as well for the generall report of your vertue vniuersally conceipted in the opinion of all men, as for the natiue place of my birth, whereby I am bounde to affect your honourable father, and you for him aboue others, in suspence of this dutifull desire, it fortuned that one M. Thomas Lodge, who nowe is gone to sea with Mayster Candish, had bestowed some serious labour in penning of a booke called Euphues Shadowe ; and by his last letters gaue straight charge, that I should not onely haue the care, for his sake of the impression thereof, but also in his absence to bestowe it on some man of honor, whose worthye vertues might bee a patronage to his worke : wherevpon taking aduice with my selfe, I thought none more fit then your honour, seeing your lordships disposition was wholy giuen to the studie of good letters, to be a Mecenas to the well-imployed laboures of the absent gentleman : may therefore your lordship fauourably censure of my good meaning, in presenting your honour with this pamphlet, and courteouslye graunt acceptance of his workes and my good will, his labour hath his end, and my desire in dutie rests satisfied ; and so humbly praying for your lordships health and welfare, I take my leaue. " Your honors humbly to commaund, "Rob. Greene, Norfolciensis." Euphues SJiadoic is not mentioned in any list of Lodge's works. [At least, it had not been mentioned among them in 1831, when the present memoir originally appeared.] Why Mr. Collier (Hist, of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 149, note) should suspect that it might have been written "by Greene himself," I am at a loss to understand. "I neede not make long discourse of my parentes, who for their grauitie and honest life is well knowne and esteemed amongst their neighbors ; namely, in the cittie oi Norwitch, where I was bred and borne." — The Repentance of Robert Greene, &c, 1592. sig. C. B 2 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. He was educated at Cambridge, taking the degree of A. B. at St. John's College in 1578, and that of A. M. at Clarehall* in 1583: in July 1588 he was incorporated at Oxford ; t and on the title-pages of some of his works he ostentatiously terms himself " (ftriusque Academics in Artibus Magister." During the time that elapsed between his taking the degree of A. B. and that of A. M. Greene visited Italy, Spain, and other parts of the continent ; % and from the The full title of the very rare piece last quoted will be found in the List of Greene's prose-works appended to this essay. It opens with the following Address ; "The Printer to the Gentlemen Readers. ' ' Gentlemen, I know you ar not vnacquainted with the death of Robert Greene, whose pen in his life-time pleased you as well on the stage as in the stationers shops : aud. to speake truth, although his loose life was odious to God and offensiue to men, yet forasmuch as at his last end he found it most grieuous to himselfe (as appeareth by this his repentant discourse), I doubt not but he shall for the same deserue fauour both of tiod and men. And considering, gentlemen, that Venus hath her charmes to inchaunt, that fancie is a sorceresse bewitching the senses, and follie the onely enemie to all vertuous actions ; and forasmuch as the purest glasse is the most brickie, the finest lawne the soonest staind, the highest oake most subiect to the wind, and the quickest wit the more easily woone to folly ; I doubt not but you will with regarde forget his follies, and, like to the bee, gather bony out of the good counsels of him who was wise, learned, and polliticke, had not his lasciuious hfe withdrawen him from those studies which had been far more profitable to him. "For herein appeareth that he was a man giuen ouer to the lust of his owne heart, forsaking all godlines, and one that daily delighted in all manner of wickednes. Since other therefore haue forerun him in the like faults, and haue been forgiuen both of God and men, I trust hee shall bee the better accepted, that, by the working of Gods holy spirit, returnes with such a resolued repentance, being a thing acceptable both to God and men. "To conclude, forasmuch as I found this discourse very passionate, and of woonderfull effect to withdraw the wicked from their vngodly waies, I thought good to publish the same ; and the rather, for that by his repentance they may as in a glasse see their owne follie, and thereby in time resolue, that it is better to die repentant than to Hue dishonest. "Yours, C. B.furbie.]" The rest of the tract professes to proceed from the pen of Greene, with the exception of a few pages headed " The manner of the death and last end of Robert Greene, Maister of Artes." When I first read The Repentance I suspected it to be the forgery of some writer who had taken advantage of the public curiosity concerning so notorious a person as Greene. But now I am strongly inclined to believe that it is genuine. The translator of The French Academy, T. B., noticing English- men of atheistical opinions, mentions "the testimonie which one of that crew gaue lately of himselfe, when the heauy hand of God by sicknesse summoned him to giue an accompt of his dessolute life," and then relates an anecdote of his impiety (not speaking of him, however, by name), — which anecdote is nothing more than a quotation from The Repentance of Robert Greene. And Chettle, in the Address "To the Gentlemen Readers," prefixed to Kind- Harts Drcame, says; "About three moneths since died M. Robert Greene, leauing many papers in sundry bookesel/ers hands, among others his Groats- worth of Wit," &c. * "I find Rob. Greene, A. M., Clare Hall, 1583."— MS. note by Dr. Farmer. The Dedication of the Second Part of Mamillia (which was not printed till after Greene's death) is dated "From my Studie in Clarehall the vi.j. of Iulie" (the year not being added). In Cole's MS. Collections relative to Cambridge (in the British Museum) I could find no mention oi Greene. t "1588, July—, Robert Green, M.A., of Cambridge, was also then incorporated."— Wood's Fasti Oxon. Part First, p. 245, ed. Bliss. $ "To be briefe, gen thin en, I haue seen the world and rounded it, though not with trauell, yet with experience ; and I crie out. with Salomon, Omnia sub sole vanitas. I haue smyled with the Italian, and ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. laxity of maimers prevalent in some of those countries he seems to have acquired a taste for the dissolute habits in which he afterwards indulged. It is stated that he entered the Church. In the Lansdowne Manuscripts, 982, art 102, fol. 187, under the head of "Additions to Mr. Wood's Report of Mr. Robert Green, an eminent poet, who died about 1592," is a reference to a document in Rymer's Foedera, from which it appears that a "Robert Grene " was, in 1576, one of the Queen's chaplains, and that he was presented by her Majesty to the rectory of Walkington in the diocese of York.* According to Octavius Gilchrist,t worn the vipers head in my hand, and yet stopt his venome ; I haue eaten Spanishe mirabolanes, and yet am nothing the more metamorphosed ; Fraunce, Germaoie, Poland, Denmarke, I know them all, yet not affected to any in the fourme of my life ; onelie I am English borne, and I haue English thoughts, not a deuill incarnate because I am Italianate, but hating the pride of Italie, bemuse I knowe their peeuishnes: yet in all these countreyes where I haue trauelled, I haue not seene more exeesse of vanitie then wee Englishe men practise through vain glory." — A Notable Discovery of Coosnage, 1591, Sig. A 2. "For being at the Vuiuersitie of Cambridge, I light amongst wags as lewd as my selfe, with whome I consumed the flower of my youth ; who drew mee to trauell into Italy and Spaine, in which places I sawe and practizde such villainie as is abhominable to declare. Thus by their counsaile I sought to furnishe myselfe with coine, which I procured by cunning sleights from my father and my friends ; and my mother pampered me so long, and secretly helped mee to the oyle of angels, that I grew thereby prone to all mischiefe : so that beeing then conuersant with notable braggarts, boon companions, and ordinary spend-thrifts, that practized sundry superficial! studies, I became as a sien grafted into the same stocke, whereby I did absolutely participate of their nature and qualities. At my return into England, I ruffeled out in ray silks, in the habit of malcontent, and seemed so discontent, that no place would please me to abide in, nor no vocation cause mee to stay myselfe in : but after I had by degrees proceeded Maister of Arts," &c. — The Repentance of Robert Greene. Sig. C. * "Anno 1576. Regina, delectis Nobis in Christo, Decano et Capitulo Ecclesiae nostra? Cathedralis et Metropoliticse Eboracensis, aut Vicario suo in Spiritualibus Generali et Officiali Principali, aut alii cuicumque in hac parte Potestatem habenti, Salutem. " Ad Rectoriam sive Ecclesiam Parochialem de Walkington Eboracen. Dioeces. per mortem Johannis Newcome ultimi Incumbentis ibidem, jam vacantem et ad nostram Donationem et Prsesentationem pleno jure spectantem, Dilectum nobis in Christo, Robertum Grene, ununi Capellanorum nostrorum Capelke nostra? Regis, vobis Tenore Pnesentiura praesentamus, Mandantes et Requirentes quatenus eundem Robertum Grene ad Rectoriam sive Ecclesiam Parochialem de Walkington pnedictam admittere, ipsumque Rectorem ejusdem ac in et de eadem cum suis Juribus et Pertiiientiis universis instituere et investire, cseteraque omnia et singula peragere facere et perimplere, qua? vestro in hac parte incumbunt Officio Pastorali, velitis cum favore. In cujus rei, &c. " Teste Regina apud Gorhambury tricesimo primo die Augusti. "Per breve de Privato Sigillo." Rymer's Foedera, torn. xv. p. 765. See a sketch of Greene's life by Sir N. H. Nicolas, in his reprint of Davison's Poetical Rhapsody. + Examination of Pen Jonsorts Enmity towards Skakesjieare, p. 22, where no authority is cited for the statement. The following passage of Never too Late, even if it be allowed that Greene meant Francesco for a pic- ture of himself, must not be adduced to show that he had ever been in orders : his "hauing tasted of the sweet fruits of theology " is to be referred merely to the divinity which (as well as philosophy) Francesco, " who had been nursed up at the Universities," had acquired during his academical career : — " Hast thou read Aristotle, and findest thou not in his philosophic this sentence set downe ? Omne animal irvationale ad sui similem diligendum natura dirigitur. And wilt thou that art a creature indued with reason as thou art, excelling them in wisedome, exceede them in vanities ? Hast thou turnd ouer the liberall sciences as a scholler, and amongst them all hast not found this general principle, that vnitie is the essence of amitie, and yet wilt thou make a diuision in the greatest simpathie of all loues ? Nay, Francesco, art thou a Christian, and hast tasted of the sweet fruites of theologie, and hast not read b 2 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. our author was presented, 19th June, 1-384, to the vicarage of Tollesbary in Essex, which he resigned the next year. And a copy of The Pinner of Wakefield exists, on the title-page of which are the following notes, in hand-writing of about the time when the play was printed ; "Written by a minuter who acted the piner's pt in it himselfe. Teste W. Shakespeare. Ed. Juby saith it was made by Ro. Greene." Of The Pinner of Wakefield, of these MS. Notes, and of Greene's acting, more will be said hereafter. From the title-page of his Planetomachia, 1585, where he is styled "Student in Phisicke," we may gather that, at one period of his life, he had intended to pursue the medical profession. That Greene has described some of his own adventures under those of Francesco in his Never too Late, must be, I think, sufficiently evident to every one who has perused it with attention : and that he intended Roberto, in his Groats-tvorth of Wit, for a picture of himself, he has not left us to doubt ; " Heere, gentlemen, breake I off Roberto's speech, whose life in most part agreeing with mine, found one selfe punishment as 1 have done. Hereafter suppose me the said Roberto, and I will go on with that he promised: Greene will send you now his Groats-worth of Witte," &c. But, since in both narratives he has undoubtedly exaggerated the incidents and heightened the colouring much beyond the truth, it is very difficult to determine what portions of them are to be received as facts. These two pieces may be regarded as among the best of Greene's pamphlets ; and the ample extracts which I am about to make from them, will serve not only as illustrations of his life, but as specimens of his style in prose. The Palmer's story in Never too Late* opens thus : " In those dayes when Palmerin reigned King of Great Britaine, famoused for his deedes of chiualrie, there dwelled in the citie of Caerbranck a gentleman of an ancient house, called Francesco ; a man whose parentage though it were worshipfull, yet it was not indued with much wealth ; insomuch that his learning was better than his reuenewes, and his wit more beneficiall than his substance. This Signor Francesco desirous to bend the course of his compasse to some peaceable port, spread no more cloath in the winde than might make easie saile, least hoysting vp too hastely aboue this in Holy Writt, peod downe l>y that miracle of wisedome Salomon, that he which is wise should reiect the strange woman, and not regard the sweetnesse of hir flattrie If then, Francesco, theologie tells thee such axiomes, wilt thou striue against the streame ?" Part First, p. 48. ed. 1590. * I print from the edition of 1590 : see the full title in the List of Greene's prose-works appended to this essay. I have not quoted here any of the verses with which Never too Late abounds, as they are all in 'i present volume among our author's' Miscellaneous Poems. ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 5 the maine yeard, some sodaine gust might make him founder in the deep. Though he were yong, yet he was not rash with Icarus to soare into the skie, but to crie out with olde Dedalus, Medium tenere tutissimum ; treading his shooe without anie slip. He was so generally loued of the citizens, that the richest marchaut or grauesl burghmaster would not refuse to graunt him his daughter in marriage, hoping more of his msuiug fortunes than of his present substance. At last, casting his eye on a gentlemans daughter that dwelt not far from Caerbranck, he fell in loue, and prosecuted his sute with such affable courtesie as the maide, considering the rertue and wit of the man, was content to set vp her rest with him, so that her fathers consent might be at the knitting vp of the match. Francesco thinking himselfe cocksure, as a man that hoped his credite in the citie might carrie away more than a country gentlemans daughter, finding her father on a day at fit opportunitie, he made the motion about the grant of his daughters marriage. The olde churle, that listened with l>oth eares to such a question, did not in this in vtramuis aurem- dormire ; but leaning on his elbow, made present aunswere, that hir dowrie required a greater feoffment than his lands were able to affoord." The old gentleman, who. was called Signer Fregoso, now goes home, and rates his daughter, whose name was Isabel, for having thought of marrying a man who was unable to maintain her. " And with that, he carried her in, and shut her vp in his owne chamber, not giuing her leaue to depart but when his key gaue her license : yet at last she so cunningly dissembled, that she gat thus farre libertie, not to bee close prisoner, but to walke about the house ; yet enerie night hee shut vp her cloathes, that no nightly feare of her escape might hinder his broken slumbers." Francesco is for some time unable to gain access to his mistress, or to communicate with her in writing. At last a poor woman, for a bribe, conveys a letter from him to Isabel, who, in her answer to it, desires him to "be vpon Thursday next at night hard by the orchard vnder the greatest oake, where expect my comming, and prouide for our safe passage ; for, stood all the worlde on the one side, and thou on the other, Francesco should be my guide to direct me whither hee pleased. Faile not, then, vnlesse thou bee false to her that would haue life faile ere she falsifie faith to thee." On the appointed Thursday, at midnight, Isabel "rose vp, and finding her apparell shut vp, she was faine to goe without hose, onely in her smocke and her petticoate, with her fathers hat and an olde cloake. Thus attired like Diana in her night-geere, she marcheth downe softly, where she found Francesco readie with a priuate and familiar frend of his to watch her comming forth ; who casting his eye aside, and seeing one in a hat and a cloake, suspecting some treacherie, drew his sword." He, of course, soon recognizes his mistress, and professes his devotion to her. " ' Sir,' quoth she, ' these protestations are now bootlesse : and therefore to be briefe, thus ' (and witli that the teares trickled downe the vermilion of her cheeks, and she blubbred out this passion) ' Francesco, thou maist see by my attire the depth of my fancie, and in these homely roabes maist thou noate the rechlesnesse of my fortunes, that for 6 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. thy loue have straind a note too high in loue. I offend nature as repugnant to my father, whose displeasure I haue purchast to please thee ; I haue giuen a finall farewell to my friends, to be thy familiar ; I haue lost all hope of preferment, to confirme the simpathie of both our desires : ah Francesco, see I come thus poore in apparell, to make thee rich in content. Now, if hereafter (oh, let me sigh at that, least I be forced to repent too late), when thy eye is glutted with my beautie, and thy hotte loue prooued soone colde, thou beginst to hate hir that thus loueth thee, and prove as Demophon did to Phillis, or as Aeneas did to Dido ; what then may I doo, reiected, but accurse mine owne folly, that hath brought mee to such hard fortunes 1 Giue me leaue, Francesco, to feare what may fall ; for men are as inconstant in performance as cunning in practises.' She could not fully discourse what she was abotit to vtter ; but he broke off with this protestation. ' Ah Isabel, although the windes of Lepanthos are euer inconstant, the chriseroll euer brittle, the polype euer changeable, yet measure not my minde by others motions, nor the depth of my affection by the fleeting of others fancies ; for as there is a topace that will yeeld to euerie stamp, so there is an emerald that will yeeld to no impression. The selfe same Troy, as it had an Aeneas that was fickle, so it had a Troylus that was constant. Greece had a Piramus as it had a Demophon ; and though some haue been ingrateful, yet accuse not al to be vnthaukful ; for when Francesco shall let his eye slip from thy beautie, or his thoughts from thy qualities, or his heart from thy vertues, or his whole selfe from euer honouring thee, then shal heauen cease to haue starres, the earth trees, the world elements, and euerie thing reuersed shall fall to their former chaos.' ' Why, then,' quoth Isabel, ' to horsebacke, for feare the faith of two such louers be impeached by my fathers wakefull iealouzie.' And with that (poore woman) halfe naked as she was, she mounted, and as fast as horse woidd pace away they post towards a towne in the said countrey of Britaine called Dunecastrum." Fregoso, rising early in the morning, is half distracted at Isabel's escape. " Whereupon in a despayring furie he caused all his men and his tenaunts to mount them, and to disperse themselues euerie one with hue and crie for the recouerie of his daughter, he himself being horst, and riding the readie way to Dunecastrum. Where he no sooner came, but fortune meaning to dally with the olde doteard, and to present him a boane to gnaw on, brought it so to passe that, as he came riding downe the towne, he met Francesco and his daughter comming from the church ; which although it piercte him to the quicke. and strainde euerie string of his heart to the highest noate of sorrow, yet he concealed it till he tooke his inne ; and then stumbling as fast as he could to the Mayors house of the towne, he reuealed vnto him the whole cause of his distresse, requiring his fauour for the clapping vp of this vnruly gentleman ; and to make the matter the more hainous, hee accused him of felonie, that he had not onely, contrarie to the custome, bereft him of his daughter against his wil, but with his daughter had taken away certaine plate. This euidence caused the Mayor ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 7 straight, garded with his officers, to march downe with Fregoso to the place where Isabel and her Francesco were at breakfast, little thinking, poore soules, such a sharp storme should follow so quiet a calme." Francesco is conveyed to prison, and Isabel to the Mayor's house ; and Fregoso, " as a man carelesse what should become of them in a straunge countrey," rides back to his home. After many days the Mayor, perceiving that the charge of felony was groundless, procures the consent of his brethren to set Francesco free. Taking Isabel with him, he goes to the gaol, and tells his prisoner, that " he was content to set him at libertie, conditionally Francesco should giue his hand to be answerable to what hereafter in that behalfe might be obiected against him. These conditions accepted, Francesco was set at libertie ; and he and Isabell, ioyntly together taking themselues to a little cottage, began to be as Cyceronicall as they were amorous ; with their hands thrift coueting to satisfie their hearts thirst, and to be as diligent in labours as they were affectionate in loues : so that the parish wherein they liued so affected them for the course of their life, that they were counted the very myrrours of a democraticall methode ; for hee being a scholler, and nurst vp in the vniuersities, resolued rather to Hue by his wit than any way to be pinched with want, thinking this olde sentence to be true, that wishers and woulders were neuer good housholders ; therefore he applied himselfe to teaching of a schoole, where by his industry he had not onelie great fauour, but gote wealth to withstand fortune. Isabel, that she might seeme no lesse profitable than her husband careful, fel to her needle, and with her worke sought to preuent the iuiurie of necessitie. Thus they laboured to mainetaine their loues, being as busie as bees, and as true as turtles, as desirous to satisfie the worlde with their desert as to feede the humours of their owne desires. Liuing thus in a league of vnited vertues, out of this mutuall concorde of confirmed perfection, they had a soune answerable to their owne proportion ; which did increase their amitie, so as the sight of their young infant was a double ratifying of their affection. Fortune and loue thus ioyning in league to make these parties to forget the stormes that had nipped the blossomes of their former j^eers, addicted to the content of their loues this conclusion of blisse. After the tearme of hue yeares, Seigneur Fregoso hearing by sundry reports the fame of their forwardnesse, howe Francesco coueted to be most louing to his daughter, and she most dutifull to him, and both striue to exceede one an other in loyalty, glad at this mutuall agreement, hee fell from the fury of his former melancholic passions, and satisfied him sclfe with a contented patience, that at last he directed letters to his sonne in lawe, that he should make rcpayre to his house with his daughter. Which newes was no sooner come to the eaivs of this married couple, but, prouiding for all things necessarie for the furniture of their voyage, they posted as fast as they coulde towards Caerbrancke ; where speedily arriuing at their fathers house, they found such friendly intertainement at the olde mans hand, that they counted this smile of fortune able to counteruaile all the contrarie stormes that the aduerse planets had inflicted vpon them." .... 