for some unassigned reason, he lost his preferment, but not until, consistently with his clerical character, he had published 'a Translation of a Sermon by Pope Gregory 13th.' The printing of his Morando, the Tritameron of Love in 1584, might have some connection with his loss of the Vicarage of Tollesbury. Greene then came to London, where he probably supported himself by his flowing pen, and in 1587 he was joined in the capital by his friend Thomas Nash. Greene was by birth a Norfolk man,1 and Nash of Suffolk; and although the latter was younger than the former, they had possibly first become acquainted at Cambridge, which university Nash quitted in 1587. We may conclude that Greene's Menaphon, printed in 1587, and to which Nash wrote an introductory

' While Thomas Lodge was on a voyage with Cavendish, Greene published Eupheus Shadow, the Battaile of the Sences, in 1592, professing that it was the work of his 'absent friend': the dedication is signed 'Rob. Greene, Norfolciensis'. It is a small tract of extraordinary rarity. If not in fact by Greene himself, it is a direct imitation of his style, both in prose (of which it mainly consists) and verse (of which three pieces, in rhyme, are interspersed). The following is the best specimen :-

'The Epitaph of Eurimone.

'Heere lies ingravde in prime of tender age,

Eurimone, too pearlesse in disdaine :
Whose proud contempt no reason might asswage,
Till love, to quite all wronged lovers paine,
Bereft her wits, when as her friend was gone,
Who now lyes tombed in this marble stone.
'Let Ladies learne her lewdnes to eschew,

And whilst they live in freedome of delight,
To take remorse, and lovers sorrowes rew,

For why contempt is answered with despight.
Remembering still this sentence sage and ould,

Who will not yonge, they may not when they would.'

Lodge was by no means above the imitation of Greene, and wrote a drama in concert with him, printed in 1594.

epistle, appeared early in that year, because in Greene's Euphues, his Censure to Philautus, of the same date, it is mentioned as already in print. Some lines by 'Thomas Brabine, Gent., in praise of the Author', prefixed to the Menaphon, are of importance, as we may infer from them, that prior to 1587 Greene had attempted dramatic poetry, and having failed to a certain extent, as was alleged, published Menaphon in order to show that he could do something better:

Come foorth you witts that vaunt the pompe of speach,

And strive to thunder from a Stageman's throate!

View Menaphon, a note beyond your reach,

Whose sight will make your drumming descant doate.
Players avaunt! You know not to delight.

Welcome, sweet Shepheard, worth a Scholler's sight.'

It will be remarked that this writer, speaking of the verses pronounced by players, uses precisely the epithet which Nash employs in his prefatory epistle to Menaphon; Brabine talks of a ‘drumming descant', and Nash of a ‘drumming decasyllabon', both meaning the blank-verse which, we apprehend, Marlow had just rendered acceptable to popular audiences.

Of Greene's numerous tracts two have obtained extraordinary distinction. Upon one of them, Pandosto, the Triumph

1 There is a remarkable circumstance connected with one of his prose pamphlets that has never been mentioned-viz., that his Quip for an Upstart Courtier, or a Dispute between Velvet-breeches and Cloth-breeches, printed in 1592, is, in a great degree, a plagiarism from an old poem under the following title:-'The Debate betweene Pride and Lowlines pleaded to an issue in Assize; and howe a Jurie, with great indifferencie being impannelled and redy to have geven their verdict, were straungely intercepted: no less pleasant then profitable. F. T., etc. Seene and allowed. Imprinted at London, by John Charlwood, for Rafe Newbery, dwelling in Fleetestrete a litle above the Condite.' It has no date, but

1

of Time, 1588, Shakespeare founded his Winter's Tale; and the other, A Groatsworth of Wit, 1592, contains the earliest notice of our great dramatic poet, whom Greene (consistently

it was probably not published after the year 1580. F. T. are no doubt the initials of the author, Francis Thyrne, who states himself to have been a lawyer, and his correct and frequent application of law terms proves that he was so. The dispute between Velvet-breeches and Clothbreeches is conducted precisely as in Greene's tract, the conclusion only being different: Greene proceeds to the delivery of the verdict, but in the poem, which was his original in other respects, the trial is interrupted by the arrival of men armed with swords and bucklers, the adherents of Velvet-breeches, who cut Cloth-breeches to pieces. The following is F. T.'s description of Velvet-breeches, a line in which will establish Greene's obligation :

'I did perceive then what it was in deede,
That is to weete, a goodly velvet breech,
Which in its furniture dyd so exceede,

As hardly shall ye finde it yf ye seech.

