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? Yes, trust them not: for there is an vpstart crow 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 Johannes Fac-totum, is, in his owne conceyt, the onely Shake-scene in a countrey." Here is a manifest allusion to Shakespeare; and it would seem by the expression "beautified with our feathers," that he had remodelled certain pieces, in the composition of which Greene, Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele had been either separately or jointly concerned: it would seem too that Greene more particularly alludes to the two old dramas entitled The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, and The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, on which (as before mentioned) Shakespeare formed The Second and Third Parts of King Henry the Sixth; for the words "his Tygres heart wrapt in a players hyde" are a parody upon a line in The True Tragedie, "Oh, tygers hart wrapt in a womans hide!"' 41 That this address of the dying man gave offence 41 Sig. B 2, ed. 1595. Shakespeare has retained the line: see Third Part of King Henry the Sixth, act i. sc. 4.—Greene, Lodge, and Peele may each perhaps have had a hand in The First Part of the Contention and in The True Tragedie; but their undisputed works show that they were quite incapable of rising to the vigour of conception and expression which characterise some scenes in those two dramas. We might, both to Marlowe, whom it charged with atheism,42 and to Shakespeare, at whom it so sarcastically pointed, we learn from Chettle's epistle "To the Gentlemen Readers" prefixed to his Kind-Harts Dreame, &c., n. d. “About three moneths since," says Chettle, “died M. Robert Greene, leauing many papers in sundry bookesellers hands; among other, his Groatsworth of Wit, in which a letter written to diuers play-makers is offensiuely by one or two of them taken; and because on the dead they cannot be auenged, they wilfully forge in their conceites a liuing author; and after tossing it two [to] and fro, no remedy but it must light on me. How I haue all the time of my conuersing in printing43 hindred the bitter inueying against schollers, it hath been very well knowne, and how in that I dealt I can sufficiently prooue. With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them [i. e. Marlowe] I care not if I neuer be: the other [i. e. 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 therefore, confidently ascribe to Marlowe a large portion of both, even if both did not in some passages closely resemble his Edward the Second: see the Account of Marlowe, &c. p. xlviii. prefixed to his Works, ed. Dyce, 1858. Indeed, I have a strong suspicion that The First Part of the Contention and The True Tragedie are wholly by Marlowe. 42 Wonder not (for with thee will I first beginne), thou famous gracer of tragedians [i.e. Marlowe], that Green, who hath said with thee, like the foole in his heart, There is no God, should now giue glorie vnto his greatnesse," &c. 43 Chettle was originally a printer. did not, I am as sorry as if the originall fault had beene my fault, because myselfe haue seene his demeanor no lesse ciuill than he exclent in the qualitie he professes; besides, diuers of worship haue reported his vprightnes of dealing which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writting that approoues 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 intollerable; him I would wish to vse me no worse than I deserue. I had onely in the copy this share; it 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 it might not be read: to be briefe, I writ it ouer, and, as neare as I could, followed the copy, onely in that letter I put something out, but in the whole booke not a worde in; for I protest it was all Greenes, not mine, nor Master Nashes, as some vniustly haue affirmed."44 A striking testimony indeed, not only to Shakespeare's ability as an actor and as an author, but to his worth as a man. In 1593 Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, and in 44 Mr. Collier observes (Life of Shakespeare, p. 102, sec. ed.): “We have some doubts of the authenticity of the 'Groatsworth of Wit' as a work by Greene. Chettle was a needy dramatist, and possibly wrote it in order to avail himself of the high popularity of Greene, then just dead.” On which remark I must here repeat what I have said elsewhere (Account of Marlowe, &c. p. xxx. prefixed to his Works, ed. Dyce, 1858): "I cannot think these doubts well founded. The only important part of the tract, 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 Groatsworth of Wit, from beginning to end, closely resembles in style the other prose works of Greene." 1594 his Lucrece, issued from the press, both dedicated to Henry Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton, who was Shakespeare's junior by more than nine years.45-That the Venus and Adonis (which the author styles “the first heir of my invention") was not a recent composition in 1593, is probable enough. Mr. Collier "feels morally certain that it was in being anterior to Shakespeare's quitting Stratford;"46 and it may have been: but I cannot agree with him in thinking that the scenery of the poem is any evidence that such was the case:— "it seems," he says, "to have been written in the open air of a fine country like Warwickshire, with all the freshness of the recent impression of natural objects." Mr. Collier might as well argue that, because As you like it has so much of pastoral life, it was written at a distance from the metropolis: and I have yet to learn that the fancy of Shakespeare could not luxuriate in rural images even amid the fogs of Southwark and the Blackfriars.47-Such was the popularity of Venus and Adonis that it had reached a fifth edition in 1602: the editions of the Lucrece appear to have followed each other less rapidly; yet both are mentioned together with equal praise by several contemporary writers,18 45 He was born Oct. 6th, 1573. 46 Life of Shakespeare, p. 88, sec. ed.: he thinks that Lucrece too might have been written at Stratford, p. 90: to which place Mr. Armitage Brown also refers the composition of both, Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems, &c. p. 18. 47 "Milton wrote his Paradise Lost in London, as did Thomson his three last Seasons and his charming Castle of Indolence." Note by J. Warton in his ed. of Pope's Works, vol. iv. p. 222. 45 A passage of Meres's Palladis Tamia, &c., 1598, which contains -for instance, by Barnfield in a copy of verses entitled A Remembrance of some English Poets,49 "And Shakespeare, thou, whose hony-flowing vaine Liue euer you, at least in fame liue euer: Well may the bodye dye, but fame dies neuer. Whether the dedication of the Venus and Adonis first introduced Shakespeare to the amiable and accomplished Southampton, or whether their acquaintance originated in the fondness of the latter for theatrical exhibitions, 50-it appears that before long they were on terms as friendly and familiar as the usages of society would allow at a period when the profession of a player was reckoned far from reputable. "There is," says Rowe, "one instance so singular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakespear's, that if I had not been assured that the story was handed down by Sir William Davenant, who was probably very well ac a notice of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, will be subsequently cited. 49 Among Poems in diuers humors,-appended to his Encomion of Lady Pecunia, &c., 1598. 50 Throughout life Southampton retained his love for the drama. Rowland Whyte tells Sir Robert Sidney, in a letter dated Oct. 11th, 1599: "My Lord Southampton and Lord Rutland came [come] not to the court: the one doth but very seldom : they pass away the tyme in London merely in going to plaies every day." Sidney Papers, ii. 132. At that date Southampton "came not to court," in consequence of the disgrace of his friend Essex, who was then in confinement at the Lord Keeper's house for having returned from Ireland without the permission of the queen. 1 Life of Shakespeare. |