8 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. " It so chanced that Francesco had necessarie businesse to dispatch certaine his vi'gent affaires at the chiefe city of that iland, called Troynouant : thither, with leaue of his father, and farewell to his wife, he* departed after they were married seuen yeeres. Where after he was arriued, knowing that he should make his abode there for the space of some nine weeks, he solde his horse, and hired him a chamber, earnestlie endeuouring to make speedie dispatch of his affaires, that he might the sooner enioy the sight of his desired Isabel ; for, did he see any woman beautiful, he viewed her with a sigh, thinking howe farre his wife did surpasse her in excellence ; were the modesty of any woman well noted by her qualities, it greened him hee was not at home with his Isabel who did excell them all in vertues." . " As thus his thoughts were diuided on his businesse and on his wife, looking one day out at his chamber windowe hee espied a young gentlewoman which looked out at a casement right opposite against his prospect, who fixed her eies vpon him with such cunning and artificial! glaunces, as she shewed in them a chaste dis- daine and yet a modest desire. Where, by the way, gentlemen, let me say this much, that our curtizans of Troynouant are far superiour in artificiall allurement to them of all the world ; for although they haue not the painting of Italie, nor the charms of France, nor the iewelles of Spaine, yet they haue in their eies adamants that wil drawe youth as the jet the strawe, or the sight of the panther the ermly : their looks are like lures that will reclaime, and like Cyrces apparitions that can represent in them all motions ; they containe modesty, mirth, chastity, wantonnes, and what not ; and she that holdeth in her eie most ciuility, hath oft in hir heart most dishonestie, being like the pyrit stone that is fier without and frost within." . " This courtisan, seeing this countrey Francesco was no other but a meere nouice, and that so newly that, to vse the old prouerb, he had scarce seene the lions, she thought to intrap him and so arrest him with her amorous glances that shee would wring him by the pursse : wherevpon euery day shee would out at hir casement stand, and there discouer her beauties." .... Francesco " when his leisure serued him, woulde, to make proofe of his constancie, interchange amorous glaunces with this faire curtisan, whose name was Infida ; thinking his inward affections were so surely grounded on the vertues of his Isabel that no exterior proportion could effect any passion to the contrary : but at last he found by experience, that the fairest blossomes are soonest nipt with frost, the best fruite soonest touched with caterpillers, and the ripest wittes most apt to be ouerthrowen by louc. Infida taught him with her lookes to learne this, that the eie of the basiliske pierceth with preiudice ; that the iuice of celidonie is sweete, but it fretteth deadly ; that Cyrces cuppes were too strong for all antidotes, and womens flatteries too forceable to resist at voluntarie : for she so snared him in the fauours of her face that his eie beganne to censure partially of her perfection, insomuch that he thought * kei] Olded. "the." ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 9 her second to Isabel, if not superiour. Dallying thus with beautie as the flie in the flame, Venus, willing to shewe how forceable her influence was, so tempted with opporfcunitie, that as Francesco walked abroad to take the ayre, he met with Infida gadding abroad with certaine hir companions, who like blazing starres shewed the markes of inconstant minions; for she no sooner drew neere Francesco, but dying her face with a Vermillion blush, and in a wanton eie hiding a fained modesty, slice saluted him with a lowe courtesie. Seigneur Francesco that coulde well skill to court all kinde of degrees, least he might then be thought to haue little manners, returned not only her courtesies with his bonnet, but, taking Infida by the hand, beganne thus. ' Faire mistresse, and if mine eie be not decerned in so bright an obiect, mine ouerthwart neighbour, hauing often seene with delight, and coueted with desire to be acquainted with your sweetc selfe ; I cannot now but gratulate fortune with many thankes that hath offered such fit opportunitic to bring me to your presence, hoping I shall finde you so friendly as to craue that wee may be more familiar.' She that knewe howe to entertaine such a young nouice made him this cunning replie. ' Indeede, sir, neighborhoode cranes charitie, and such affable gentlemen as your selfe deserues rather to be entertained with courtesie than reiected with disdaine. Therfore, sir, what priuate friendship mine honour or honestie may affoord, you aboue all (that hitherto I haue knowne) shall commaund.' ' Then, mistres,' quoth hee, ' for that euery man counts it credite to haue a patronesse of his fortunes, and I am a meere straunger in this citie, let mee finde such fauour that all my actions may be shrowded vnder your excellence, and carrie the name of your seruant, ready, for requitall of such gratious countenaxmce, to unsheath my sworde in the defence of my patronesse for euer.' She that had her humour fitted with this motion, answered thus, with a looke that had beene able to haue forced Troylus to haue beene trothlesse to his Cressida. ' How kindly I take it, Seigneur Francesco, for so I vnderstand your name, that you proffer your seruice to so meane a mistresse ! the effectual fauours that shall to my poore abilitie gratifie your curtesie, shall manifest how I accompt of such a friend. Therefore, from henceforth Infida intertains Francesco for her seruant.' 'And I,' quoth he, 'accept of the beauteous Infida as my mistresse.' Upon this they fell into other amorous prattle which I leaue off, and walked abroad while * it was dinner time ; Francesco stil hauing his eie vpon his new mistresse, whose beauties he thought, if they were equally tempered with vertues, to exceede all that yet his eie had made suruey of. Doating thus on this newe face with a new fancie, hee often wroong her by the hand, and brake off his sentences, with such deepe sighes, that she perceiued by the weather- cocke where the winde blewe ; returning such amorous passions as she seemed as much intangled as he was enamoured. Well, thinking, now that she had bayted her hooke, she woulde not cease while * she had fully caught the fish, she beganne thus to 10 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. lay the traine. When they were come neere to the city gates, she stayed on a sodaine, and straining him hard by the hand, and glanncing a looke from her eies, as if she would both shew fauour and craue affection, she began thus smilinglie to assault him. ' Seruant, the lawyers say the assumpsit is neuer good where the partie giues not somewhat in consideration ; that seruice is voide where it is not made fast by some fee. Least, therefore, your eie should make your minde variable, as mens thoughts follow their sights, and their lookes wauer at the excellence of new obiects, and so I loose such a seruant ; to tie you to the stake with an earnest, you shall this day be my guest at dinner. Then, if heereafter you forget your mistresse, I shal appeale at the barre of loyaltie, and so condemne you of lightues.' Francesco, that was tied by the eies, and had his hart on his halfpeny, could not deny her, but with many thanks accepted of hir motion ; so, that agreed, they went all to Infidaes house to dinner : where they had such cheere as could vpon the sodaine be prouided ; Infida giuing him such friendly and familiar intertainement at his repast, as wel with sweet prattle as with amorous glances, that he rested captiue within the laborinth of hir flatteries." In a short time the arts of Infida have complete success: she " so plied Francesco with her flattering fawnes that, as the yron follows the adamant, the straw the jet, and the helitropion the beames of the sunne, so his actions were directed after her eie, and what she saide stoode for a principle, insomuch, that he was not onely readie in all submisse hmnours to please her fancies, but willing for the least worde of offence to draw his weapon against the stoutest champion in al Troynouant. Thus seated in her beauty, hee liued a long while, forgetting his returne to Caerbrancke." .... " Wel, his affaires were done, his horse solde, and no other businesse now rested to hinder him from hying home, but his mistresse ; which was such a violent deteyner of his person and thoughts, that there is no heaueu but Infidaes house ; where although hee pleasantly entree! in with delight, yet cowardly he slipt away with repentance. Well, leauing him to his new loues, at last to Isabell, who daily expected the comming home of her best beloued Francesco, thinking euery houre a yeare till she might see him in whome rested all her content. But when (poore soule) she coulde neither feede her sight with his presence, nor her eares with his letters, she beganne to lower, and grew so discontent that she fell into a feuer. Fortune, that meant to trie hir patience, thought to prooue hir with these tragicall newes : it was tolde her by certaine gentlemen her friends, who were her husbands priuate familiars, that he meant to soiorne most part of the yeere in Troynouant ; one blunt fellowe, amongest the rest, that was playne and wythout falshoode, tolde her the whole cause of his residence, howe hee was in loue wyth a most beautifull gentlewoman called Infida, and that so deepely that no pcrswasion might reuoke him from that alluring curtizan. At this Isabell made no accompt, but tooke it as a friuolous tale, and thought the woorseof such as buzzed such fantasticall follies into her eares : but when the general] report of his misdemeanours were bruted abroad throughout all ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 11 Caerbrancke, then, with blushing cheekes, she hid her head, and greeuing at his follies and her owne fortunes, smothered the flames of her sorrows with inward conceit, but outwardly withstood such in satyricall tearmes as did inucigh against the honestie of Francesco ; so that she wonne great commendations of all for her loyaltie and constancie ; yet when she was gotten secret by hir selfe, hir heart full of sorrowfull passions, and her eies full of teares, she beganne to meditate with her selfe of the prime of her youth vowed to Francesco, how she forsooke father, friendes, and countrey to bee paramour vnto her hearts paragon, the vowes hee made, when he carried her away in the night, the solempne promises and protestations that were vttered." She then writes the following letter. " ' Isabel to Francesco, health. If Penelope longde for her Vlysses, thinke Isabel wisheth for her Francesco, as loyall to thee as she was constant to the wily Greeke, and no lesse desirous to see thee in Caerbranck than she to enioy his presence in Ithaca ; watering my cheekes with as manie teares as she her face with plaints ; yet, my Francesco, hoping I haue no such cause as she to increase hir cares ; for I haue such resolution in thy constancie, that no Circes with all her inchantments, no Calipso with all her sorceries, no Syren with all her melodies could peruert thee from thinking on thine Isabel ; I know, Francesco, so deeply hath the faithful promise and loyall vowes made and inter- changed betweene vs taken place in thy thoughtes, that no time how long soeuer, no distance of place howsoeuer different, may alter that impression. But why do I inferre this needlesse insinuation to him that no vanitie can alienate from vertue ? let me, Francesco, perswade thee with other circumstances. First, my sweete, thinke how thine Isabel lies alone, measuring the time with sighes, and thine absence with passions ; counting the day dismall and the night full of sorrowes ; being euerie way discontent, because shee is not content with her Francesco. The onely comfort that I haue in thine absence is thy child, who lies on his mothers knee, and smiles as wantonly as his father when he was a wooer. But when the boy sayes, ' Mam, where is my dad 1 when will hee come home 1 ' then the calme of my content turneth to a present storme of piercing sorrowe, that I am forced sometime to say, ' Unkinde Francesco, that forgets his Isabell ! ' I hope, Francesco, it is thine affaires, not my faults, that procureth this long delay j for if I knewe my follies did any way offend thee, to rest thus long absent, I woulde punish myselfe both with outward and inward penaunce. But, howsoeuer, I pray for thy health and thy speedie returne ; and so, Francesco, farewell. Thine, more than her owne, Isabell.' " This letter awakened some feeling of remorse in the breast of Francesco ; " but when he went foorth of his chamber, and spied but his mistresse looking out of her windowe, all this geare chaungde, and the case was altered : shee calde, and in hee must ; and there in a iest scofft at his wiues letters, taking his Infida in his amies, and saying, ' I will not leaue this Troy for the chastest Penelope in the world.' " . . . . " After these two louers had by the space of three yeares securely slumbrcd in the sweetnesse of their pleasures, and, drunke with the surfet of content, thought no 12 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. other heaucn but their owne supposed happinesse ; as euerie storme hath his calme, and the greatest spring-tide the deadest ebbe, so fared it with Francesco : for so long went the pot to the water that at last it came broken home ; and so long put he his hand into his pursse that at last the emptie bottome returned him a writt of Non est inuentus ; for well might the Diuell dance there, for euer a crosse to keepe him backe. Well, this luuer, fuller of passions than of pence, began (when hee entred into the consideration of his owne estate) to mourne of the chyne, and to hang the lippe as one that for want of sounding had stroke himselfe vppon the sands : yet he couered his inward sorrowe with outward smiles, and like Janus presented his mistresse with a merrie looke, when the other side of his visage was full of sorrowes. But she, that was as good as a touchstone to trye metalls, could straight spie by the laste where the shooe wringde him ; and seeing her Francesco was almost foundred, thought to see if a skilfull farrier might mend him ; if not, like an vnthankefull hackneyman, shee meant to tourne him into the bare leas, and set him as a tyrde iade to picke a sallet. Uppon which determination, that shee might doo nothing rashly, shee made enquirie into his estate, what linings he had, what landes to sell, howe they were eyther tyed by statute or intailde 1 At last, thorough her secret and subtill inquisition, she found that all his corne was on the floore, that his sheepe were dipt, and the wooll solde ; to be short, that what he had by his wife coulde neither be solde nor morgaged, and what he had of his owne was spent vppon her, that nothing was lefte for him to liue vppon but his wits. This newes was such a cooling card to this curtezan that the extreame heate of her loue was alreadie growen to bee lukewarme : which Francesco might easely perceiue ; for at his arriuall his welcome was more straimge, her lookes more coy, his fare more slender, her glaunces lesso amorous ; and she seemed to bee Infida in proportion, but not in wonted passions.' The simple Francesco attributes the change in the behaviour of his mistress "to the distemperature of her bodie." Presently his hostess becomes clamorous for money, his creditors threaten to arrest him, and his clothes wax thread-bare. Whereupon one day, as he was sitting beside his fair courtesan, he said, " ' Knowe, then, Infida, that Troynouant is a place of great expence ; like the serpent hidaspis, that the more it suckes, the more it is athirst ; eating men aliue as the crocodile ; and being a place of as daungerous allurement as the seate where the Syrens sit ami chaunt their preiudiciall melodie. It is to young gentlemen like the Laborynth, whereout Theseus could not get without a threed ; but here be such monstrous Minotaures as first deuour the threed and then the person. The innes are like hotehouses, which by little and little sweate a man into a consumption ; the hoste he carries a pint of wine in the one hand to welcome, but a poniard in the other to stab ; and the hostesse she hath smiles in her forhcad, and prouides good meate for her guests, but the sauce is costly, for it far exceeds the catcs. If coyne want, then either to Limbo, or els clap vp a commoditie (if so much credite be left), where he shall finde such knots as he will neuer lie able without his vtter preiudice to vntie. ACCOUNT OF R, GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 13 Brokers, I leaue them off, as too course ware to be mouthde with an honest mane tongue. These Minotaures, faire Infida, haue so eaten mee vp in this Laborinth as, to bee plaine with thee that art my second selfe, I want, and am so farre indebted to the mercer and mine hostesse as either thou must stand my friend to disburse so much money for me, or els I must depart from Troynouant, and so from thy sight, which how precious it is to mee, I referre to thine owne conscience ; or for an Vltimum vale take vp my lodging in the Counter, which I know, as it would he vncouth to me, so it would bee greeuefull to thee ; and therefore now hangs my welfare in thy wil. How loath I was to vtter vnto thee my want and sorrowe, measure by my loue ; wdio wish rather death than thy discontent.' Infida could scarce suffer him in so long a periode, and therefore, with her forehead full of furrowes, shee made him this answere. ' And would you haue me, sir, buy an ounce of pleasure with a tunne of mishappes, or reach after repentaunce with so hie a rate ? haue I lent thee the blossoms of my youth, and delighted thee with the prime of my yeares 1 hast thou had the spoile of my virginitie, and now wouldest thou haue the sacke of my substaunce 1 when thou hast withered my person, aymest thou at my wealth ? No, sir, no : knowe, that, for the loue of thee, I haue crackt my credite, that neuer before was stained ; I cannot looke abroad without a blush, nor go with my neighbours without a frump ; thou, and thy name is euer cast in my dish, my foes laugh, and my friends sorrow to see my follies ; wherefore, seeing thou beginnest to picke a quarrell, and hereafter, when thine owne base fortunes haue brought thee to beggarie, w r ilt say that Infida cost thee so many crownes and was thine ouerthrowe, auaunt, nouice, home to thine owne wife, who, poore gentlewoman, sits and wants what thou consumest at tauerns. Thou hast had my despoyle, and I feare I beare in my bellie the token of too much loue I ought thee. Yet content witli this discredite, rather than to runne into further extremitie, get thee out of my doores, for from hencefoorth thou shalt neuer be welcome to Infida.' And with that shee flung vp, and went into her chamber. Francesco would haue made a replie, but shee woulde not he are him, nor holde him any more chat." The discarded louer goes to his lodging ; and " leaning his head on his hand, with teares in his eies, he beganne to be thus extremely passionate." The greater part of his soliloquy is a tirade against courtesans : its conclusion is ; " ' What nowe rests for thee, poore infortunate man 1 Thou hast yet left a meanes to ende all these miseries, and that is this, drawe thy rapier and so die, that with a manly resolution thou lmayest preuent thy further misfortunes. Oh, although thou hast sinned, yet despaire not ; though thou arte anathema, yet prone not an atheist ; the mercie of God is aboue all his workes, and repentaunce is a pretious balme. Home to thy wife, to the wife of thy youth, Francesco ; to Isabell, who with her patience will couer all thy follies : remember this, man, Xunqv.am sera est ad bonos mores via.' Thus hee ended, and with verie griefe fell in a slumber." On awaking, "hee arose vp and raunged about the citie, despayring of his estate as a man pennylesse, and therefore impatient because lie 14 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. knewe not how to redresse his miseries : to relie vppon the helpe of a curtizan, he sawe by experience was to hang hope in the ayre : to stand vpon the fauour of friends, that was bootelesse ; for he had fewe in the citie, as being but a straunger there, and such as he had were wonne with an apple, trencher-friends, and therefore to bee left with the puffe of the least blast of adversities : to goe home to his wife, to faire Isabel, that was as hard a censure as the sentence of death ; for shame of hia follies made him ashamed to shewe his face to a woman of so high desarts. In this perplexitie he passed ouer three or foure daies till his purse was cleane emptie, his score great, and his hostesse would trust him for no more money, but threatned him, if present payment were not made, to lay him in prison. This newes was hard to Francesco, that knewe not how to auoyd the preiudice ; only his refuge was, to preuent such a misfortune, to carrie his apparell to the brokers, and with great losse to make money to pay for his diet : which once discharged, he walkt vp and downe as a man forlorne, hauing neither coyne nor credite. Necessitie, that stingeth vnto the quick, made him set his wits on the tenter, and to stretch his braines as high as ela, to see how he could recouer pence to defray his charges, by any sinister meanes to salue his sorrowes : the care of his parents and of his owne honor perswaded him from making gaine by labour ; he had neuer been brought vp to any mechanicall course of life. Thus euery way destitute of meanes to line, he sight* out this olde sayd sawe, Miserrimum est fuisse beatum : yet at last, as extremities search very farre, he calde to minde that he was a scholler, and that although in these daies arte wanted honor and learning lackt his due, yet good letters were not brought to so lowe an ebbe but that there might some profite arise by them to procure his maintenance. In this humour he fell in amongst a companie of players, who perswaded him to trie his wit in writing of comedies, tragedies, or pastorals, and if he could performe any thing worth the stage, then they would largelie reward him for his paines. Francesco, glad of this motion, seeing a meanes to mitigate the extremitie of his want, thought it no dishonor to make gaine of his wit or to get profite by his pen : and therefore, getting him home to his chamber, writ a comedie ; which so generally pleased all the audience that happie were those actors in short time that could get any of his woi-kes, he grewe so exquisite in that facultie. By this meanes his want was releeued, his credit in his hosts house recouered, his apparell in gi'eater brauerie then it was, and his purse well lined with crownes." Infida, hearing of this change in his fortunes, " thought to cast foorth her lure to reclaime him, though by her vnkindnesse he was proued haggard ; for she thought that Francesco was such a tame foole that he would be brought to strike at any stale. Decking her selfe, * sight] i. e. sighed, — as our early writers frequently spell the word. So Spenser, The Faerie Queene, B. vi. C. viii. st. 20 ; " I was bclov'd of many a gentle knight, And sude and sought with all the service dew ; Full many a one for me deepe groan d and sigh't," &c. ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 15 therefore, as gorgiously as she could, painting her face with the choyce of all her drugges, she walkt abroade where slice thought Francesco vsed to take the ayre. Loue and fortune, ioyning in league, so fallowed her that according to her desire she met him. At which inconnter, I gesse, more for shame than loue, she blusht ; and fild her countenaunce with such repentant remorse (yet hauing her lookes full of amorous glaunces) that she seemed like Venus reconciling her sclfe to froward Mars. The sight of Infida was pleasing in the eyes of Francesco, and almost as deadly as the basilisk ; that had hee not had about him moly as Vlisses, he had heen inchaunted by the charmes of that wylie Circes : but the abuse so stucke in his stomack that she had profered him in his extremitie that he returned all her glaunces with a frowne, and so parted." Infida makes another attempt to win back Francesco to her love, by writing to him a soothing letter full of penitence ; but he is not to be entrapped a second time, and returns an answer showing that he understands her character and is proof against all her allurements. The courtesan, now, perceiving " that wrought she neuer so subtillie, yet her traines were discouered, that her painted luers could not make him stoop, so had he with reason refelled his former follie ; when she pei'ceiued (I say) that all her sweet potions w r ere found to bee poysons, though she couered them neuer so darkly, she fel not in dispaire with ouermuch loue, but swore in her selfe to intend him some secrete preiudice, if euer it lay in her by any meanes to pi-ocure it." Meantime " Isabel liuing thus pensiue in that shee wanted the presence of her Francesco, yet for her patience and vertue grew so famous that all Caerbranck talked of her perfections : her beautie was admired of euerie eye, her qualities applauded in euerie mans eare, that she was esteemed for a patterne of vertuous excellence throughout the whole citie. Amongst the rest that censured of her curious fauours, there was one Signor Bernardo, a bourgomaster of the citie ; who chauncing on a time to passe by the doore where Isabel soiourned, seeing so sweete a saint, began to fall enamoured of so faire an obiect ; and although he was olde, yet the fire of lust crept into his eyes and so inflamed his heart that with a disordinate desire he began to affect her : but the renowme of her chastitie was such that it almost quatted those sparkes that heated him on to such lawlesse affection. But yet when he cable to minde that want was a great stumbling-blocke, and sawe the neccssitie that Isabel was in by the absence of Francesco, he thought gold w r ould bee a roadie meanes to gaine a womans good will, and therefore dispayred not of obtaining his purpose." " Being the chiefe bourgomaster in all the citie, he determined to make a priuie search for some suspected person ; and being master of the watch himselfe, to goe vp into her chamber, and there to discouer the depth of his desire ; so he thought to ioyne loue and opportunitie in one union, and with his office and his age to wipe out all suspition." One night, accordingly, he puts this plan into execution, gains admittance into Isabel's chamber, and endeavours to overcome her chastity : his fortune, he tells her, shall be at her command if she consent to his wishes ; but, if 16 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. not, he threatens to accuse her publicly of incontinence, and throw an indelible stain upon her character. Isabel's virtue is not to be shaken : she spits in his face, and bids him do his worst. Immediately she is hurried to prison. Bernardo then assembles the other burgomasters in the town-hall, sends for Isabel, and producing a youth of the city whom he had suborned as a false witness, says ; " ' This young man here present for a certaine summe of money compounded to lie with Isabel, and for pence had his pleasure on her ; she alluring him with such wylie amorettes of a curtizan that in her companie he hath consumed all his substance. The young mans friends seeing his follie, and that no perswasions could disswade him from affecting her, made complaint vnto me : whereupon I examined him, and found him not onely guiltie of the crime, but tractable to be reclaimed from his follie. Seeing, then, citizens of Caerbranck, such a curtizan as this may vnder the colour of holines shrowd much preiudice, and allure many of our youth to mischiefes, I thought it my duety to bring her into open infamie, that she may be punished for her fault, knowen for a harlot, and from hencefoorth Hue dispised and hated of all. For proofe that shee hath liued long in this leawd kinde of life, this young man shall here before you all make present deposition ' : and with that he reacht him a bible ; whereon he swore that hee had long time conuerst dishonestly with Isabel, euer since the departure of her husband. At which oath the people that were iurours in the cause, beleeuing the protestation of Bernardo and the deposition of the youth, presently found hir guiltie ; and then Bernardo and the rest of the burgomasters gaue iudgement, that she should presently haue some open and seuere punishment, and after be banished out of the town." She now prays aloud, calling for succour on the deity who knows her innocence ; and almost immediately after, " hee which had accused Isabel start vp as a man lunaticke, and cried out vnto the people, ' Thus I haue sinned, men of Caerbranck, I bane sinned : the thought of my present periurie is a hell to my conscience ; for I haue sworne falsly against the innocent, and haue consented to condemne Isabel without cause ' : and with that hee discourst at the barre how Signor Bernardo had suborned him against the gentlewoman, and how in all his life before he neuer was in her companie." Isabel, of course, is set free, while Bernardo is punished by a great fine, to be paid to her, and declared incapable of ever bearing any office in the city. " This strange euent spread abroad through all the countrcy, and as fame flies swift and far, so at last it came to the eares of Francesco ; for he, sitting in Troynouant at an ordinarie amongst other gentlemen, heard this fortune of Isabel reported at the table for straunge ncwes by a gentleman of Caerbranck, who brought in Isabel for a myrrour of chastitie, and added this more, that she was married to a gentleman of a ripe witte, good parentage, and well skild in the liberall sciences, ' but,' quoth he, 'an vnthrift, and one that hath not beene with his wife this sixe yeares.' At this all thr table condemned him as passing vnkinde, that could wrong so vertuous a wife with absence. He was silent and blusht, feeling the worme of his ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS 17 conscience to wring him, and that with such a sharpe sting, that assoone as he go1 into his chamber, he fell to meditate with himselfe of the great abuses he offered his wife j the excellence of her exteriour perfection, her boautie, vertne, and other rare ornaments of nature presented themselues into his thoughts ; that he began not onely to be passing passionate, but deepely penitent, sorrowing as much at his former follies as his hope was to ioy in his ensuing good fortunes." Soon after this, talcing farewell of his friends in Troynovant, he sets out on his journey homewards. " Within fiue daies bee arriued at Caerbrancke ; where, assoone as he was lighted, he went to the house where his wife soiourned, and one of the maides espying Francesco, yet knewe him for all his long absence, and ranne in and tolde it to Isabel that her husband was at the doore. She being at worke in her chamber, sat at this newes as one in an extasie, vntill Francesco came vp ; who at the first sight of his wife, considering the excelloncie of her beautie, her vertues, chastitie, and other perfections, and measuring her constancie with his disloyaltie, stoode as a man metamorphosed : at last he began thus. ' Ah Isabel, what shal I say to thy fortunes or my follies 1 what exoi'dium shall I vse to showe my penance, or discouer my sorrowes, or expresse my present ioyes 1 For I tell thee I conceiue as great pleasure to see thee well as griefe in that I haue wronged thee with my absence. Might sighes, Isabel, teares, plaints, or any such exteriour passions pourtray out my inward repentance, I would shewe thee the anatomie of a most distressed man ; but amongst many sorrowing thoughts there is such a confusion that superfluitie of griefes stops the source of my discontent. To figure out my follies or the extremitie of my fancies, were but to manifest the bad course of my life, and to rub the scarre by setting out mine owne scathe ; and therefore let it suffice, I repent heartelie, I sorrowe deeplie, and meane to amend and continue in the same constantlie.' At this Francesco stoode and w r ept ; which Isabel seeing, concerned by his outward griefes his secret passions, and therefore taking him about the necke, wetting his cheekes with the teares that fell from her eyes, she made him this womanlie and wise answere. ' What, Francesco, comest thou home ful of w r oes, or seekest thou at thy returne to make me weepe 1 Hast thou been long absent, and now bringest thou me a treatise of discontent ? I see thou art penitent, and therefore I like not to heare what follies are past. It sufficeth for Isabel that hencefoorth thou wilt loue Isabel, and vpon that condition, without any more wordes, welcome to Isabel.' With that she smiled and wept, and in doing both together sealed vp all her contrarie passions in a kisse." So end the adventures of Francesco and Isabel. Let us now turn to the Groats-worth of Wit bought with a Mill ton of Repentance* " In an iland bound with the ocean there was sometime a citie situated, made rich by march andize, and populous by long space : the name is not mentioned in the * I quote from the edition of 1617. — A reprint of the Groats-worth of Wit appeared in 1S13, from the private press of my old friend Sir Egerton Brydges, to whose unceasing and disinterested labours in the cause of our early literature the world has not yet done justice. 18 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. antiquary, or else worne out by times antiquitie ; what it was it greatly skils not ; but therein thus it happened. An olde new-made gentleman herein dwelt, of no small credite, exceeding wealth, and large conscience. Hee had gathered from many to bestow vpon one ; for though hee had two sonnes, he esteemed but one, that beeing, as himselfe, brought vp to bee golds bondman, was therefore helde heyre apparent of his ill-gathered goods. The other was a scholler, and married to a proper gentlewoman, and therefore least regarded ; for tis an olde sayde saw, ' To learning and law theres no greater foe then they that nothing know.' Yet was not the father altogether vnlettered, for hee had good experience in a Nouerint, and by the vniuersall tearmes therein contained had driuen many gentlemen * to seeke vnknowne countries : wise he was, for hee bare office in his parish, and sate as formally in his foxe-furde gowne as if he had beene a very vpright-dealing burges : hee was religious too, neuer without a booke at his belt, and a bolt in his mouth, ready to shoote through his sinnefull neighbour." This old usurer, called Goi'inius, " after many a goutie pang that had pincht his exterior partes, many a curse of the people that mounted into heauens presence," is struck by a mortal disease. " ' At this instant,' says he when on his death bed, ' (0 griefe to part with it !) I haue in ready coyne threescore thousand pound, in plate and jewels xv thousand, in bonds and specialities as much, in land nine hundred pound by yeare ; all which, Lucanio, I bequeath to thee : onely I reserue for Roberto, thy well-read brother, an old groate (being the stock I first began with), wherewith I wish him to buy a groats-worth of wit ; for hee in my life hath reproued my manner of life, and therefore at my death shall not be contaminated with corrupt gaine." Gorinius dies. Lucanio " was of condition simple, shamefast, and flexible to any counsell ; which Roberto perceiuing, and pondering how little was left to him, grew into an inward contempt of his fathers vnequall legacy, and determinate resolution to worke Lucanio all possible iniurie : hereupon thus conuerting the sweetnesse of his study to the sharpe thirst of reuenge, he (as enuie is seldome idle) sought out fit companions to effect his vnbrotherly resolution. Neyther in such a case is ill company farre to seeke, for the sea hath scarce so many ieoperdies as populous cities haue deceyuing Syrens, whose eyes are adamants, whose wordes are witchcrafts, whose dores leade downe to death. With one of these female serpents Roberto consorts ; and they conclude what euer they compassed, equally to share to their contents. This match made, Lucanio was by his brother brought to the bush ; where hee had scarce pruned his wings but he was fast limed, and Roberto had what he expected." Lucanio is lured to the house of the fair courtesan, Lamilia, "which was in the suburbes of the citie, pleasantly seated, and made more delectable by a pleasaunt garden wherein it was scituate." He presents her with a diamond of great value, and is cheated out of his money at dice. " Lamilia beeing the winner, prepared a banquet, which finished, Roberto * gentlemen] Old ed. "gentlewomen." ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 19 aduised his brother to depart home, and to furnish himselfe with more crownes, least hee were outcrackt with new commers, Lucanio, loath to be outcountenanst, followed his adnise, desiring [him] to attend his returne, which he before had determined vnrequested; for, as soone as his brothers backe was turned, Roberto begins to reckon with Lamilia, to be a sharer as well in the money deceitfully wonne as in the diamond so wilfully giuen. But shee, secundum mores meretricis, iested thus with the scholler. ' Why, Roberto, are you so well read, and yet shew yourselfe so shallowe-witted, to deeme women so weake of conceit that they see not into mens demerites 1 Suppose (to make you my stale to catch the woodcocke your brother) that, my tongue ouer- running mine intent, I speake of liberall reward : but what I promised, there is the point ; at least what I part with I wil bee well aduised. It may bee you will thus reason : had not Roberto trained Lucanio unto Lamilias lure, Lucanio had not now beene Lamilias prey ; therefore, sith by Roberto she possesseth her prize, Roberto merites an equall part, Monstrous absurd, if so you reason : as well you may reason thus : Lamilias dogge hath kilde her a deere ; therefore his mistris must make him a pastie. No more, pennilesse poet : thou art beguilde in me; and yet I wonder how thou couldest, thou hast beene so often beguilde. But it fareth with licentious men as with the chased bore in the streame, who, being gi'eatly refreshed with swimming, neuer feeleth any smart vntill he perish, recurelesly wounded with his own weapons. Reasonlesse Roberto, that hauing but a brokers place, asked a lenders reward ; faithles Roberto, that hast attempted to betray thy brother, irreligiously foi*saking thy wife, deseruedly beene in thy fathers eye an abiect ; thinkest thou Lamilia so loose, to consort with one so lewde ? No, hypocrite : the sweet gentleman thy brother I will till death loue, and thee while I Hue loath. This share Lamilia giues thee, other gettest thou none.' As Roberto would haue reply ed, Lucanio approched : to whom Lamilia discourst the whole deceit of his brother, and neuer rested intimating malitious arguments till Lucanio vtterly refused Roberto for his brother and for euer forbad him of his house. And when he would haue yeelded reasons and formed excuse, Lucanio's impatience (vrged by her importunat malice) forbad all reasoning with them that were reasonlesse, and so, giuing him Jacke Drums entertainement, shut him out of dores : whom we will follow, and leaue Lucanio to the mercy of Lamilia. Roberto, in an extreme extasie, rent his hayre, curst his destinie, blamed his trecherie, but most of all exclaimed against Lamilia, and ill her against all enticing curtizans." " With this he laid his head on his hand, and leant his elbow on the ground, sighing out sadly, ' Heu patior telis vulnera facta iueis ! ' On the other side of the hedge sate one that heard his sorrow ; who getting oner, came towards him, and brake off his passion. When he approached, he saluted Roberto in this sort. ' Gentleman,' quoth he, ' for so you seeme, I haue by chaunce heard you discourse some part of your griefe, which appeareth to be more then you c 2 20 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. will discouer or 1 can conceit. But if you vouchsafe such simple comfort as my ability will yeeld, assure yoursclfe that I will endeuour to doe the best that eyther may procure your profit or bring you pleasure ; the rather, for that I suppose you are a scholler, and pittie it is men of learning should Hue in lacke.' Roberto wond- ring to heare such good words, for that this yron age affoordes few that esteeme of vertue, returned him thankefull gratulations, and, vrged by necessitie, vttered his present griefe, beseeching his aduise how he might be imployed. 'Why, easily,' quoth he, ' and greatly to your benefit ; for men of my profession get by schollers their whole liuing.' ' What is your profession 1 ' sayde Roberto. ' Truly, sir,' sayde he, ' I am a player.' ' A player ! ' quoth Roberto ; ' I tooke you rather for a gentle- man of great liuing ; for if by outward habite men should be censured, I tell you, you would bee taken for a substantiall man.' ' So am I where I dwell,' quoth the player, ' reputed able at my proper cost to build a windmill. What though the world once went hard with me, when I was fayne to carry my playing fardle a foot-backe ? Tempora mukintur, I know you know the meaning of it better then I, but I thus conster it, It is oilierwise noiv ; for my very share in playing apparrell will not bee solde for two hundred pounds.' ' Truely,' sayde Roberto, ' it is strange that you should so prosper in that vaine practise, for that it seemes to me your voyce is nothing gracious.' ' Nay, then,' sayd the player, ' I mislike your iudgement : why, I am as famous for Delphrygus and The King of Fairies as euer was any of my time ; Tlie Tivelue Labours of Hercules haue I terribly thundered on the stage, and played three scenes of the Diuell in The Higluvay to Heauen? ' Haue ye so % ' said Roberto ; ' then I pray you pardon me.' ' Nay, more,' quoth the player, ' I can serue to make a pretty speech, for I was a country author, passing at a Morrall ; * for it was I that pend The Morrall of Mans Wit, The Dialogue of Dines, and for seuen yeeres space was absolute interpreter of the puppets. But now my almanacke is out of date : The people make no estimation Of Morals, teaching education. Was not this prety for a plaine rime extempore 1 if ye will, yee shall haue more.' ' Nay, it is enough,' said Roberto ; ' but how mean you to vse me 1 ' ' Why, sir, in making playes,' sayde the other ; 'for which you shall bee well paied, if you will take the pains.' Roberto percciuing no remedie, thought it best to respect his present necessitie, [and], to trye his witte, went with him willinglie : who lodged him at the townee end in a house of retayle, where what happened our poet you shall hereafter heare. There, by conuersing with bad company, hce grew a malo in peius, falling from one vice to another; and so bailing found a veine to finger crownes, hee grew cranker then Lucanio, who by this time began to droope, being thus dealt withall by Lamilia. Shoe hauing bewitched him with her enticing wiles, caused him to consume in lesse then two ycarcs that infinite treasure gathered by his father with so many a poore Morrall] i. e. Moral -play. ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 21 mans curse. His lands sokle, his icwels pawnde, his money wasted, hce was casseerde by Lamilia that had coosened him of all. Then walked he, like one of D[nke] Hnmfreycs squires, in a threed-bare cloake, his hose drawne out with his heeies, Ins shoes* vnseamed lest his feete should sweate with heate : now (as witlcsse as he was) he remembred his fathers wordes, his kindnes to his brother, his carelesnesse of him- selfe. In this sorrow bee sate downe on Pennilesse Bench ; where when Opus and Vsns tolde him, by the chimes in his stomacke, it was time to fall vnto meate, he was faine with the camelion to feed vpon the ayre and make patience his repast. While he was at his feast, Lamilia came flaunting by, garnished with the iewels whereof shee beguiled him : which sisdit serued to close his stomacke after his cold chcare. Roberto hearing of his brothers beggerie, albeit he had little remorse of his miserable state, yet did bee seeke him out, to vse him as a property ; whereby Lucanio was somewhat prouided for. But being of simple nature, he serued but for a blocke to whet Robertoes wit on : which the poore foole perceiuing, he forsooke all other hopes of life, and fell to be a notorious pandar, in which detested course he continued till death. But Roberto now famoused for an arch-playmaking poet, his purse, like the sea, sometime sweld, anon like the same sea fell to a low ebbe ; yet seldome he wanted, his labours Avei-e so well esteemed. Many, this rule bee kept, whateuer he fingered aforehand, was the certaine meanes to vnbinde a bargaine ; and being asked why he so sleightly dealt with them that did Mm good, ' It becomes me,' sayth he, ' to be contrarie to the world ; for commonly when vulgar men receiue earnest, they doe performe ; when I am payd any thing afore hand, I breake my promise.' He had shifte of lodgings, wdiere in euery place his hostesse writte vp the wofull remembrance of him, his laundresse, and his boy; for they were euer his inhoushold, besides retayners in sundrie other places. His company were lightly the lewdest persons in the land, apt for pilferie, periurie, forgerie, or any villanie. Of these he knew the caste to cogge at cardes, coosin at dice ; by these he learned the legerdemaines of nips, foysts, conicatchers, crosbyters, lifts, high lawyers, and all the rabble of that vncleane generation of vipers ; and pithilie could hee paint out their whole courses of craft : so cunning he was in all crafts as nothing rested in him almost but craftinesse. How often the gentlewoman his wife laboured vainely to recall him, is lamentable to note : but as one giuen ouer to all lewdnes, he com- municated her sorrowfull lines among his loose scids, that iested at her bootlesse laments. If he could any way get credit on scores, hee would then brag his creditors carried stones, comparing euery round circle to a groning 0, procured by a painfull burthen. The shameful end of sundry his consorts, deseraedly punished for their amisse, wrought no compunction in his heart ; of wdiich one, brother to a brothel! he kept, was trust vnder a free, as round as a ball." Here I must interrupt the narrative, and call the reader's attention to the 22 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS, concluding part of the sentence last quoted, which has not been noticed by any of Greene's biographers. The person who " was trust under a tree, as round as a ball" undoubtedly means an infamous character named Ball* (commonly called Cutting Ball) ; who, when Greene was " driven to extreme shifts," used to gather together a band of ruffianly companions, to guard him from arrests ; and who eventually was hanged at Tyburn. By the " brothell he kept " we are as certainly to understand the said Ball's sister ; of whom we shall afterwards have a glimpse when the poet is on his death-bed. The fruit of this amour was a son, baptized Fortunatus Greene, t who died before his father had been quite a year in the grave. Roberto, the tale goes on, was " nothing bettered, but rather hardned in wicked- nes. At last was that place iustified, God warneth men by dreames and visions in the night, and by knowne examples in the day : but if he returne not, he comes vpon him with iudgement that shall be felt. For now when the number of deceites caused Roberto bee hatefull almost to all men, his immeasurable drinking had made him the perfect image of the dropsie, and the loathsom scourge of lust tyrannized in his bones ; liuing in extreme pouerty, and hauing nothing to pay but chalk, which now his host accepted not for currant, this miserable man lay comfortlessly lan- guishing, hauing but one groat left (the iust proportion of his fathers legacie), which looking on, he cryed, ' 0, now it is too late, too late to buy wit with thee ! and therefore will I see if I can sell to carelesse youth what I negligently forgot to buy.' " Heere, gentlemen, breake I off Roberto's speech, whose life in most part agreeing with mine, found one selfe punishment as I haue done. Hereafter suppose me the said Roberto, and I will go on with that he promised : Greene will send you now his Groatsworth of Witte, that neuer shewed a mites worth in his life ; and though no man now be by to doe mee good, yet, ere I die, I will by my repentance indeuor to do all men good." * "His [GreeDe's] imploying of Ball (surnamed Cuttinge Ball), till he was intercepted at Tiborne, to leauy a crew of his trustiest companions to guarde him in daunger of arrestes ; his keping of the foresaid Balls sister, a sorry ragged queane, of whom he had his base Bonne Infortunatus Greene." — Gabriel Harvey's Fovre Letters, and ccrtabie Sonnets ; especially touching Robert Greene, &c. 1592, p. 10. Nash alludes to this blackguard : "And more (to plague you for your apostata conceipts), ballets shalbee made of your base deaths, euen as there was of Catting Ball." — Haue with you to Saffron- Waldcn, kc., 1596, Sig. i. t "Gabriel Harvey, in his 'Four Letters and Certaine Sonnets,' 1592, names Greene's child ironLeally />' » " Rd at orlando, the 21 of febreary xvj» vj That this play was printed from a very imperfect manuscript there could be no doubt, even before Mr. Collier had discovered the curious paper which he describes as follows (and which I, of course, have used for the present edition). " The evidence to establish that the character of the hero of the piece was performed by Alleyn, may be looked upon as decisive. Among the MSS. at Dulwich College is a large portion of the original part of Orlando, as transcribed by the copyist of the theatre for the actor. It is in three pieces, one much longer than the others, all imperfect, being more or less injured by worms and time. Here and there certain blanks have been supplied in a different hand-writing, and that hand-writing is Alleyn' s. We may conclude, therefore, that this is the very copy from which he learnt his part ; and that the scribe, not being able in some places to read the author's manuscript, had left small spaces, which Alleyn filled up, either by his own suggestion, from the MS., or after inquiry of Greene. It contains no more than was to be delivered by the actor of the character of Orlando, with the cues (as they were then, and are still, technically called) regularly marked, exactly in the same manner as is done at the present day by transcribers in our theatres."t — Mr. Collier thinks that Greene's Orlando Furioso may be alluded to in the following passage of Peele's Farewell to Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake, 1589 ; " Bid theatres, and proud tragedians, Bid Mahomet, Scipio, and mighty Tamhurlaine, King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest, Adieu." Perhaps so : but Charlemagne is not a character in Greene's Orlando Furioso ; nor, indeed, do I recollect any old play in which he makes his appearance. — In The Defence of Coney-catchhuj, 1592, Greene is accused of selling it twice : "Master R. G., would it not make you blush — if you sold Orlando Furioso to the queenes players for twenty nobles, and when they were in the country, sold the same play to Lord Admiral's men, for as much more 1 Was not this plain coney-catching, M. G. ? " — If * P. 21, ed. Shake. Soc. t Memoirs of Edward Alleyn, &c, p. 7. 