'For it was all of velvet very fine,

The neather stockes of pure Granado silke;
Such as came never upon legges of myne:
Their cooller cleane contrary unto milke.

'This breech was paned in the fayrest wyse,
And with right satten very costly lyned;
Embrodered according to the guise,

With golden lace full craftely engined.'

Greene, describing Velvet-breeches, says of him,' the nether stocke was of the purest Granado silke', which identifies the two works. The entrance of Cloth-breeches, as described in the poem, affords another proof to the same effect

'There came another paire, but softer pase
And never ceased rolling, tyll they came
Into the dale and there had taken place:
Now listen, for me thought this litle game.

with the envious spirit he displayed towards Marlow in 1588) calls the only Shake-scene in a country'.

Our business with Greene is as an author of plays, and it may be taken for granted that he had assumed that character before 1587. As a writer of novels and pamphlets, he is full

'These breeches I did bound on eyther side,

As one that was in middle them betweene:
These last were but of cloth, withouten pride,
And stitche ne gard upon them was to seene.

'Of cloth (I say) both upper stocke and neather,
Paned and single lyned next the thie;

Light for the were, meete for all sorte of weather.
Now, peradventure, you wyl thinke I lye.'

Greene, speaking of the gait of Cloth-breeches, tells us that he walked
a softer pace'. Greene's tract is reprinted in The Harleian Miscellany
(Park's edition, vol. v); and it will be seen that in the prefatory matter
he makes no acknowledgment that he had been at all indebted to any
other work. Thynne's poem is of the greatest possible rarity, and we never
heard of any other copy than that at Bridgewater House, which has es-
caped all notice by our poetical antiquaries. We cannot, therefore, refrain
from giving one or two more brief quotations from it. The following is
the description of one of the persons summoned upon the jury :—

'One of them had a fiddle in his hand,

And pleasant songes he played thereupon,
To[o] queynt and hard for me to understand:
If he were brave I make no question;

'Or yf his furniture were for the daunce:
His breeches great, full of ventositie,

Devised in the castle of playsaunce,

And master of a daunsing schoole was he.'

F. T. and Greene both describe what they saw as if it were a dream (sweven is the older word used by F. T.), and, waking suddenly, both determine to write down their vision. F. T. claims that his narrative will be better than many works of the time, among them Amadis de Gaul and The Palace of Pleasure:—

[Better

!

of affectation, but generally elegant, and sometimes eloquent : it is a misfortune which runs through his works, that he often imitates the popular but puerile allusions of Lily. His invention is poor, from the want of a vigorous imagination, but his fancy is generally lively and graceful. In facility of expression, and in the flow of his blank-verse, he is not to be placed below his contemporary Peele. His usual fault (more discoverable in his plays than in his poems) is an absence of simplicity; but his pedantic classical references, frequently without either taste or discretion, he had in common with the other scribbling scholars of the time. It was Shakespeare's good fortune to be in a great degree without the knowledge, and therefore, if on no other account, without the defect. In one respect Greene may be said to have the advantage of Peele: he sometimes contrives to introduce a little more variety into the rhythm of his blank-verse, although it will still be found in most instances to run with fatiguing similarity. Greene wrote five plays (besides that in conjunction with Thomas Lodge), all of which it will be necessary to notice with more or less brevity, taking 'Better, I wys, then Amadis de Gaule,

Or els the Pallas forced with pleasure;
Who, though they promise honny, yelden gale,
And unto coales do turne their fained treasure;

Or ballads that entreate of nought but love,

Of plaints, unkindnesse, and of gelosie,
Which are of wonderfull effectes to move

Young people's mindes, that reade them, to folly.

'Of whiche, neverthelesse, we dayly see

How many and how coonning are the Clarkes :

I bidde ye not herein to credite me;

Beleeve their writinges and their noble warkes.'

A religious turn is given to the poem in many places, and it ends with 'a prayer to almightie God'. It is in small 8vo, and has been printed entire by the Shakespeare Society.