32 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. the reader is acquainted with Ariosto and the romance-poets of Italy, he will be startled to find that in this drama Angelica is made the daughter of Marsilius. A Looking-Glass for London and England, 1594, 1598, 1602, and 1 G 17, is the joint-pi-oduction of Lodge and Greene. That it was several times played by the Lord Strange's men, is recorded in Henslowe's Diary, where the earliest mention of it is, — "Rd at the hokinglasse, the 8 of marche 1591[-2] .... vij 8 ." * As it partakes of the nature of the ancient English Mysteries, one is surprised to find the following opinion expressed by Lodge in his Wits Miserie, and the Worlds Mad- nesse, Discovering the Deuils Incarnat of this Age, 1596 ; " Againe in stage plaies to make use of hystoricall scripture, I hold it with the legists odious, and, as the councill of Trent did, Sess. § 4. Fin., I condemne it." Sig. F 4. Jonah and the Whale, who figure conspicuously in the Looking-Glass, were personages once very familiar to the populace of the metropolis : no puppet-show (or motion, as it used to be termed,) was so attractive to the citizens as that of Nineveh.\ The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1594, 1599, 1630, and 1655. Several notices of the acting of this play are found in Henslowe's Diary, the earliest under the year 1591-2, when it was performed by the Lord Strange's men, — "Rd at fryer bacone, the 19 of febrary, satterdaye . . . xvij 8 iij d ." $ We learn from the same authority that subsequently it was revived for the court with a new prologue and epilogue by Middleton ; "Lent unto Thomas Downton, the 14 of deserabr 1602, to paye unto Mr. Mydeltou ) for a prologe and epeloge for the plage of Bacon fur the corte, the some of ) ' ° Our old dramatists hardly ever invented the stories of their pieces ; and in this, the most pleasing of his plays, Greene has closely followed the well-known prose-tract, * P. 23, ed. Shake. Soc. t " Wife. . . . But of all the sights that ever were in London, since I was married, methinkg the little child, &c. was the prettiest ; that and the hermaphrodite. Citizen. Nay, by your leave, Nell, Ninevie was better. Wife. Ninevie ? Oh, that was the story of Joan and the wall, was it not, George ? Citizen. Yes, lamb." Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, act. iii. " They say, there's a new motion of the city of Nineveh, with Jonas and the whale, to be seen at Fleet-bridge." — Ben Jonson's Every man out of his humour, act ii. sc. 1. " the motions that I Lanthorn Leatherhead haue given light to, in my time, since my master Pod died ! Jerusalem was a stately thing, and so was Nineveh, and the city of Norwich," &c. Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, act. V. sc. I. "I wonder that, amongst all your objects, you presented us not with Platoes Idea, or the sight of Niniue, Babylon, Loudon, or Borne Stur-bridge-faire monsters." — Lingua, ed. 1617, Rig. F. " I pray yee what showc will be heere to night ? I haue seen the Baboues already, the Cittie of new Niniuie, and Julius Caesar acted by the mammets." Euerie Woman in her Humor, 1609, Sig. II. " Here are more maskers t>>o, I think : Ibis masking is a heav'nly entertainment for the widow, who ne'er saw any shew yet but the puppet-play o' Nineve." Cowley's Cutter of Colcman-street, act v. sc. 11. t P. 20, ed. Shake. Soc. § P. 228, ed. Shake. Soc. ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 33 entitled The famous History of Friar Bacon. The character of Margaret, the fair maid of Fressingfield is not, however, borrowed from the prose-pamphlet. The Scottish History of James the Fourth, 1598.* From what source our author derived the materials of this strange fiction, I have not been able to discover ; nor could Mr. David Laing of Edinburgh, who is so profoundly versed in the ancient literature of his country, poiut out to me any Scottish chronicle or tract which might have afforded hints to the poet for its composition. The Comical History of Alphonsus, King of Arragon, 1599. t We learn from the speech of Venus at the close of this play that the author intended to have written a Second Part. Besides the five dramas just enumerated, it has been thought right to include in the present collection George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield, 1599, in consequence of the following M. S. notes having been found on the title-page of a copy of that piece which was formerly in the possession of Mr. Rhodes ; " Written by a minister who acted the piners pt in it himselfe. Teste W. Shakespeare." " Ed. Juby % saith it was made by Ro. Greene." • These two memoranda are by different persons, and in handwriting of about the time when the play was printed. Statements which render it highly probable that Greene was " a minister " have been before adduced : see p. 3. In The Pinner of Wakefield, George-a-Greene compells Sir Nicholas Mannering to eat the seals of the Earl of Kendal's commission ; and Nash informs us that Greene once forced an apparitor to undergo a similar humiliation : "Had hee liu'd, Gabriel, and thou shouldst [have] so vnarteficially and odiously libeld against him as thou hast done, he would haue made thee an example of ignominy to all ages that are to come, and driuen thee to eate thy owne booke butterd, as I sawe him make an apparriter once in a tauern eate his citation, waxe and all, very handsomly serud twixt two dishes." Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. C 3. The incident in the drama bearing so strong a resemblance to an adventure in the life of Greene would strengthen the probability of its having been written by him, were it not that in the old prose History of George-a-Greene, on which the play is undoubtedly founded, § the valiant Pinner obliges Mannering to swallow the seals. || * According to some authorities, it was reprinted in 1599. + An edition of 1597 is mentioned by some bibliographers. + Juby was an actor, and wrote a play called Sampson in conjunction with Samuel Rowley. § Ritson, after observing that the drama of George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield, "has been erroneously ascribed to Heywood the epigrammatist, and is reprinted, with other trash, in the late edition of Dodsley's Old Plays," says that it " (at least that part of it which we have any concern with) is founded on the ballad of Robin Hood and the pinder of Wakefield, which it directly quotes, and is i» fact a most despicable performance ;" and a little after he tells us "The [prose] History of George a || In The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle, (by Munday, Drayton, Wilson, and Hathway), 1 600, the Sumner is in like manner made to gulp down his citation. D 34 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. In Henslowe's Diary is a list of plays acted by the Earl of Sussex's men, which contains four notices of this drama, the earliest of them being, — "Rd s.t gorge a gren, the 29 of desenibr 1593 iij u x 3 ." * Among the old M. S. dramas, which the detestable carelessness of John War- burton allowed to perish, was the Hist, of Jobe by Rob. Green. The opinion that Greene was concerned in the two " histories " entitled The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c, and The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c, is founded on a passage of his Address to his brother play-wrights in the Groatsworth of Wit, and will be afterwards noticed when that Address is laid before the reader. Edward Phillips, in his (strangely incorrect) Theatrum Poetarum, 1675, informs us, that Greene was the author of Fair Emm, 1631, and that he was associated with Lodge in composing The Laws of Nature, Lady Alimony, 1 659, TJie Contention bettveene Liberalise and Prodigalitie, 1602, and Luminalia, 1627. — It is not impossible that Greene might have written Fair Emm. By Tlie Laws of Nature we must understand one of Bale's Miracle-plays entitled The Three Laws of Nature, Moses, and Christ, &c. Lady Alimony is in a style so different from Greene's that no portion of it could have proceeded from his pen. The Contention bettveene Liberalitie and Prodigalitie is probably, as Mr. Collier remarks, " an older piece revived and altered " ; and Greene " may have had some concern in it prior to 1592."t Luminalia was not produced till long after his death. If, as a dramatist, Greene fails to exhibit character with force and discrimination, if he has much both of the fustian and the meanness which are found more or less in all the plays of the period, and if his blank-verse is so monotonous as to pall upon the ear ; it must be allowed, on the other hand, that he not unfrequently writes with elegance and spirit, and that in some scenes he makes a near approach to simplicity and nature, t Greene, pindar of the town of Wakefield, 4to, no date, is a modern production, chiefly founded on the old play just mentioned, of neither authority nor merit" Robin Hood, yol. 1. p. xxix. The ballad in question I have subjoined to the play ; and the reader will see how slight a foundation the former affoided for the latter. That the prose-history was taken from the play I cannot believe: it was the almost constant custom of our old dramatists to borrow their plots and characters from popular story- books, and I have no doubt that the author of the play of George-a-Greene was indebted for its materials to the prose-tale on the same subject, which (though perhaps somewhat modernized) will be found in Mr. Thoras's Early Prose Romances, vol. ii. The following piece was sold by auction a few years ago [i.e. a few years before 1831] : The Pinder of Wakefield, being the History of George a Greene, the lusty Pinder of the north, briefly showing his manhood, and his brave merriment amongst his boon companions : fall of pretty histories, songs, catches, jests, and riddles, 4to. b. 1. 1632. * P. 31, ed. Shake. Soc. t Hut. of Engl. Dram. Poet. i. 319, ii. 352. X "He wast of singuler pleasaunce, tin- verye supporter, and, to no mans disgrace bee this intended, the only comedian of a vulgar writer in this country." Chettle's Kind-Harts Dreame, n.d. [1592.] Sig. B. 3. ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 35 Prefixed to our author's Perimedes the Blaeke-smith, 1588, is an Address to the Gentlemen Readers, part of which is as follows : " I keepe my old course, to palter vp something in prose, vsing mine old poesie still, Omne tulit punctum, although latelye two gentlemen poets made two mad men of Rome beate it out of their paper bucklers, and had it in derision, for that I could not make my verses iet vpon the stage in tragicall buskins, euerie worde filling the mouth like the faburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heauen with that Atheist Tamburlan, or blaspheming with the mad preest of the sonne : but let me rather openly pocket vp the asse at Diogenes hand, then wantonlye set out such impious instances of intollerable poetrie, such mad and scoffing poets, that haue prophetical] spirits as bred of Merlins race. If there be anye in England that set the end of scollarisme in an English blanck- verse, I thinke either it is the humor of a nouice that tickles them w r ith selfe-loue, or to[o] much frequenting the hot-house (to vse the Germaine prouerbe) hath swet out all the greatest part of their wits, which w r asts gradatim, as the Italians say poco d, ])oco. If I speake darkely, gentlemen, and offend with this digression, I craue pardon, in that I but answere in print what they haue offered on the stage." An obscure passage, from which it is difficult to gather anything except that Greene is highly indignant at his alleged incapacity of writing blank-verse, and alludes rather contemptuously to Marlowe's celebrated tragedy of Tamburlaine, — perhaps, also, to some other piece by the same author in which " the priest of the sun " was a character. — If Greene bore any ill-will to Marlowe in 1588, it would certainly seem to have passed away long before the latter was on his death-bed. In England's Parnassus, 1 600, are several quotations from our author's dramatic works. There is good reason to believe that Greene not only composed for the stage, but also occasionally appeared on it as an actor. " I was suddainely certified," says Gabriel Harvey, " that the king of the paper stage (so the gentleman tearmed Greene) had played his last part, and was gone to Tarleton."* Fovre Letters and "The best poets for comedy among the Greeks are these, Menander, Aristophanes, &c, and among the Latines, Plautus, &c. ; so the best for comedy amongst vs bee, Edward Earle of Oxforde, Doctor Gager of Oxforde, Maister Rowley once a rare scholler of learned Pembrooke Hall in Cambridge, Maister Edwardes one of her Maiesties Chappell, eloquent and wittie John Lilly, Lodge, Gascoyne, Greene, Shakespeare, Thomas Nash, Thomas Heywood, Anthony Mundye our best plotter, Chapman, Porter, Wilson, Hathway, and Henry Chettle." Meres's Palladia Tamia, With Treasvry, 1598, fol. 283. * From the following lines in a volume of great rarity it seems that Tarlton was celebrated for hit tragic as well as his comic acting : "Rich. Tarltono, comcedorum principi. Epit. Cujus (viator) sit sepulchruni hoc scire vie, Inscriptiouem non habens ? Asta gradumque siste paulisper tuum : Incognitum nomen scies. rrinceps comcedorum tulit quos Anglia* Tellus in hoc busto cubat. D 2 36 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. Certaine Sonnets, &c. 1592, p. 9 : a little after he speaks of "his piperly extem- porizing and Tarletonizing ; " and in one place expressly calls him " a player," p. 25. See, too, the MS. notes already cited (p. 33) from a copy of The Pinner of Wakefield. — His friends, Marlowe and Peele, it has been ascertained, had trod the boards. The various verses which are scattered through his prose-tracts constitute, as far as we know, the whole of Greene's non-dramatic poetry, with the exception of A Maiden's Dream. Upon the death of the Right Honourable Sir Christopher Hatton, Knight, late Lord Chancellor of England, 1591 ; which was reprinted in Tlie Shakes- peare Society s Papers, 1845, vol. ii. p. 127, by the possessor of the only copy yet discovered, who not unjustly describes it as "a favourable specimen, both of the fancy and of the facility of the writer."* Of Greene's numerotis prose-tracts, most of which are interspersed with verses, a list will be found at the end of this essay. Their popularity is sufficiently testified by the repeated editions through which many of them passed. On their first appearance, doubtless, they were perused with avidity by the courtly gallants and fair ones of the metropolis, and by the youthful students of our universities; and, long after Greene was in his grave, they were sold on ballad-mongers' stalls and hawked about the country by chapmen, forming the favourite reading of the vulgar.t In some of them he exhibits no mean invention, and no Quo mortuo, spretse silent comedise Tragediteque turbidse. Scense decus desiderant mutre suum, Risusque abest Sardonins. Hie Roscius Britannicus sepultus est, Quo notior nemo fuit. Abi, viator : sin te adhuc nomen latet, Edicet hoc qui vis puer." Joannis Stradlingi Epigrammatum Libri Quatuor, Londini, 1607, duod., p. 13. * But where was his judgment when, a little before, he called Greene "Shakespeare's most distinguished contemporary and rival " ? t The Myrrour of Modestie is dedicated to the Countess of Derby, Planetomachia to the Earl of Leicester, Euphues his censure to Philautus to the Earl of Essex, Morando to the Earl of Arundel, Menaphon to Lady Hales, Tallies Loue to Lord Strange, the Mourning Garment to the Earl of Cumberland, Alcida to Sir Charles Blount, Arbasto to Lady Mary Talbot, Philomela to Lady Fitzwaters, Penelope's Web to the Countess of Cumberland and the Countess of Warwick, The Card of Fancy to the Earl of Oxford, &c. &c. : the dedication of A Quip for an Upstart Courtier is addressed to the Right Worshipful Thomas Barnaby Esquire, and is signed " Your duetifull adopted sonne Robert Greene." " Euen Guieciardines silucr historie, and Ariostos golden cantoes, grow out of request: and the Countesse of Pembrookes Arcadia is not greene inough for queasie stomackes, but they must haue Greenes Arcadia ; and, I belleeue, most eagerlie longed for Greenes Faerie Queeue." G. Harvey's Fovre Lctta-s, and certaine Sonnets, &c, 1592, p. 26. Ben Jonson, in Every man out of his humour, insinuates that Greene was beginning to go out of fashion ; " East. She does observe as pure a phrase, and use as choice figures in her ordinary conferences, as any be in the Arcadia. Car. Or rather in Greene's works, whence she may steal .vibh more security." Act. ii. sc. 1. But certainly for many years after this play was produced, (in 1599,) Greene continued to be very popular. ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS "WRITINGS. 37 slight skill in the conduct of the fable \ but I cannot take upon me to determine how much he borrowed from the obscurer writers of France and Italy. His fancy was exuberant, and supplied him with an endless variety of images ; his facility of diction was very great ; and though he does not display any depth of thought, he abounds in just and pleasing reflexions. He frequently delights us with passages of real pathos and genuine beauty ; again, he is devoted to conceits and alliteration, or becomes insufferably tedious and diffuse. His love of eimilies drawn from the imaginary properties of herbs, stones,* «fec. he caught from Lyly ; and contemporary panegyrists imagined that they were bestowing the highest encomium on Greene when they ranked him with the fantastical author of Uuphues.f Of the verses scattered through these tracts the merit is very unequal ; some of them have a tenderness, a pastoral simplicity, and a lyric flow, which are truly fascinating, while some scarcely rise above mediocrity, and some fall considerably below it. J England's Helicon, 1600, and Davison's Poetical Rhajisody, 1002, are enriched with some of Greene's verses, selected from his prose-tracts. § Sir Thomas OverVmry, in his Characters, describing a Chambermaid, tells us "She reads Greene's works ouer and ouer." Greene, says Anthony Wood, " was author of several things which were pleasing to men and women of his time. They made much sport, and were valued among scholars, but since they have been mostly sold on ballad-mongers' stalls." Fasti Oxon. Tart. 1st, p. 245. ed. Bliss. * "Nash, the ape of Greene, Greene the ape of Euphues, Euphues the ape of Enuie, the three famous niammets of the presse." — G. Harvey's Pierces Supererogation, &c, 1593, Sig. S 4. "Did I," exclaims Nash, indignant at being accused of imitating Greene, " euer write of cony- catching ? stufft my stile with hearbs and stones ? or apprentisd myselfe to running of the letter ? If not, how then doo I imitate him ? " — Haue with you to Saffron- Wald en, &.C., 1596, Sig. V. 3. "If any man bee of a dainty and curious eare," says the author of Martine Mar-sixtus, 1592, undoubtedly alluding to Greene, " I shall desire him to repay re to those authors ; euery man hath not a perle-mint, a fish-mint, nor a bird-mint in his braine, all are not licensed to create new stones, new fowles, new serpents, to coyne new creatures," &c. — Preface. f " Marot et De-Mornay pour le langage Francois ; Pour L'Espaignol Gueuare, Boccace pour le Toscan ; Et le gentil Sleidan refait l'Allemand ; Greene et Lylli tous deux raffineurs de l'Anglois." Sonnet by I. Eliote, prefixed to Greene's Perimedes, 1588. " Multis post annis, conjungens carmina prosis, Floruit Ascamus, Chekus, Gascoynus, et alter Tullius Anglorum nunc vivens Lillius, ilium Consequitur Grenus, pricclarus vterque poeta." Anon. Verses prefixed to Greene's Alcida, 1617. " Of all the flowers a Lillie once I lou'd, Whose labouring beautie brancht itselfe abroade ; But now old age his glorie hath remoud, And Greener obiectes are my eyes aboade." Verses by Henry Vpchear, prefixed to Greene's Menaphon, 1587. J " As Italy had Dante, Boccace, Petrarch, Tassu, Celiano, and Ariosto ; so England had Matthew Roydon, Thomas Atchelow, Thomas Watson, Thomas Kid, Robert Greene, and George Peele."— Meres' s Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasrry, 1598, fol. 282. § The former contains five pieces from Menaphon and two from Never too Late ; the latter, one from the Orpharion. 38 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. In the Biographic/, Dramatica and in other publications it is positively stated that Greene occasionally prostituted his talents for the amusement of the rakes of the day, and that some of his pieces were polluted by gross obscenity. I am much deceived if this be not one of those falsehoods which creep into literary history, and are transferred from book to book, through the ignorance and carelessness of biographers and editors ; few of the persons perhaps who made the assertion having ever read one quarter of his works. It originated, I presume, partly in a misconception of the author's meaning, when he speaks with regret of the lighter productions of his pen ; and partly in the misrepresentations of puritanic writers. Greene, in an Address to George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, before his Mourning Garment, 1590, says ; " Having myself ouer-weaned with them of Nineuie in publishing sundry wanton pamphlets, and setting forth axiomes of amorous philosophy, tandem aliquando taught with a feeling of my palpable follies, and hearing with the eares of my heart Jonas crying, ' Except thou repent,' as I haue changed the inward affects of my minde, so I haue turned my wanton workes to effectuall labours . . I hope your lordship will be glad, with Augustus Csesar, to read the reformation of a second Ouid ; pardon, my lord, inferiour by a thousand degrees to him in wit or learning, but I feare halfe as fond in publishing amorous fancies." * All, I believe, that we are to gather from these expressions is, that he had written pieces, which, being on the subject of love, were light and trivial, — that (as one of his panegyrists, Roger Portington, tells him, in verses prefixed to the First Part of Mamillia, 1583,) he had " paynted out Dan Cupids craft, And set at large the doubtf ull chance of fancies drafte." " I promised, gentlemen," says Greene in an Address to the Gentleman Readers before Philomela, &c, 1592, "both in my Mourning Garment, and Farewell to Follie, neuer to busie my selfe about any wanton pamphlets agaiue, nor to haue my brayne counted so addle as to set out any matter that were amorous : but yet am I come, contrary to vow and promise, once agaiue to the presse with a labour of loue, which I hatched long agoe, though now brought forth to light :" and let it be observed, that Philomela (which is inscribed to Lady Fitzwaters) is a moral tale of great beauty. — The author of a pamphlet called Martine Mar-sixtw. A second replie against the defensory and apology of Sixtus the fifth, &c. 1592, has the following passages in his preface, which were undoubtedly pointed at Greene : "What publishing of friuolous * In Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, Ac, are these words ; "Only I must needes say to him that some of his trade will print lewd bookes and bawdy pamphlets, but auri sacra fames quid non?" I remember perfectly to have seen an edition of this tract with the date 1592 (during which year it seems to have been several times printed), wherein, after the words "bawdy pamphlets," was inserted, between brackets, " by R. G." : but in the edition of 1592, in the King's Library, the passage stands as just given. ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 39 and scurrilous prognostications, as if Will Sommers were againe reuiued ! what counterfeiting and cogging of prodigious and fabulous monsters, as if they labored to exceede the poet in his Metamorphosis ! what lasciuious, vnhonest, and amorous discourses, such as Augustus in a heathen common-wealth could neuer tolerate ! and yet they shame not to subscribe, 'By a graduate in Cambridge, in Artibus Magister'; as if men should iudge of the fruites of art by the ragges and parings of wit, and endite the vniuersities as not onely accessary to their vanitie but nurses of bawdry : we would the world should know, that howsoeuer those places haue power to create a Master of Artes, yet the art of loue is none of the seauen thus affecting to bee famous, they become notorious, that it may be saide of them as of the Sophisters at Athens, dura volunt haberi celebriter docti, innotescunt insigniter asinini, and when with shame they see their folly, they are faine to put ©n a mourning garment, and crie, Farewell."* But is not this merely the language of some canting individual, who held in utter loathing any writer whose pen had been employed on tales of love 1 — In that very curious poetical tract, Greene's Funeralh by R. B.t, Gent., 1594, the purity of his amorous pieces is particularly dwelt upon ; ' ' He, he is dead, that wrote of your delights ; That wrote of ladies and of parramours - T Of budding beautie, and hir branehed leaues, Of sweet content in royall nuptialls. His gadding Muse, although it ran of loue, Yet did bee sweetly morralize his songs ; Ne euer gaue the looser cause to laugh, Ne men of iudgement, for to be offended." — Sig. B. * An allusion to Greene's Mourning Garment and Farewell to Folly. + Eitson supposed that K. B. meant Richard Barnfield ; but it is scarcely possible that he could have been the author of so mean a composition. — Greene's Funeralh contains the following ' ' Catalogue of certaine of his Bookes. Camilla for the first and second part ; The Card of Fancie, and his Tullies lone ; His Nunquam sera, and his Nightingale ; His Spanish Masquerado, and his Change ; His Menaphon, and Metamorphosis ; His Orpharion, and the Denmarke King ; His Censure, and his Loues Tritameron ; His Disputation, and The Death of him That makes all England shed so many teares ; And many more that I haue neuer seene, May witnes well vnto the world — his wit Had he so well as well ax>plied it." Sig. C 2. In the 8th and 9th lines there is an allusion to Greene's poem on the death of Sir Christopher Hatton, A Maiden's Dream (already mentioned, p. 36). 40 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. In The Repentance of Robert Greene his love-pamphlets are noticed in no stronger terms of reprobation than " These vanities and other trifling pamphlets I penned of loue and vaine fantasies was my chiefest stay of liuing; and for those my vaine discourses I was beloued of the more vainer sort of people," &c. Sig. C 3. Nor must it be forgotten that Greene was in the habit of inscribing his productions to high-born personages, both male and female : and would the notorious author of grossly licentious tracts have presumed to aspire to the patronage of such illus- trious names as are to be found in note t p. 36 ] Pandosto. The triumph of Time, foe, 1588 (with the running-title, The Historie of Dorastus and Fawnia), is perhaps the most memorable of the prose-works of Greene, because on it our great dramatist founded his Winter s Tale. To those who may read the novel for the first time, having a previous acquaintance with the play of Shakespeare, — and to what reader is it altogether unknown 1 — the former will appear cold and uninteresting on a recollection of the marvellous truth and reality of the latter. But Pandosto is far from a contemptible production : if portions of it are disfigured by bad taste and coarseness of feeling, there are also portions composed in a very pleasing and affecting manner. The story, there is every reason to believe, was the invention of Greene : how far Shakespeare has deviated from it I proceed to show. * " In the countrey of Bohemia there rayned a king called Pandosto, whose fortunate successe in warres against his foes, and bountifull curtesie towardes his friendes in peace, made him to be greatly feared and loued of all men. This Pandosto had to wife a ladie called Bellaria, by birth royall, learned by education, faire by nature, by vertues famous ; so that it was hard to iudge whether her beautie, fortune, or vertue, wanne the greatest commendations. These two, lincked together in perfect loue, led their Hues with such fortunate content that their subiects greatly reioyced to see their quiet disposition. They had not beene married long, but fortune (willing to increase their happines) lent them a Sonne, so adorned with the gifts of nature as the perfection of the childe greatly augmented the loue of the parentes and the ioy of their commons." ....*" Fortune enuious of such happy successe, willing to shewe some signe of her inconstancie, turned her wheele, and darkned their bright sun of prosperitie with the mistie cloudes of mishap and misery. For it so happened that Egistus king of Sycilia, who in his youth had bene brought vp with Pandosto, desirous to shewe that neither tracte of time nor distance of place could diminish their former friendship, prouided a nauie of ships and sayled into Bohemia, to visite his old friend and companion : who, hearing of his arriuall, went himsclfe in person and his wife Bellaria, accompanied with a great traine of lords and ladies, to meete Egistus ; and espying him, alighted from his Ik use, embraced him very louingly, protesting that nothing * I quote from the edition of 1588. (Since the first appearance of the present memoir, Pandosto has been reprinted complete in Collier's Shakespeare 8 Library.) ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 41 in the world could haue happened more acceptable to him then his comming, wishing his wife to welcome his olde friend and acquaintance : who (to shewe how she liked him whom her husband loued) intertayned him with such familiar curtesie as Egistus perceiued himselfe to bee verie well welcome. After they had thus saluted and embraced eche other, they mounted againe on horsbackc, and rode toward the citie, deuising and recounting howe being children they had passed their youth in friendely pastimes : where, by the meanes of the citizens, Egistus was receyued with triumphs and shewes, in such sort that he maruelled how on so small a warning they coulde make such preparation. Passing the streetes thus with such rare sightes, they rode on to the pallace : where Pandosto entertained Egistus and his Sycilians with such banqueting and sumptuous cheare, so royally as they all had cause to commend his princely liberality ; yea. the verie basest slaue that was knowne to come from Sycilia was vsed with such curtesie that Egistus might easily perceiue how both hee and his were honored for his friendes sake. Bellaria (who in her time was the flower of curtesie), willing to shew how vnfaynedly shee looued her husband by his friends intertainemeut, vsed him likewise so familiarly that her couutenance bewraied how her minde was affected towardes him ; oftentimes comming herselfe into his bed-chamber to see that nothing should be amis to mislike him. This honest familiarity increased dayly more and more betwixt them ; for Bellaria, noting in Egistus a princely and bountifull minde, adorned with sundrie and excellent qualities, and Egistus, finding in her a vertuous and curteous disposition, there grew such a secret vniting of their affections, that the one could not well be without the company of the other ; insomuch that when Pandosto was busied with such vrgent affaires that hee could not bee present with his friend Egistus, Bellaria would walke with him into the garden, where they two in priuat and pleasant deuises would passe away the time to both their contents. This custome still continuing betwixt them, a certaine melancholy passion entring the minde of Pandosto draue him into sundry and doubtfull thoughts. First, he called to minde the beauty of his wife Bellaria, the comelines and brauerie of his friend Egistus, thinking that loue was aboue all lawes, and therefore to be staied with no law ; that it was hard to put fire and flaxe together without burning ; that their open pleasures might breede his secrete displeasures. He considered with himselfe that Egistus was a man and must needes loue ; that his wife was a woman and therefore subiect vnto loue ; and that where fancy forced, friendship was of no force. These and such like doubtfull thoughtes, a long time smoothering in his stomacke, beganne at last to kindle in his minde a secret mistrust, which, increased by suspition, grewe at last to a flaming iealousie that so tormented him as he could take no rest. He then began to measure all then- actions, and to misconstrue of their too priuate familiaritie, bulging that it was not for honest affection, but for disordinate fancy ; so that hee began to watch them more narrowely, to see if hee collide gette any true or certaine proofe to continue his doubtfull suspition. "While thus he noted their lookes and gestures, 42 ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. and suspected their thoughtes and meaninges, they two, seely soules, who doubted nothing of this his treacherous intent, frequented daily eache others cornpanie : which draue him into such a franticke passion, that he beganne to beare a secret hate to Egistus and a lowring countenaunce to Bellaria ; who marueiling at such vnaccus- tomed frowns, began to cast beeyond the moone, and to enter into a thousand sundrie thoughtes, which way she should offend her husband ; but finding in herselfe a cleare conscience, ceassed to muse, vntil such time as she might find fit opportunitie to demaund the cause of his dumps. In the meane time Pandostoes minde was so farre charged with iealousy that he did no longer doubt, but was assured (as he thought), that his friend Egistus had entered a wrong pointe in his tables, and so had played him false play : whereupon, desirous to reuenge so great an iniury, he thought best to dissemble the grudge with a faire and friendly countenance, and so vnder the shape of a friend to shew him the tricke of a foe. Deuising with himself a long time how he might best put away Egistus without suspition of treacherous murder, hee concluded at last to poyson him." Pandosto endeavours to accomplish his purpose by means of Franion his cup-bearer, offering him at last either preferment or death according as he should consent or refuse to become the instrument of his vengeance. Franion promises to despatch Egistus ; but soon after informs that monarch of his danger, and flies with him from Bohemia. Pandosto now "commaundes that his wife should be earned straight to prison vntil they heard further of his pleasure. The guarde, vnwilling to lay their hands on * such a vertuous princesse, and yet fearing the kings fury, went very sorrowfull to fulfill their charge. Comming to the queenes lodging, they found her playing with her yong sonne Garinter ; vnto whom with teares doing the message, Bellaria, astonished at such a hard censure, and finding her cleere conscience a sure aduocate to pleade in her cause, went to the prison most willingly ; where with sighes and teares shee past away the time till she might come to her triall." Pandosto next " caused a generall proclamation to be made through all his realme, that the queene and Egistus had, by the helpe of Franion, not onely committed most incestuous adultery, but also had conspired the kings death ; wherevpon the traitor Franion was fled away with Egistus, and Bellaria was most iustly imprisoned." Presently Bellaria finds herself pregnant, and laments her fate with bitter complaints. " The jaylor, pitying those her heauie passions, thinking that if the king knew she were with cbilde, lie would somewhat appease his fury and release her from prison, went in al hast and certified Pandosto what the effect of Bellarias complaint was : who no ner heard the jaylor say she was with childe, but as one possessed with a phrenzie, he rose vp in a rage, swearing that shee, and the basterd brat she was [quick] withall, should die, if the gods themselues said no ; thinking that surely by computation of time, that Egistus and not he was the father to the childe. This * on] Old ed. " one." ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 43 suspitious thought galled afresh his* halfe-healed sore, in so much as he could take no rest vntill he might mittigate his choller with a iust reuenge ; which happened presently after. For Bellaria was brought to bed of a faire and beautifull daughter : which no sooner Pandosto hearde but he determined that both Bellaria and the young infant should be burnt with fire. His nobles, hearing of the kings cruell sentence, sought by perswasions to diuert him from his bloodie determination, laying before his face the innocencie of the childe, and vertuous disposition of his wife, how she had continually loued and honoured him so tenderly that without due proofe he could not, nor ought not, to appeach her of that crime. And if she had faulted, yet it were more honourable to pardon with mercy then to punish with extremity, and more kingly to be commended of pitty than accused of rigour ; and as for the childe, if he should punish it for the mothers offence, it were to striue against nature and iustice ; and that Yiinatural actions doe more offend the gods then men ; how causelesse cruelty nor innocent blood neuer scapes without reuenge. These and such like reasons could not appease his rage, but he rested resolute in this, that Bellaria being an adultresse, the childe was a bastard, and he would not suffer that such an infamous brat should call him father. Yet at last (seeing his noblemen were importunate vpon him) he was content to spare the childes life, and yet to put it to a worse death. For he found out this deuise, that seeing (as he thought) it came by fortune, so he would commit it to the charge of fortune, and therefore caused a little cock-boat to be prouided, wherein he meant to put the babe, and then send it to the mercies of the seas and the destenies. From this his peeres in no wise could perswade him, but that he sent presently two of his guard to fetch the childe : who being come to the prison, and with weeping teares recounting then maisters message, Bellaria no sooner heard the rigorious resolution of her mercilesse husband but she fell downe in a swound, so that all thought she had bin dead : yet at last being come to her selfe, shee cryed and screeched out in this wise. ' Alas, sweete infortunate babe, scarce borne, before enuied by fortune ! would the day of thy birth had beene the temie of thy life '. then shouldest thou haue made an ende to « care, and preuented thy fathers rigour. Thy faults cannot yet deserue such hatefull reuenge ; thy dayes are too short for so sharpe a doome ; but thy vntimely death must pay thy mothers debts, and her guiltlesse crime must bee thy gastly curse. And shalt thou, sweete babe, be committed to fortune, when thou ail already spited by fortune ? Shall the seas be thy harbour, and the hard boate thy cradle ? Shall thy tender mouth, in steede of sweete kisses, be nipped with bitter stormes ? Shalt thou haue the whistling windes for thy lullabie, and the salt sea fome insteede of sweete niilke ? Alas, what destinies would assigne such hard hap ? What father would be so cruell ] Or what gods will not reuenge such rigor ? Let me kisse thy lippes, sweete infant, and wet thy tender cheekes with my teares, and put this * Aw] Olded. "this." 44 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. chayne about thy little necke, that, if fortune saue thee, it may helpe to succour thee. Thus,* since thou must goe to surge in the gastfull seas, with a sorrowful! kisse I bid thee farewell, and I pray the gods thou maist fare well.' Such and so great was her griefe, that, her vitall spirits being suppressed with sorrow, she fell ao-aine downe into a trance, hauing her sences so sotted with care, that after shee was reuiued, yet shee lost her memorie, and lay for a great time without mouing, as one in a trance. The guard left her in this perplexitie, and carried the child to the king ; who, quite deuoide of pity, commanded that without delay it should bee put in the boat, hauing neither saile nor rudderf to guid it, and so to bee carried into the midst of the sea, and there left to the wind and waue as the destinies please to appoint. The very ship-men, seeing the sweete countenance of the yong babe, began to accuse the king of rigor, and to pity the childs hard fortune : but feare constrayned them to that which their nature did abhorre ; so that they placed it in one of the ends of the boat, and with a few greene bows made a homely cabben to shroud it as they could from wind and weather. Hauing thus trimmed the boat, they tied it to a ship, and so haled it into the mayne sea, and then cut in sunder the coarde : which they had no sooner done, but there arose a mighty tempest, which tossed the little boate so vehemently in the waues that the ship-men thought it coulde not continue longe without sincking; yea, the storme grewe so great, that with much labour and perill they got to the shoare." Bellaria being brought into open court for her trial, " fell downe vpon her knees, and desired the king that for the loue he bare to his young sonne Garinter, whome she brought into the world, that hee woulde graunt her a request ; which was this, that it would please his maiestie to send sixe of his noblemen whome he best trusted to the Isle of Delphos, there to enquire of the Oracle of Apollo whether she had committed adultery with Egistus, or conspired to poyson him with Franion ; and if the god Apollo, who by his deuine essence knew al secrets, gaue answere that she was guiltie, she were content to suffer any torment, were it neuer so terrible. The request was so reasonable that Pandosto could not for shame deny it, vnlesse he woulde bee counted of all his subiects more wilfull then wise : he therefore agreed that with as much speede as might be there should be certaine embassadores dispatched to the lie of Delphos ; and in the meane season he commanded that his wife should be kept in close prison. Bellaria hauing obtained this graunt, was now more careful! for her little babe that floated on the seas then sorrowfull for her owne mishap; for of that she doubted ; of her selfe shee was assured, knowing if Apollo should giue oracle according to the thoughts of the hart, yet the sentence should goe one her side, such was the clearenes of her minde in this case. But Pandosto (whose suspitious head still remained in one song) chose out six of his nobility whom hee knew were scarse indifferent men in the quecnes behalfc, and prouiding all things fit for their iourney * TJius] Old ed. "This." + rudder] Old ed. "other." ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 45 sent them to Delphos. They willing to fulfill the kinges commaund, and desirous to see the situation and custome of the iland, dispatched then* affaires with as much speede as might be, and embarked themselues to this voyage ; which (the wind and weather seruing fit for their purpose) was soone ended. For within three weekes they arriued at Delphos : where they were no sooner set on lande but with great deuotion they went to the Temple of Apollo, and there offring sacrifice to the god and giftes to the priest, as the custome was, they humbly craued an aunswere of their demaund. They had not long kneeled at the altar, but Apollo with a loude voice saide, ' Bohemians, what you finde behinde the alter take, and depart.' They forthwith obeying the oracle, founde a scroule of parchment wherein was written these words in letters of golde ; THE ORACLE. Suspition is no proof e ; iealousie is an vnequall iudge : Bellaria is chast ; Egistus blamclesse; Franion a true subiect ; Pandosfo treacherous ; his babe an innocent; and the king shal Hue without an heire, if that which is lost be not founde. As soone as they had taken out this scroule, the priest of the god commaunded them that they should not presume to read it before they came in the presence of Fandosto, vnlesse they would incurre the displeasure of Apollo." On their return to Bohemia, Bellaria being brought again into the judgment-hall before the assembled lords and commons, speaks thus; " 'If the deuine powers bee priuy to humane actions (as no doubt they are), I hope my patience shall make fortune blushe, and my vnspotted life shall staine spightfull* discredit. For although lying report hath sought to appeach mine honor, and suspition hath intended to soyle my credit with infamie, yet where vertue keepeth the forte, report and suspition may assayle, but neuer sack. How I haue led my life before Egistus comming, I appeale, Pandosto, to the gods and to thy conscience. What hath passed betwixt him and me, the gods onely know, and I hope will presently reueale. That I loued Egistus, I cannot denie ; that I honored him, I shame not to confesse : to the one I was forced by his vertues ; to the other for his dignities. But as touching lasciuious lust, I say Egistus is honest, and hope myselfe to be found without spot : for Franion, I can neither accuse him nor excuse him, for I was not priuie to his departure : and that this is true which I haue heere rehearsed, I referre myselfe to the deuine oracle.' Bellaria had no sooner saj'd, but the king commaunded that one of his dukes should reade the contentes of the scroule ; which after the commons had heard, they gaue a great shout, reioysing and clapping their hands that the queene was cleare of that false acciisation. But the king, wdiose conscience was a witnesse against him of his witlesse furie and false-suspected iealousie, was so ashamed of his rashe folly that he intreated his nobles to perswade Bellaria to forgiue and forget these iniuries ; promising not onely * spightfull] Old ed. " spightfully." 46 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. to shew himselfe a loyall and louing husband, but also to reconcile himselfe to Egistus and Franion ; reuealing then before them all the cause of their secrete flighte, and how treacherously hee thought to haue practised his death, if the good minde of his cupbearer had not preuented his purpose. As thus he was relating the whole matter, there was worde brought him that his young sonne Garinter was sodainly dead : which newes so soone as Bellaria heard, surcharged before with extreame ioy and now suppressed with heauie sorrowe, her vitall spirites were so stopped that she fell downe presently dead, and could be neuer reuiued. This sodaine sight so appalled the kinges sences that he sanck from his seate in a sound, so as he was fayne to be carried by his nobles to his pallace, where hee lay by the space of three dayes without speache. His commons were, as men in dispaire, so diuersly distressed ; there was nothing but mourning and lamentation to be heard throughout al Bohemia ; their young prince dead, their vertuous queene bereaued of her life, and their king and soueraigne in great hazard : this tragicall discourse of fortune so daunted them as they went like shadowes, not men ; yet somewhat to comfort their heauie hearts, they heard that Pandosto was come to himselfe and had recouered his speache : who as in a fury brayed out these bitter speaches. ' miser- able Pandosto, what surer witnesse then conscience 1 what thoughts more sower then suspitiou ? what plague more bad then iealousie 1 Unnaturall actions offend the gods more than men ; and causelesse crueltie neuer scapes without reuenge. I haue committed such a bloudy fact, as repent I may, but recall I cannot. Ah, iealousie ! a hell to the minde, and a horror to the conscience, suppressing reason, and inciting rage : a worse passion then phrensie, a greater plague than madnesse. Are the gods Lust ? then let them reuenge such brutishe crueltie : my innocent babe I haue drowned in the seas ; my louing wife I haue slaine with slaunderous suspition ; my trustie friend I haue sought to betray ; and yet the gods are slacke to plague such offences. Ah, vniust Apollo ! Pandosto is the man that hath committed the faulte : why should Garinter, seely childe, abide the paine 1 Well, sith the gods meane to prolong my dayes to increase my dolour, I will offer my guiltie bloud a sacrifice to those sackles* soules whose liues are lost by my rigorous folly.' And with that he reached at a rapier to haue murdered himselfe : but his peeres being present stayed him from such a bloudy acte, perswading him to think that the commonwealth con- sisted on his safetie, and that those sheepe could not but pei-ish that wanted a sheepheard ; wishing that, if hee would not hue for himselfe, yet he shovdd haue care of his snbiects, and to put such fancies out of his minde, sith in sores past help salues doc not heale but hurt, and in thinges past cure care is a corrasiue. With these and such like pcrswasions the kinge was oucrcome, and began somewhat to quiet his minde ; so that assoone as hee could goe abroad, hee caused his wife to bee embalmed and wrapt in lead with her young sonne Garinter ; erecting a rich and ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. famous sepulchre, wherein hee intombed them both, making such solemne obsequies at her funeral as al Bohemia might pcrceine he did greatly repent him of his fore- passed fully ; causing this epitaph to be ingrauen on her tombe in letters of golde; THE EPITAPH. Here lyes entombde Bellaria /aire, Falsly accused to be vnchaste ; Cleared by A polios sacred doome, Yet slaine by iealousie at last. What ere thou be that passest by, Cursse him that causde this qucene to die. This epitaph being ingrauen, Pandosto would once a day repaire to the tombe, and there with watry plaintes bewaile his misfortune ; coueting no other companion but sorrowe, nor no other harmonie but repentance. But leauing him to his dolorous passions, at last let vs come to shewe the tragicall discourse of the young infant. Who, beeing tossed with winde and waue, floated two whole daies without succour, readie at euery puffe to bee drowned in the sea ; till at last the tempest ceassed, and the little boate was driuen with the tyde into the coast of Sycilia, where, sticking vppon the sandes, it rested. Fortune minding to be wanton (willing to shewe that as she hath wrinckles on her browes, so shee hath dimples in her cheekes), thought, after so many sower lookes, to lend a fayned smile, and, after a puffing storme, to bring a pretty calme : shee began thus to dally. It fortuned a poore mercenary sheepheard that dwelled in Sycilia, who got his lining by other mens flockes, missed one of his sheepe, and thinking it had strayed into the couert that was hard by, sought very diligently to find that which he could not see, fearing either that the wolues or eagles had vndone him (for hee was so poore as a sheepe was halfe his substaunce), wandered downe toward the sea-cliffes, to see if perchaunce the sheepe was browsing on the sea-iuy, whereon they greatly doe feede. But not finding her there, as he was ready to returne to his flocke, hee heard a childe crie ; but knowing there was no house nere, he thought he had mistaken the sound, and that it was the bleatyng of his sheepe. Wherefore looking more narrowely, as he cast his eye to the sea, he spyed a little boate, from whence, as he attentiuely listened, he might heare the cry to come. Standing a good while in a maze, at last he went to the shoare, and wading to the boate, as he looked in, he saw the little babe lying al alone, ready to die for hunger and colde, wrapped in a mantle of scarlet, richely imbrodered with golde, and hauing a chayne about the necke. The sheepeheard, who before had neuer seene so faire a babe nor so riche iewels, thought assuredly that it was some little god, and began with great deuocion to knock on his breast. The babe, who wrythed with the head to seeke for the pap, began againe to cry afresh : whereby the poore man knew that it was a childe, which by some sinister meanes was driuen thither by distresse of weather ; maruailing how such a seely 48 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. infant, which by the mantle and the chayne could not be but borne of noble parentage, should be so hardly crossed with deadly mishap. The poore sheepheard, perplexed thus with diuers thoughts, tooke pitty of the childe, and determined with himselfe to carry it to the king, that there it might be brought vp according to the worthinesse of birth ; for his ability coulde not afforde to foster it, though his good minde was willing to further it. Taking therefore the chylde in his armes, as he foidded the mantle together, the better to defend it from colde, there fell downe at his foote a very faire and riche purse, wherein he founde a great summe of golde : which sight so reuiued the shepheards spirits, as he was greatly rauished with ioy ? and daunted with feare ; ioyfull to see such a summe in his power, and feareful, if it should be knowne, that it might breede his further daunger. Necessitie wisht him at the least to retaine the golde, though he would not keepe the childe : the simplicity of his conscience feared* him from such deceiptfull briberie.t Thus was the poore manne perplexed with a doubtfull dilemma, vntill at last the couetousnesse of the coyne ouercame him ; for what will not the greedy desire of golde cause a man to doe 1 so that he was resolued in himselfe to foster the child, and with the summe to relieue his want. Resting thus resolute in this point, he left seeking of his sheepe, and as couertly and secretly as he coulde, went by a by-way to his house, least any of his neighbours should perceaue his carriage." The shepherd, who is called Porrus, and his wife, having no children of their own, rear the babe as their daughter, giving her the name of Fawnia. With the money which he had found in the purse Porrus having bought the lease of a pretty farm and a small flock of sheep, "grewe in short time to bee a man of some wealth and credite." When Fawnia " came to the age of sixteene yeeres, shee so increased with exquisite perfection both of body and minde, as her natural disposition did bewray that she was borne of some high parentage ; but the people thinking she was daughter to the shephard Porrus, rested only amazed at hir beauty and wit : yea, she won such fauour and commendations in euery mans eye, as her beautie was not onely praysed in the countrey, but also spoken of in the court ; yet such was her submisse modestie, that although her praise daily increased, her mind was no whit puffed vp with pride, but humbled her selfe as became a country mayde and the daughter of a poore sheepheard. Euery day she went forth with her sheepe to the field, keeping them with such care and diligence as al men thought she was verie painfull, defending her face from the heat of the sunne with no other vale but with a garland made of bowes and flowers ; which attire became her so gallantly as shee seemed to bee the goddesse Flora her selfe for beauty." Dorastus, the only son of Egistus and aged about twenty, (who has just offended his father by showing decided dislike to the proposal that he should marry the King of Denmark's daughter,) becomes violently enamoured of the lovely shepherdess : she returns his passion, and consents * fcireil] Mr. Collier {Shakespeare 1 3 Library) prints "scared," — rightly perhaps. t briberie] i. e. theft. ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 49 to be his wife. " Hailing thus plight their troath each to other, seeing they could not haue the full fruition of their loue in Sycilia, for that Egistus consent woulde neuer bee graunted to so meane a match, Dorastus determined assone as time and oportunitie would giue them leaue, to prouide a great masse of money, and many rich and costly iewels for the easier cariage, and then to transporte theinselues and then- treasure into Italy, where they should leade a contented life, vntil such time as either he could be reconciled to his father, or els by succession come to the king- dome." Soon after this, the neighbours of Porrus inform him of the meetings of the louers, fearing that the prince meant to lure Fawnia to folly. The old shepherd, greatly distressed at the intelligence, and dreading the anger of the king, resolves to go to his majesty, give him an account of his having found Fawnia in the little boat, and show him the chain and jewels that accompanied her : " ' by this meanes,' " says he to his wife, " ' I hope the king will take Fawnia into his seruice, and we, whatsoeuer chaunceth, shal be blamelesse.' This deuice pleased the good wife very will, so that they determined, assoone as they might know the king at leisure, to make him prime to this case. In the meane time Dorastus was not slacke in his affaires, but applyed his matters with such diligence that he prouided all thinges fitte for their iourney. Treasure and iewels he had gotten great store, thincking there was no better friend then money in a strange countrey ; rich attire he had prouided for Fawnia ; and because he could not bring the matter to passe without the helpe and aduice of some one, he made an old seruant of his, called Capnio, who had seraed him from his child-hood, prime to his affaires ; who, seeing no perswasions could preuaile to diuert him from his setled determination, gaue his consent, and dealt so secretly in the cause that within short space hee had gotten a ship ready for theyr passage. The mariners, seeing a fit gale of winde for their purpose, wished Capnio to make no delayes, least, if they pretermitted this good weather, they might stay long ere they had such a fayre winde. Capnio, fearing that his negligence should hinder the iourney, in the night time conueyed the trunckes full of treasure into the shippe, and by secrette meanes let Fawnia vnderstand that the next morning they meant to depart. She vpon this newes slept verie little that night, but gotte vp very early, and wente to her sheepe, looking euery minute when she should see Dorastus ; who taried not long, for feare delay might breede daunger, but came as fast as he could gallop, and without any great circumstance tooke Fawnia vp behinde him, and rode to the hauen where the shippe lay, which was not three quarters of a mile distant from that place. He no sooner came there but the marriners were readie with their cock-boate to set them aboard ; where, being coucht together in a cabben, they past away the time in recounting their old loues til their man Capnio should come. Porrus, who had heard that this morning the king would go abroad to take the ayre, called in haste to his wife to bring him his holyday hose and his best iacket, that he might goe like an honest substantiall man to tell his tale. His wife, a good cleanly wenche, brought him all things fitte, and spnngd him vp very 50 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. handsomlie, giuing him the chaine * and iewels in a little boxe, which Poirus for tbe more safety put in his bosom. Hauing thus all his trinkets in a readines, taking his stafFe in his hand, he bad his wife kisse him for good lucke, and so hee went towards the pallace. But as he was going, fortune (who meant to showe him a little false play) preuented his purpose in this wise. He met by chaunce in his way Capnio, who trudging as fast as he could with a little coffer vnder his arme to the ship, and spying Porrus, whome he knewe to be Fawnias father, going towardes the pallace, being a wylie fellow, began to doubt the worst, and therefore crost him the way, and askt him whither he was going so earely this morning. Porrus (who knew by his face that he was one of the court) meaning simply, told him that the kings son Dorastus dealt hardly with him ; for he had but one daughter who was a little beautifull, and that his neighboures told him the young prince had allured her to folly : he went therefore now to complaine to the king how greatly he was abused. Capnio (who straight way smelt the whole matter) began to soth him in his talke, and said that Dorastus dealt not like a prince to spoyle any poore manes daughter in that sort : he therefore would doe the best for him he could, because he knew he was an honest man. ' But,' quoth Capnio, ' you lose your labour in going to the pallace, for the king meanes this day to take the aire of the sea, and to goe aboord of a shippe that lies in the hauen : I am going before, you see, to prouide all things in a redinesse ; and if you wil follow my counsaile, turne back with me to the hauen, where I will set you in such a fitte place as you may speake to the king at your pleasure.' Porrus, giuing credit to Capnios smooth tale, gane him a thousand thanks for his friendly aduise, and went with him to the hauen, making all the way his complaintes of Dorastus, yet concealing secretlie the chaine and the iewels. Assone as they were come to the sea-side, the marriners, seeing Capnio, came a-land with their cock-boote ; who still dissembling the matter, demaunded of Porrus if he would go see the ship ] who, vnwilling and fearing the worst because he was not well acquainted with Capnio, made his excuse that he could not brooke the sea, therefore woidd not trouble him. Capnio, seeing that by faire meanes hee could not get him aboord, commaunded the mariners that by violence they should carrie him into the shippe ; who like sturdy knaues hoisted the poore shepheard on their backes, and bearing him to the boate, lanched from the land. Porrus, seeing himselfe so cunningly betraied, durst not crie out, for hee sawe it would not preuaile ; but began to intreate Capnio and the mariners to be good to him, and to pittie his estate ; hee was but a poore man that liued by his labour : they, laughing to see the shepheard so afraide, made as much haste as they could and sette him aboorde. Porrus was no sooner in the shippe but he saw Dorastus walking with Fawnia ; yet he scarse knew her, for she had attired her selfe in riche apparell, which so increased her beauty that shee resembled rather an angell then a mortall creature. Dorastus and Fawnia were halfe • chaine] Old ed. "chaines." ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 51 astonished to see the olde shepherd, maruailing greatly what wind had brought him thither, til Capnio told them al the whole disco urse ; how Porrus was going to make his complaint to the king, if by pollicie he had not preuented him ; and there- fore now, sith he was aboord, for the auoiding of further danger, it were best to carrie him into Italy. Dorastus praised greatly his mans deuise, and allowed of his counsaile : but Fawnia (who stil feared Porrus as her father) began to blush for shame, that by her meanes he should either incur[r]e daunger or displeasure. The old shephard, hearing this hard sentence, that he should on such a sodaine be caried from his wife, his country, and kinsfolke, into a forraine lande amongst straungers, began with bitter teares to make his complaint, and on his knees to intreate Dorastus, that pardoning his vnaduised folly, he would giue him leaue to goe home ; swearing that hee would keepe all thinges as secret as they could wish. But these protes- tations could not preuaile, although Fawnia intreated Dorastus very earnestly ; but the mariners, hoisting their maine sailes, waied ankers, and hailed into the deepe." Egistus, greatly alarmed at the disappearance of the prince, learns at last from a fisherman in what company he had set sail ; and is so grieved at " his sonnes reck- lesse follie " that he falls into a very dangerous quartan fever. " But his sonne Dorastus little regarded either father, countrie, or kingdome, in respect of his lady Fawnia ; for fortune smyling on this young nouice, lent him so lucky a gale of winde for the space of a day and a night, that the maryners lay and slept vpon the hatches : but on the next morning, about the breake of the day, the aire began to ouercast, the winds to rise, the seas to swel, yea, presently there arose such a fearfull tempest as the ship was in danger to be swallowed vp with euery sea, the maine mast with the violence of the wind was thrown ouer-boord, the sayles were torne, the tacklings rent * in sunder, the storme raging still so furiously that poore Fawnia was almost dead for feare, but that she was greatly comforted with the presence of Dorastus. The tempest continued three dayes, al which time the mariners euerie minute looked for death, and the aire was so darkned with cloudes that the maister could not tell by his compasse in what coast they were. But vpon the fourth day, about ten of the clocke, the wind began to cease, the sea to wax oalme, and the sky to be cleare, and the mariners descryed the coast of Bohemia, shooting of their ordnance for ioy that they had escaped such a fearefull tempest. Dorastus, hearing that they were arriued at some harbom-, sweetly kissed Fawnia, and bad her be of good cheare : when they tolde him that the port belonged vnto the cheife cittie of Bohemia where Pandosto kept his court, Dorastus began to be sad, knowing that his father hated no man so much as Pandosto, and that the king himself had sought secretly to betray Egistus : this considered, he was halfe afraide to goe on land, but that Capnio counselled him to chaunge his name and his countrey, vntil such time as they could get some other barke to transport them into Italy. Dorastus liking this deuise, • rent] Old ed. "went." i 2 52 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. made his case priuy to the marriners, rewarding them bountifully for their paines, and charging them to saye that he was a gentleman of Trapolonia called Meleagrus. The shipmen, willing to shew what friendship they could to Dorastus, promised to bo as secret as they could or hee might wish ; and vppon this they landed in a little village a mile distant from the citie : where, after they had rested a day, thinking to make prouision for their mariage, the fame of Fawnias beauty was spread through- out all the citie, so that it came to the eares of Pandosto ; who then being about the age of fifty, had notwithstanding yong and freshe affections, so that he desired greatly to see Fawnia ; and to bring this matter the better to passe, hearing they had but one man, and how they rested at a very homely house, he caused them to be apprehended as spies, and sent a dozen of his garde to take them ; who being come to their lodging, tolde them the kings message. Dorastus no whit dismayed, accompanied with Fawnia and Capnio, went to the court (for they left Porrus to keepe the stuffe) ; who being admitted to the kings presence, Dorastus and Fawnia with humble obeysance saluted his maiestie." Pandosto is amazed at the loveliness of Fawnia ; and when Dorastus has told him a tale devised for the occasion, he angrily declares, " till I heare more of her parentage and of thy calling, I wil stay you both here in Bohemia." The young prince answers the king with much bold- ness, and is committed to prison, while " the rest of the shipmen " are thrown into a dungeon ; but Fawnia is treated with great courtesy. The king now endeavours to overcome the chastity of the beautiful stranger, but his various allurements are vain ; and he swears at last that, if she does not yield to his wishes, he will have recourse to violence. Meantime Egistus learns from some Bohemian merchants that his son is imprisoned by Pandosto, and sends ambassadors to that monarch with a request " that Capnio, Fawnia, and Porrus, might be murthered and put to death, and that his sonne Dorastus might be sent home in safetie. Pandosto hauing atten- tiuely and with great meruaile heard their embassage, willing to reconcile himselfe to Egistus, and to shew him how greatlie he esteemed his fauour,* although loue and fancy forbad him to hurt Fawnia, yet in despight of loue hee determined to execute Egistus will without mercy ; and therefore he presently sent for Dorastus out of prison ; who meruailing at this vnlooked for curtesie, found, at his comming to the kings presence, that which he least doubted of, his fathers embassadours ; who no sooner sawe him, but with great reuerence they honored him ; and Pandosto embracing Dorastus, set him by him very louingly in a chaire of estate. Dorastus, ashamed that his follie was bewraicd, sate a long time as one in a muse, til Pandosto told him the summe of his fathers embassage ; which he had no sooner heard, but he was toucht at the quicke for the cruell sentence that was pronounced against Fawnia. But neither could his sorrow nor perswasions preuaile ; for Pandosto commaunded that Fawnia, Porrus, and Capnio, should bee brought to his presence : ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 63 who were no sooner come but Pandosto, hauing his former lone turned to a disdainful hate, began to rage against Fawnia in these tearmes. ' Thou disdainfull vassal, thou currish kite, assigned by the destinies to base fortune, and yet with an aspiring minde gazing after honor, how durst thou presume, being a beggar, to match with a prince 1 by thy alluring lookes to inchant the sonne of a king to leaue his owne countrie to fulfill thy disordinate lusts 1 despightfull minde ! a proud heart in a beggar is not vnlike to a great fire in a smal cottage, which warmeth not the house, but burnetii it : assure thyselfe thou shalt die. And thou, old doating foole, whose follie hath bene such as to suffer thy daughter to reach aboue thy fortune, looke for no other meede but the like punishment. But, Capnio, thou which hast betrayed the king, and hast consented to the vnlawfull lust of thy lord and maister, I know not how iustly I may plague thee : death is too easie a punishment for thy falsehood, and to liue, if not in extreame miserie, were not to shew thee equitie. I therefore award that thou shalt haue thine eyes put out, and continually, while * thou diest, grinde in a mil like a brute beast.' The feare of death brought a sorrowfull silence vpon Fawnia and Capnio : but Porrus, seeing no hope of life," confesses that Fawnia is not his daughter, tells how he found her in the little boat, and shows the chain and jewels that accompanied her. " Pandosto would scarce suffer him to tell out his tale but that he enquired the time of the yeere, the manner of the boate, and other circumstaunces ; which when he found agreeing to his count, he sodainelie leapt from his seate, and kissed Fawnia, wetting her tender cheeks with his teares, and crying, ' My daughter Fawnia ! Ah sweete Fawnia ! I am thy father, Fawnia.' This sodaine passion of the king draue them all into a maze, especially Fawnia and Dorastus. But when the king had breathed himselfe a while in this newe ioy, hee rehearsed beefore the embassadours the whole matter, how hee hadde entreated his wife Bellaria for iealousie, and that this was the childe whome hee [had] sent to floate in the seas. Fawnia was not more ioyfull that she had found such a father then Dorastus was glad he should get such a wife. The embassadors reioyced that their yong prince had made such a choice, that those kingdomes, which thimigh enmitie had long time bin disseuered, should now through perpetual amitie be vnited and recon- ciled. The citizens and subiects of Bohemia (hearing that the king had found againe his daughter which was supposed dead, ioyfull that there was an heire aparant to his kingdome) made bonfh*es and showes throughout the cittie. The courtiers and knights appointed iusts and turneis, to signifie their willing mindes in gratifying the kings hap. Eighteene daies being past in these princely sports, Pandosto, willing to recompence old Porrus, of a shepheard made him a knight : which done, prouiding a sufficient nauie to receiue him and his retinue, accompanied with Dorastus, Fawnia, and the Sicilian embassadours, he sailed tow r ards Sicilia, where he was most, princelie entertained by Egistus ; who hearing this comicall euent, reioyced greatly at his 54 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. Bonnes good happe, and without delay (to the perpetuall ioy of the two yong louers) celebrated the marriage : which was so sooner ended but Pandosto, calling to mind how first he betraied his friend Egistus, how his iealousie was the cause of Bellarias death, that contrarie to the law of nature hee had lusted after his owne daughter, — moued with these desperate thoughts, he fell in a melancholie fit, and, to close vp the comedie with a tragicall stratageme, hee slewe himselfe : whose death being many daies bewailed of Fawnia, Dorastus, and his deere friend Egistus, Dorastus, taking his leaue of his father, went with his wife and the dead corps into Bohemia ; where, after it was * sumptuouslie intoombed, Dorastus ended his daies in contented quiet." The reader will perceive that the characters of Antigonus, Paulina, Autolycus, and the Young Shepherd, in the Winters Tale, are the creations of Shakespeare. Greene, during his chequered life, having sometimes " kept villanous company," turned to account his intimate acquaintance with the sharpers and rogues of the metro- polis by publishing several pamphlets wherein he laid open all the mysteries of their arts.t Prefixed to the first of these pieces, A Notable Dkcouery of Coosnage, 1591, is an Address " To the Yong Gentlemen, Marchants, Apprentises, Fanners, and plain Countrymen," which begins thus : " Diogenes, gentlemen, from a counterfait coiner of money, became a currant corrector of manners, as absolute in the one as dissolute in the other : time refineth mens affects, and then- humors grow different by the distinction of age. Poor Ouid, that amorously writ in his youth the art of loue, complained in his exile amongst the Getes of his wanton follies ; and Socrates age was vertuous, thogh his prime was licentious. So, gentlemen, my younger yeeres had vncertaine thoughtes, but now my ripe daies cals on to repentant deedes, and I sorrow as much to see others wilful as I delighted once to be wanton. The odde mad-caps I haue beene mate too, not as a companion, but as a spie to haue an insight into their knaueries, that seeing their traines I might eschew their snares ; those mad fellow es I learned at last to loath by their owne gracelesse villenies ; and what I saw in them to their confusion, I can forwarne in others to my countreies commodity. None could decipher tyranisme better then Aristippus, not that his nature was cruell, but that he was nourtured with Dionisius : the simple swaine that cuts the lapidaries stones can distinguish a ruby from a diamond onely by his labour : though I haue not practised their deceits, yet conuersing by fortune and talking vppon purpose with such copes-mates, hath geuen mee light into their conceiptes, and I can decipher their qualities, though I vtterly mislike of their * it was] Old ed. "they were." t "But I tliauke Ood that hee put it in my head to lay open the most horrible coosenages of the common Conny-catchers, Cooseners, and Crosse-biters, which I haue indifferently handled in those my seuerall discourses already imprinted. And my trust is, that those discourses will doe great good, and boe very beueficiall to the common- wealth of England. "—The Repentance of Robert Greene, 1592. Sig. C 3. ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 55 practises." It was not without many threats of vengeance from this blackguard crew that our author persevered in describing their various villanies. About the beginning of August, 1592, Greene having partaken too largely of pickled herrings and Rhenish wine, at an entertainment where Nash was a principal guest, was, in consequence, seized by an illness which terminated in death.* The * My chief authority for the account of Greene's last illness and death is the tract entitled Fowe Letters, and certaine Sonnets ; especially touching Robert Greene, &c. 1592, by Gabriel Harvey, whose enmity towards our author, and the cause of it, will be afterwards pai-ticularly noticed Though this person has lowered himself in the eyes of posterity by his malignant attack on the memory of Greene, the fact of his having been the friend of Spenser is alone sufficient to prove the respectability of hii character ; and since he tells us that his information concerning Greene's miserable end was derived from the hostess who kindly acted as nurse to the dying poet, I see no reason for questioning the truth of his statements. The small portion of Nash's Strange Ncwcs, Of the intercepting of certain Letters, &e. 1592, which is occupied by remarks on Harvey's attack on Greene, is weak and unsatisfactory : it must be observed, too, that Nash had not seen Greene for a month before his death, and was anxious to disclaim any great intimacy having existed between them. "My next businesse was to enquire after the famous author ; who was reported to lye dangerously sicke in a shoemakers house neere Dow-gate ; not of the plague or the pockes, as a gentleman saide, but of a surfett of pickle herringe and Rennish wine," &c. — G. Harvey's Fovre Letters, &c. 1592, p. 5. "His keping of the foresaid Balls sister, a sorry ragged queane, of whome hee had his base sonne, Infortunatus Greene," &c. — Id. p. 10. See p. 22 of this memoir. " Truely I haue beene ashamed to heare some ascertayned reportes of hys most woefull and rascall estate ; how the wretched fellow, or shall I say the prince of beggars, laid all to gage for some few shillinges; and was attended by lice ; and would pittifully beg a penny-pott of Malmesie ; and could not gett any of his old acquaintance to comfort or visite him in his extremity but Mistris Appleby and the mother of Infortunatus. Alas, euen his fellow- writer, a proper yong man if aduised in time, that was a prineipall guest at that fatall banquet of pickle-herring (I spare his name, and in some respectes wish him well), came neuer more at him ; but either would not, or happily could not, perforate the duty of an affectionate and faithfull frend. The poore cordwainers wife was bis onely nurse, and the mother of Infortunatus hys sole companion, but when Mistresse Appleby came, as much to expostulate iniuries with her as to visite him." — Id. p. 10. " His hostisse Isam, with teares in her eies and sighes from a deeper fountaine (for she loued him derely), tould me of his lamentable begging of a penny-pott of Malmesy ; and, sir reuerence, how lowsy he and the mother of Infortunatus were (I would her surgeon found her no worse then lowsy !) ; and how he was faine, poore soule, to borrow her husbandes shirte, whiles his owne was a washing ; and how his dublet and hose and sword were sold for three shillinges ; and beside the charges of his winding sheete, which was foure shillinges, and the charges of hys buriall yesterday in the New-churchyard neere Bedlam, which was six shillinges and foure pence, how deeply hee was indebted to her poore husbande, as appeered by hys owne bonde of tenne poundes ; which the good woman kindly shewed me, and beseeched me to read the writting beneath, which was a letter to his abandoned wife in the behalfe of his gentle host, not so short as persuasible in the beginning and pittifull in the ending." — Id. p. 11. " Greene surfeted not of pickeld hearing, but of an exceeding feare of his [Harvey's] familiar epistles." — Nash's Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. D 4. " For the lowsie circumstance of his pouerty before his death, and sending that miserable writte to his wife, it cannot be but thou lyest, learned Gabriell. " I, and one of my fellowes Will. Monox (hast thou neuer heard of him and his great dagger?), were in company with him, a month before he died, at that fatall banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled hearing (if thou wilt needs haue it so) ; and then the inuentorie of his apparrell came to more than three shillings (though thou saist the contrarie). I know a broker, in a spruce leather ierkin, with a great number of golde rings on his fingers, and a bunch of keies at his girdle, shall giue you thirty shillings for the doublet alone, if you can helpe him to it. Harke in your eare ; hee had a very faire cloako with sleeues, of a graue goose-turd greene ; it would serue you as fine as may bee : no more words ; if you bee wise, play the good husband and listen after it ; you may buy it ten shillings better cheape than it cost 56 ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. wretched man lay sick at the house of a poor shoemaker near Dowgate, reduced to a state of squalid poverty. The compassionate kindness of his host and hostess furnished him, as far as their means allowed, with all the necessaries which his con- dition required ; and in the latter, who, according to Harvey, had no ordinary regard and admiration for her lodger, he found an anxious and attentive nurse. He appears to have been deserted by his former gay associates : even Nash, his companion at the him. By S. Siluer, it is good to bee circumspect in casting for the worlde ; theres a great many ropes go to ten shillings. If you want a greasy paire of silk stockings also to shew yourselfe in at the court, they are there to be had too amongst his moueables." — Id. Sig. E 4. " Neither was I Greenes companion any more than for a carowse or two." — Id. Sig. H. "A thousande there bee that baue more reason to speake in his behalfe than I, who, since I first knew him about town, haue beene two yeares together and not seene him." — Id. Sig. L. 4. " The manner of the death and last end of Robert Greene, Maister of Artes. " After that he had pend the former discourse (then lying sore sicke of a surfet which hee had taken with drinking), hee continued most patient and penitent ; yea, he did with teares forsake the world, renounced swearing, and desired forgiuenes of God and the worlde for all his offences : so that during all the time of his sicknesse (which was about a moneths space) hee was neuer heard to sweare, raue, or blaspheme the name of God, as he was accustomed to do before that time ; which greatly comforted his welwillers, to see how mightily the grace of God did worke in him. " He confessed himselfe that he was neuer heart-sicke, but said that al his paine was in his belly. And although he continually scowred, yet still his belly sweld, and neuer left swelling vpward, vntiil it sweld him at the hart and in his face. "During the whole time of his sicknes, he continually called vpon God, and recited these sentences following ; ' Lord, forgiue me my manifold offences ! Lord, haue inercie vpon me ! Lord, forgiue me my secret sinnes, and in thy mercie, Lord, pardon them all ! Thy mercie, Lord, is aboue thy works!' And with such like godly sentences hee passed the time, euen till he gaue vp the ghost. " And this is to bee noted, that his sicknesse did not so greatly weaken him but that he walked to his chaire and backe againe the night before he departed ; and then (being feeble) laying him downe on his bed, about nine of the clocke at night, a friend of his tolde him that his wife had sent him commend- ations and that shee was in good health : whereat hee greatly reioiced, confessed that he had mightily wronged her, and wished that hee might see her before he departed. Wherevpon (feeling his time was but short) hee tooke pen and inke, and wrote her a letter to this effeot : " Sweet wife, as euer there was any good will or friendship betweene thee and mee, see this bearer (my host) satisfied of his debt : I owe him tenne pound ; and but for him I had perished in the streetes. Forget and forgiue my wronges done vnto thee ; and Almighty God haue mercie on my soule ! Farewell till we meet in heauen ; for on earth thou shalt neuer see me more. This 2. of September. 1592. Written by thy dying husband, Robert Greene." The Repentance of Robert Greene, &c. 1592, Sig. D 2. In my text I have given Greene's letter to his wife as it is found in Harvey's pamphlet. The following passage concerning her occurs in the tract last quoted : " But, oh my deare wife, whose company and sight I haue refrained these sixe yeares, I aske God and thee forgiueness for so greatly wronging thee, of whome I seldome or neuer thought vntiil now : pardon moo (I pray thee) wheresoeuer thou art, and God forgiue mee all my offences!" — Sig. C 4. "As Archesilaus Prytawous," says Meres, "perished by wine at a drunken feast, as Hermippus testifieth in Diogenes ; so Robert Greene died of a surfet taken at pickeld herrings and Rhenish wine, as witnesseth Thomas Nash, who was at the fatall banquet." — Palladia Tamia, Wits Treasury, 159S, foL 28G. ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 57 " fatal banquet," kept aloof. " Of his old acquaintance," however, two females " visited him in his extremity : " the one was the mother of his illegitimate son, Fortunatus Greene (see p. 22 of this memoir) ; the other was a Mistress Appleby. In this humble dwelling, oppressed by disease and poverty and self-reproach, he languished for about a month's space. Shortly before his death, having given a bond to his host for ten pounds which he owed him, he wrote beneath it the following letter to his forsaken wife, whom he had not seen during the last six years : " Doll, I charge thee, by the loue of our youth and by my soules rest, that thou wilte see this man paide ; for if hee and his wife had not succoured me, I had died in the streetes. Robert Greene." He expired on the 3d of September, 1592. There have been too many of the Muses' sons whose vices have conducted them to shame and sorrow, but none, perhaps, who have sunk to deeper degradation and misery than the subject of this memoir. From a passage in Harvey it appears that Greene's hostess crowned his dead body with a garland of bays,* and that he had requested that this honour might be * " When I begin to conflict with ghostes, then looke for my confutation of his fine quippe or quaint dispute, whome his sweete hostisse, for a tender farewell, crowned with a garlande of bayes ; to shew that a tenth Muse honoured him more being deade then all the nine honoured him aliue. I know not whether Skelton, Elderton, or some like flourishing pcet were so enterred : it was his owne request and his nurses devotion ; and happily some of his fauourites may imitate the example. One that wished him a better lodging then in a poore iourneymans house, and a better graue then in that churchyard in Bedlam, hath perfourmed a little peece of a greater duety to a laureat poet ; ' Here lies the man whom Mistresse Isam crown'd with bayes ; Shee, shee, that ioyde to heare her nightingales sweete layes.' Which another no sooner read, but he immediatly subscribed, as speaking to the ignorant passenger ; ' Heere Bedlam is ; and heere a poet garish, Gaily bedeck' d, like forehorse of the parish.' " G. Harvey's Fovre Letters, &c. p. 12. "By this blessed cuppe of sacke which I now holde in my hand, and drinke to the health of all Christen soules in, thou art a puissant epitapher. " Yea ? thy Muses foot of the twelues, old Long Meg of Westminster ? Then I trowe thou wilt stride ouer Greenes graue, and not stumble : if you doe, wee shall come to your taking vp. Letter. 1 Here lies the man whom Mistris Isam cround with bays ; She, she, that ioyd to heare her nightingales sweete lays.' Comment, 1 Here, Mistris Isam, Gabriel floutes thy bays : Scratch out his eyes that printeth thy dispraise.' " She, she will scratch, and, like a scritching night-owle, come and make a dismal noise vnder thy chamber windowe for deriding her so dunstically. A bigge fat lusty wench it is, that hath an arme like an Amazon, and will bang thee abhominationly, if euer shee catch thee in her quarters. It is not your poet garish and your forehorse of the parish that shall redeeme you from her fingers, but shee will make actuall proofe of you, according as you desire of God in the vnder following lines." — Nash's Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. F. 68 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. paid to his remains ; a ceremony contrasting ludicrously and mournfully with the circumstances of his death ! He was buried in the New Churchyard near Bedlam on the 4th of September * Of his personal appearance we are enabled to form some idea. Chettle thus describes him : " With him was the fifth, a man of indifferent yeares, of face amible, of body well proportioned, his attire after the habite of a scholler-like gentleman, onely his haire was somewhat long, whome I supposed to be Robert Greene, Maister of Artes." — Kind-Harts Dreame,&c. n. d. [1592], Sig. B 3. Harvey notices "hisfonde disguisinge of a Master of Arte with ruffianly haire."t — Fovre Letters and Gertaine Sonnets, &c. 1592, Sig. B 2. And Nash informs us that " a iolly long red peake like the spire of a steeple hee cherisht continually without cutting, whereat a man might hang a iewell, it was so sharpe and pendant." — Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. E 4. He left two sons, — one by his wife (see his letter to her, p. 62), and one by the sister of " Cutting Ball." The name and fate of the former are alike unknown : the latter (as already mentioned, p. 22) was baptized Fortunatus, and died in August 1593. Soon after Greene's decease, his Groatsworth of Wit bought with a million of Repentance, &c, was given to the public by Henry Chettle ; and that it is a genuine production admits of no doubt, j Large portions of this interesting piece, as illus- * See the quotation from Harvey (p. 55, note) where mention is made of " hys buriall yesterday ;" Harvey's letter is dated Sept. 5th. " Thomam Fullerum et Richardum Bakerum, historicos, et Robert um Greene, poetam, paupertate prope enectos fuisse accepimus," says Menckenius, enumerating various literary men of England who have come to unfortunate ends, in his Preface to Analecta de Calamitate Litteratorum, 1707 ; which Preface is addressed " Ad virum illustrissimum atque excellentissimum, Dominum Joannem Robinson, Magna? Britannire Regina? ad Regem Sueciae Legatum hoc tempore Extraordinariuui et Plenipotentiariuin." t Harvey taunts Nash with wearing the same unseemly superfluity ; " Methinkes the raunging eyes vnder that long haire (which some would call ruffianly haire) should scarsely yet be bathed in the heauenly teares of Christ, or washed in the diuine teares of penitence." — A New Letter of Notable Contents, &c, 1593. Sig. G 4. There is an allusion in this sentence to a work by Nash entitled Christ'' s Teares ouer Jerusalem, 1593. + Chettle (a fertile dramatic writer, though very few of his plays have been printed) in the Address to the Gentlemen Readers, prefixed to his Kind-Harts Dreame. Conteining Jiue Apparitions, with their Inuectiues against abuses raigning. Deliuered by seuerall Ghosts vnto him to be publisht, after Piers Penilesse Post had refused the carriage, n. d. [1592], says ; "I had onely in the copy this share; it [the Groatsworth of Wit] was il written, as sometime Greenes hand was none of the best ; licensd it must be, ere it could bee printed, which could neuer be if might not be read : to be briefe, I writ it ouer, and, as neare as I could, followed the copy, onely in that letter [ — to his brother poets — ] I put something out, but in the whole booke not a worde in ; for I protest it was all Greenes, not mine, nor Maister Nashes, as some vniustly haue affirmed." Nash was very angry at the report of its being written by him : "Other newes I am aduertised of, that a scald triuiall lying pamphlet, cald Greens Groats-worth of Wit, is giuen out to be of my doing. God neuer haue care of my soule, but vtterly renounce me, if the least word or Billable in it proceeded from my pen, or if I were any way priuie to the writing or printing of it." — Epistle from the Author to the Printer, before Pierce Pcnnilesse hi* Supplication to the Diuell (I quote from ed. 1595). Mr. Collier (Life of Shakespeare, p. exxxi.) has expressed "some doubts of the authenticity of the Groatsworth of Wit as a work by Greene." But (as I have observed in my Account of Marlowe ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 69 trative of our author's life, have been before cited (see p. 17, sqq.) : and I now extract the very striking and impressive Address to his brother play-wrights, with which it concludes : * " To those Gentlemen his quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits in making playes, R. G. wisheth a better exercise, and wisedome to preuent his extremities. "If wofull experience may mooue you, gentlemen, to beware, or vnheard-of wretchednes intreat you to take heed, I doubt not but you will look backe with sorrow on your time past, and endeuour with repentance to spend that which is to come. Wonder not (for with thee will I first beginne), thou famous gracer of tragedians, t that Green, who hath said with thee, like the foole in his heart, ' There is no God,' should now giue glorie vnto his greatnesse ; for penetrating is his power, his hand lyes heauy vpon me, he hath spoken vnto me with a voyce of thunder, and I haue felt J he is a God that can punish enemies. Why should thy excellent wit, his gift, be so blinded that thou shouldest giue no glory to the giuer 1 Is it pestilent Machiuilian policie that thou hast studied 1 peevish§ follie ! what are his rules but meere confused mockeries, able to extirpate in small time the generation of mankinde 1 for if sic volo, sic iubeo, holde in those that are able to commaund, and if it be lawfull fas et nefas, to doo any thing that is beneficiall, onely tyrants should possesse the earth, and they, striuing to exceed in tirauny, should ech to other be a slaughterman, till, the mightyest out-liuing all, one stroke were left for Death, that in one age mans life shoidd end. The broacher|| of this dyabolicall atheisme is dead, and in his life had neuer the felicitie he aymed at, but, as he beganne in craft, liued in feare, and ended in dispaire. Qiutm inscrutabilia sunt Dei indicia ! This murderer of many brethren had his conscience seared like Cayne ; this betrayer of him that gaue his life for him inherited the portion of Judas; this apostata perished as ill as Julian : and wilt thou, my friend, be his disciple? Looke vnto mee, by him perswaded to that libertie, and thou shalt finde it an infernall bondage. I know the least of my demerits merit this miserable death ; but wdfull striuing against knowne truth exceedeth all the terrors of my soule. Deferre not, with mee, till this last point of extremitie ; for little knowest thou how in the end thou shalt be visited. and his Writings, p. xxx, note, ed. 1858) I cannot think these doubts well-founded. The Address to the play-wrights has an earnestness which is scarcely consistent with forgery ; and Chettle, though an indigent, appears to have been a respectable man. Besides, the Groats-worth of Wit, from beginning to end, closely resembles in style the other prose-works of Greene. * I quote from the edition of 1617. + i. e. Christopher Marlowe. t felt] Old ed. "left." § peevish] Old ed. "punish." II broacher] Old ed. "Brother." "Probably Francis Kett, A.M. of Wimondham in Norfolk, who was bred at Bennet College in Cambridge, and was chosen fellow 1573. In February 1589 he was burnt at Norwich for holding detestable opinions against Christ." — MS. Note by Malone. (JO ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. " With thee I ioyne young Juueuall,* that byting satyrist, that lastlyt with mee together writ a comedie. Sweet boy, might I aduise thee, be aduised, and get not many enemies by bitter words : inueigh against vaine men, for thou canst doo it, no man better, no man so well ; thou hast a libertie to reprooue all and name none ; for one being spoken to, all are offended, — none beeing blamed, no man is iniuried. Stop shallow water still running, it will rage ; tread on a worme, and it will turne ; then blame not schollers who are vexed with sharpe and bitter lines, if they reprooue thy too much liberty of reproofe. " And thouj no lesse deseruing then the other two, in some things rarer, in nothing inferiour, driuen, as myselfe, to extreame shifts, a little haue I to say to thee ; and, were it not an idolatrous oath, I would sweare by sweet S. George, thou art vnworthy better hap, sith thou dependest on so meane a stay. Base-minded men all three of you, if by my misery yee bee not warned ; for vnto none of you, like me, sought those burs to cleaue ; those puppits, I meane, that speake from our mouths, those anticks garnisht in our colours. Is it not strange that I to whome they all haue bin beholding, is it not like that you to whom they all haue bin beholding, shall, were yee in that case that I am now, be both of them at once forsaken 1 Yes, trust them not ; for there is an vpstart crow § * i.e. Thomas Lodge. His Fig for Momus, printed in 1595, shows his talent as a "byting satyrist." The "comedie " here alluded to is A Looking-glass for London and England. " Dr. Farmer is of opinion that the second person addressed by Greene is not Lodge, but Nashe, who is often called Juvenal by the writers of that time ; but that he was not meant, is decisively proved by the extract from Chettle's pamphlet [see p. 58, note, of this memoir] ; for he [Chettle] never would have laboured to vindicate Nashe from being the writer of the Groatsworth of Wit, if any part of it had been professedly addressed to him. Besides, Lodge had written a play in conjunction with Greene, called A Looking-glass for London and England, and was author of some satirical pieces ; but we do not know that Nashe and Greene had ever written in conjunction." — Malone's Life of Shakespeare, p. 307, ed. 1821. t lastly] Qy. "lately"? X i. e. George Peele. § By the "crow beautified with our feathers" and " the onely Shake-scene in a countrey," it is evident that Greene alludes to Shakespeare, who, beyond all doubt, began to cater for the stage by altering the works of other dramatists: — "our feathers" must mean certain plays which had been written, either separately or conjointly, by Greene, Marlowe, Lodge, or Peele. — It is well known that The Second and Third Parts of Shakespeare's Henry Vlth are founded on two old "histories" entitled The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c, and The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c ; and that in The True Tragedie, and also in The Third Part of Ilenry Vlth, act i. sc. 4, occurs the line, " tiger's heart, wrapt in a woman's hide," — which Greene here parodies, — "with his Tygres heart wrapt in a players hyde." Hence it has been concluded that Greene, or some of the friends whom he now addresses, had a share in the com- position of The First Part of the Contention, &c, and of The True Tragedie, &c. : and my own conviction is, that both pieces were mainly (if, indeed, not wholly) by Marlowe, who, alone of the dramatists in question, could have thrown into those two plays the vigour which is so remarkable in several scenes. (See more on this subject in my Account of Marlowe and his WritingSj pp. xlviii — ix, cd. 1858.) — A vast number of early English dramas, once acted with success, but never printed, has ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 01 beautified with our feathers, that, with his Tygres heart wrapt in a players hyde, supposes hee is as well able to bombast out a blanke-verse as the best of you ; and, beeing an absolute Iohannes-fac-totum, is in his owne conceyt the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. Oh, that I might intreat your rare wittes to bee imployed in more profitable courses, and let these apes imitate your past excellence, and neuer more acquaynte them with your admyred inuentions ! I knowe the best husband of you all will neuer prooue an usurer, and the kindest of them all will neuer prooue a kinde nurse : yet, whilst you may, seeke you better maisters ; for it is pitty men of such rare wits should bee subiect to the pleasures of such rude groomes. " In this I might insert two more that both haue writte against these buckram gentlemen : but let their owne worke seme to witnesse against theyr owne wicked- nesse, if they perseuer to maintaine any more such peasants. For other new commers, I leaue them to the mercie of these painted monsters, who, I doubt not, will di-iue the best-minded to despise them : for the rest, it skills not though they make a ieast at them. " But now returne I again to you three, knowing my miserie is to you no newes ; and let me heartilie intreate you to be warned by my harmes. Delight not, as I haue done, in irreligious oaths, for from the blasphemers house a curse shall not depart. Despise drunkennes, which wasteth the wit, and maketh * men all equall vnto beasts. Flie lust, as the deathsman of the soule, and defile not the temple of entirely perished : nor is it improbable that there may have been among them some rifacimenti by Shakespeare of plays in which Greene and his friends were largely concerned. In Greene's Funeralls, by R. B., 1594, (see before, p.39) are the following lines, which seem to have been suggested by the passage in the Address which we are now considering ; " Greene is the pleasing obiect of an eie : Greene pleasde the eies of all that lookt vppon him. Greene is the ground of euerie painters die : Greene gaue the ground to all that wrote vpon him. Nay, more, the men that so eclipsl his fame, Purloynde his plumes : can they deny the same ? " — Sig. C. It has been already shown by a quotation from the preface to Kind-harts Dreame (see p. 58, note) that Chettle was the editor of the Groats-Worth of Wit, which, as Greene's hand-writing was bad, he had copied out for the press, his only deviation from the original MS. being the omission of some- thing in this Address. From the same preface it appears that "one or two" of the persons pointed at in the Address were offended by the allusions to them, and suspected that they were the forgeries of Greene's editor. There can be no doubt that in the following passage Chettle is speaking of Marlowe and Shakespeare. "With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them [Marlowe] I care not if I neuer be : the other [Shakespeare], whome at that time I did not so much spare as since I wish I had, for that as I haue moderated the heate of liuing writers, and might haue vsde my owne discretion (especially in such a case) the author beeing dead, that I did not, I am as sory as if the oiiginall fault had beene my fault, because my selfe have seene his demeanor no lesse ciuill than he exclent in the qualitie he professes ; besides, diuers of worship haue reported his vprigbtnes of dealing which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writting that aprooues his art. For the first, whose learning I reuerence, and, at the perusing of Greenes booke, stroke out what then in conscience I thought he in some displeasure writ, or, had it beene true yet to publish it was intolerable, him I would wish to vse me no worse than I deserue." * maketh] Old ed. "making." 62 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. the Holy Ghost. Abhorre those epicures whose loose life hath made religion loath- some to your eares ; and when they sooth you with tearms of mastership, remember Robert Greene, whome they haue often so flattered, perishes now for want of comfort. Remember, gentlemen, your Hues are like so many light* tapers, that are with care deliuered to all of you to maintaine : these with wind-puft wrath may be ex- tinguished, witht drunkennesse putj out, with§ negligence let fall ; for mans time of itselfe is not so short but it is more shortened by sinne. The fire of my life j | is now at the last snuffe, and the want of wherewith to sustaine it, there is no substance for life to feed on. Trust not, then, I beseech yee, left to such weake stayes ; for they are as changeable in minde as in many attires. Well, my hand is tyred, and I am forst to leaue where I would beginne ; for a whole booke cannot contain their wrongs, IT which I am forst to knit vp in some few lines of wordes. " Desirous that you should liue, though himselfe be dying, Robert Greene." Such was Greene's impressive exhortation to his companions, of whom, Lodge excepted, a melancholy tale is to be told : Marlowe was stabbed in a fray, and Peele died in poverty, the victim (it is said) of his vices. To the Groats- Worth of Wit is appended, — " A Letter written to his wife, found with this booke after his death. " The remembrance of many wrongs offered thee, and thy vnreprooued vertues, adde greater sorrow to my miserable state then I can vtter or thou conceiue. Neyther is it lessened by consideration of thy absence (though shame would let mee hardly behold thy face), but exceedingly aggrauated for that I cannot (as I ought) to thy owne selfe reconcile myselfe, that thou mightest witnesse my inward woe at this instant, that haue made thee a wofull wife for so long a time. But equal heauen hath denied that comfort, giuing, at my last neede, like succour as I haue sought all my life : being in this extremitie as voyde of helpe as thou hast beene of hope. Reason would that, after so long waste, I should not send thee a childe to bring thee greater charge : but consider hee is the fruite of thy wombe, in whose face regard not the fathers so nmch as thy owne perfections. Hee is yet Greene, and may grow strait, if he be carefully tended : otherwise apt enough (I feare me) to follow his fathers folly. That I haue offended thee highly, I know ; that thou canst forgette • li//ht] i.e. lit, — lighted. t with] Old ed. " which." % put] Old ed. "puts." § with] Old ed. "which." || life) Old ed. "ligbt." Some words seem to have dropt out from this sentence. TI their wrotiyi] i e. the wrongs done by them. So in Shakespeare's Tempest, act v. sc. 1 ; "Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick," &c. ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 63 my iniuries, I hardly beleeue : yet perswade I my selfe, if thou saw my wretched estate, thou couldest not but lament it ; nay, certainely I know thou wouldest. All my wrongs muster themselues about me ; euery euill at once plagues me. For my contempt of God I am contemned of men ; for my swearing and forswearing no man will beleeue me ; for my gluttony I suffer hunger ; for my drunkennes, thirst ; for my adulterie, vlcerous sores. Thus God hath cast mee downe, that I might bee humbled, and punished me for example of others sinne ; and although he suffers me in this world to perish without succour, yet trust I in the world to come to find mercy, by the merits of my Sauiour, to whom I commend thee and commit my soule. Thy repentant husband for his disloyaltie, Robert Greene." Greene had been but a short time in his grave, when the pen of Gabriel Harvey endeavoured to blacken his memory in a work, the fierce malignity of which has thrown an indelible stain upon the character of its author. Let us particularly inquire what excited the overboiling rage of this personage against our poet. Gabriel Harvey, Doctor of Laws, though now only remembered in literary history as the friend of Spenser and the antagonist of Nash, was a writer of considerable celebrity during his day. He was a profound scholar, and no inelegant composer of verses : some of his productions evince great learning and research ; and though it is impossible to admire his hobbling English hexameters (of which he pompously proclaimed himself the inventor *), we cannot read his lines prefixed to Tlie Faerie * " If I neuer deserue anye better remembraunce, let mee rather be epitaphed The Inuentour of the English Hexameter, whome learned M. Stanihurst imitated in his Virgill, and excellent Sir Phillip Sidney disdained not to follow in his Arcadia and elsewhere, then be chronicled The Greene Maister of the Blacke Arte, or The Founder of Vgly Oathes, or The Father of Misbegotten Infortunatus, or The Scriuener of Crosbiters, or, as one of his owne sectaries termed him, The Patriarch of Shifters." G. Haryey's Fovre Letters, &c. 1592. p. 19. " Imagin me to come into a goodly Kentishe garden of your old lords, or some other nol le man, and spying a florishing bay tree there, to demaunde extempore, as followeth : think vppon Petrarches ' Arbor vittoriosa, triomfale, Onor d'imperadori e di poete ; ' and perhappes it will aduaunce the wynges of your imagination a degree higher ; at the least, if any thing can be added to the loftinesse of his conceite whom gentle Mistresse Rosalinde once reported to haue all the intelligences at commaundement, and an other time christend her Segnior Pegaso : 'Encomium Lauri. 'What might I call this tree ? a laurell ? bonny laurell ! Needes to thy bowes will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto. Who, but thou, the renowne of prince and princely poeta ? Th' one for crowne, for garland th' other thanketh Apollo. Thrice happy Daphne, that turned was to the bay tree, Whom such seruauntes serue as challenge seruiee of all men. Who chiefe lorde and king of kings but th' emperour only ? And poet of right stampe«ouerawith th' emperour himselfe. 64 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. Queene without acknowledging their beauty. He had a tolerable share of vanity : he plumed himself on his intimacy with the great ; and courting notoriety by the richness and peculiarity of his attire, he affected the Venetian costume after his return from Italy. Moving in the world's eye as the friend and associate of some of his most distinguished contemporaries, he was weak enough to be extremely anxious to conceal one vexatious fact ; namely, that his father, though a man of good family, had been a rope-maker at Saffron-Walden. He had two brothers, Richard a divine, and John a physician : with them he became a dabbler in astrology, and a prognos- ticator of earthquakes ; but the course of events not agreeing with their predictions, they had to undergo much bitter ridicule. In evil hour did Richai-d Harvey in one of his publications speak slightingly and insultingly of the fraternity of poets to which Greene belonged. Our author determined not to allow this impertinence to pass unpunished ; and having reason to believe that Gabriel's " hand was in it," he resolved to take vengeance on the Harveys at one fell swoop* Accordingly in his Who but knowes Aretyne ? was lie not halfe prince to the princes ? And many a one there Hues as nobly minded at all poyntes. Now farewell, bay tree, very queene and goddesse of all trees, Kitchest perle to the crowne, and fayrest floure to the garland. Faine wod I craue, might I so presume, some farther acquaintaunce : that I might ! but I may not : woe to my destinie therefore ! Trust me, not one more loyall seruaunt longes to thy personage. But what sayes Daphne ? Non omni dorinio : worse lucke : Yet farewell, farewell, the reward of those that I honour : Glory to garden ! glory to Muses ! glory to vertue ! ' Partim Ioui et Palladi, Partim Apollini et Musis." G. Harvey's Three proper and wittie familiar Letters, &c. 1580. p. 3£. Nash thus alludes to, and parodies, the precious effusion last quoted ; " Tyll Greene awakte him out of his selfe-admiring contemplation, hee had nothing to doe, but walke vnder the ewe tree at Trinitie hall, and say ; ' What may I call this tree ? an ewe tree ? bonny ewe tree ! Needes to thy boughs will [I] bow this knee, and vaile my bonneto.' " Or make verses of weathercocks on the top of steeples, as he did once of the weathercocke of Alhallows in Cambridge ; ' thou weathercocke that stands on the top of the Church of Alhallows, Come thy waies down, if thou darst for thy crowne, and take the wall o' vs.' * " heathenish and pagan hexamiters ! Come thy waies down from thy doctourship, and learne thy Primer of Poetry ouer again ; for certainly thy pen is in state of a reprobate with all men of iudgement and reckoning." Strange Neives, &c. 1592, Sig. D 2. Peele too ridicules the Encomium, Lauri in his Old Wives Tale by putting a line of it into the mouth of HuanebaDgo. * "Somewhat I am priuie to the cause of Greenes inueighing against the three brothers. Thy hot- spirited brother Richard (a notable ruffian with his pen) hauing first tooke vpon him in his blundring Persiual to play the Iacke of both sides twixt Martin and vs, and snarled priuily at Pap-hatchet, Pasquill, and others, that opposde themselues against the open slaunder of that mightie platformer of atheisme, presently after dribbed forth another fooles bolt, a booke I shoulde say, which he christened The Lambe of God Not mee alone did hee reuile and dare to the combat, but glickt at Pap-hatchet once more, and mistermed all our other poets and writers about London ' piperly " o' w] Oldod. "on vs." ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 66 Quip for an Upstart Courtier, or A quaint dispute between Veluet-BreecJies and Cloth- Breeches, &c.,* published but a few weeks before his death, he inserted a stinging sarcasm of seven or eight lines against the whole generation of the rope-maker. This tract having been reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany (vol. v.) does not now demand a particular description : the reader, however, who may turn to it, will look in vain for any thing which can be considered as at all pointed against the family of Harveys, except the following passage, t " The Rope-maker replied, that honestly iourneying by the way he acquainted himselfe with the Collier, and for no other cause pretended, 'Honest with the diuell!' quoth the Collier : ' howe can he be honest, whose mother I gesse was a witch ? for I haue heard them say that witches say their praiers backward, and so doth the Rope-maker yearne his lining by going backward, and the knaues cheefe liuing is by making fatall instruments, as halters and ropes, which make-plaies and make-bates.' Hence Greene, beeing chiefe agent for the companie (for bee writ more than foure other, how well I will not say, but Sat cilo, si sat bene), tooke occasion to canuaze him a little in his Cloth-breeches and Veluet-breeches ; and because by some probable collections hee gest the elder brothers hand was in it, he coupled them both in one yoake, and, to fulfill the prouerbe Tria sunt omnia, thrust in the third brother who made a perfect parriall of pamphleters. About some seauen or eight lines it was which hath piuckt on an iuuectiue of so many leaues." — Nash's Strange Newes x &c. 1592, Sig. C 2, 3. "Mast. Lilly neuer procured Greene or mee to write against him [Gabriel Haruey], but it was his own first seeking and beginning in The Lamb of God, where he and his brother (that loues dauncing so well) scumnierd out betwixt them an Epistle to the Readers against all poets and writers, and M. Lilly and me by name he beruffianizd and berascald, compar'd to Martin, and termd vs piperly make-plaies and make-bates, yet bad vs holde our peace and not be so hardie as to answere him, for if we did, he would make a bloudie day in Poules Church-yard, and splinter our pens til they stradled again, as wide as a paire of compasses." — Nash's Haue with you to Saffron-walden, 1596, Sig. V 2. * Greeue has silently borrowed the whole substance of his Quip from a poem by Francis Thynn, entitled The Debate betweenc Pride and Lowlines, &c. ; which in 1841 was reprinted for the Shake. Soc. under the editorship of Mr. Collier, who observes ; " But one copy of ' The Debate betwecne Pride and Lowlines ' is known, and that is preserved at Iiridgewater House . . . . it is very possible that it was never published for sale : the copy in question \\ as, doubtless, presented to the then head of the family ; and it has been handed down, through the Earls and Dukes of Bridgewater, to its present possessor, Lord Francis Egerton. Greene had, perhaps, lighted accidentally upon a copy of • The Debate,' and as many years had elapsed between the printing of it, and the period v, r hen he wished to avail himself of its contents, he might imagine that he could do so without much fear of detection. The initials F. T. only are upon the title-page of ' The Debate,' and it is doubtful if Greene, even in that day, knew who was the writer of it. That the offence Greene had committed, in this respect, was not discovered at the time, we have this evidence : — Greene and Gabriel Harvey were bitter enemies : the latter brought all sorts of charges against the former for calling him the son of a rope maker, in the ' Quip for an Upstart Courtier ' ; and, if Harvey (a man extremely well versed in contemporary literature) had been aware of the fact that Greene's ' Quip' had been purloined from 'The Debate,' he would not have failed to make abundant use of the fact against his adversary. Harvey's silence renders it still more likely that 'The Debate' was never published," &c. Introduction, p. vi. Thynn's poem has no date : but Mr. Collier has distinctly shown that it must have been in print more than twenty years before Greene's Quip appeared. t Well might the editor of the Harleian Miscellany, 1810, exclaim in a note on this passage; "It seems not a little extraordinary that in this general sarcasm on professions and trades, the character of the rope-maker, which is one of those most leniently drawn, should have been conceived to point so spitefully and villainously at Gabriel Harvey's father," &c. — Vol. v. p. 410. "How is he [Gabriel's father] abused? Instead of his name, hee is called by the craft hee gets his liuing with." Nash's Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. D. F 06 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. diners desperate men hang themselues with.' " Sig. D 3, ed. 1592. The truth is (and I cannot but wonder that the fact should have escaped the notice of those biographers and critics who have written concerning Greene and Harvey) that the lines which so mortally offended Gabriel were suppressed by our author : it should seem that the obnoxious page was cancelled ; and perhaps not a single uncastrated copy of the Quip has descended to our times. I at first imagined that the attack on the three coxcombs had only been handed about in MS., but I have now no doubt that it formed part of the original edition of the tract : Christopher Bird expressly mentions " the publica- tion of that vile pamphlet ;" see his letter in the note below, where the different motives that Harvey and Nash have assigned to Greene for the suppression of the passage will also be found.* In the " three brothers' legend " their various foibles were no doubt most provokingly touched on. To it Nash alludes thus; " It was not for nothing, brother Richard, that Greene told you you kist your parishioners wiues with holy kisses," &c. Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. C 4. ; again, " Tubalcan, alias Tuball, first founder of Farriers Hall, heere is a great complaint made, that vtriusque academioB Robertus Greene hath mockt thee, because hee saide that, as thou wert the first inuenter of musicke, so Gabriell Howliglasse was the first inuenter of English hexameter verses." Id. Sig. G 2. ; and again ; " One of the tln-ee {whom the Quip * Christopher Bird writes thus from Walden, 29th August, 1592, to Emanuel Demetrius in London ; "In steed of other nouels [i. e. news] I sende you my opinion, in a plaine but true sonnet, vpon the famous new worke intituled A Quippe for an vpstart Corn-tier, or, forsooth, A quaint Dispute betweene Veluet-breeches and Cloth-breeches • as fantasticall and fond a dialogue as I haue seene, and, for some particulars, one of the most licentious and intolerable inucctiues that euer I read. Wherein the leawd fellow and impudent rayler, in an odious and desperate moode, without any other cause or reason, amongst sondry other persons notoriously deffamed, most spitefully and villanously abuseth an auncient neighbour of mine, one M. Haruey, a right honest man of good reckoninge, and one that aboue twenty yeres since bare the chiefest office in Walden with good credite ; and bath mainetained foure sonnes in Cambridge and else where with great charges, all sufficiently able to aunsweare for themselues, and three (in spite of some few Greenes) vniuersally well reputed in both vniuersities and through the whole realme. Whereof one, returning sicke from Norwich to Linne, in luly last, was past sence of any such malicious iniury, before the publication of that vile pamphlet." — Fovre Letters and certaine Sonnets, 1592, p. 3. In the same work Gabriel Harvey says ; "In his extreamest want he [Greene] offered ten or, rather then faile, twenty shillinges to the printer (a huge som with him at that instant) to leaue out the matter of the three brothers ; with confession of his great feare to be called Coram for those forged imputations." — p. 5. To which Nash replies ; " Haud facile credo, I am sure the printer, beeing of that honestie that I take him for, will not amrrae it. " Marry, this I must say : there was a learned doctour of phisicke (to whom Greene in his sickenesse sent for counsaile) that, hauing read ouer the booke of Veluet-breeches and Cloth-breeches, and laughing mernlie at the three brothers legend, wild [i. e. wished, desired] Green in any case either to mittigate it or leaue it out ; not for any extraordinarie account hee made of the fraternitie of fooles, but for one of them was proceeded in the same facultie of phisicke bee profest, and wi'llinglie hee would haue none of that excellent calling ill spoken off. This was the cause of the altring of it, the feare of his phisitions displeasure, not any feare else." Strange Newes, &c. ed. 1592, Sig. D 4. ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 07 entitles tlic Physition)," &c. Id. Sig. D. Greene having died soon after he had shot this shaft of ridicule at the Harveys, Gabriel, disappointed in his hopes of punishing by a legal process the calumniator of himself and family, meanly spit his venom on the poet's grave. That his Fovre Letters, and certaine Sonnets*