death, that he contrary to the law of nature had lusted after his own daughter, moved with these desperate thoughts, he fell into a melancholy fit, and to close up the comedy with a tragical stratagem, he slew himself. Whose death being many days bewailed of Fawnia, Dorastus, and his dear friend Egistus, Dorastus taking his leave of his father, went with his wife and the dead corpse into Bohemia, where after they were sumptuously entombed, Dorastus ended his days in contented quiet.

Town and country were, no doubt, alike pleased with this daintily conceited love tale by one of the

TOWN AND COUNTRY.
From Greene's "Quip for an Upstart Courtier."

best dramatists of his day. But in town and country there were many who condemned the plays and players.

Lyly's Euphues led us to Robert Greene as Euphuistic novelist; but we must not advance to works of later date without a glance back at the book of "Mery Tales, Wittie Questions and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant to readde," which continued the line of the jest-books begun with the "Hundred Merry Tales," and which appeared in 1567.

There is evidence of culture in the variety of sources from which this little storybook is drawn. There are anecdotes and sayings of the Greeks and Romans from Plutarch, Livy, Valerius Maximus, and others; there are jests from Italy and jests from France; some traceable to the Arabs; and all put into homely English, with the lesson of life drawn from a tale now and then set forth in a pithy sentence or two at the close. This story is of an ancient type, derived originally from the East:

OF KING LEWIS OF FRANCE AND THE HUSBANDMAN.

What time King Lewis of France the XI. of that name, because of the trouble that was in the realm kept himself in Burgoyne,' he chanced, by occasion of hunting, to become

1 Burgoyne French Bourgogne, Burgundy.

acquainted with one Conon, a homely husbandman and a plain-meaning fellow, in which manner of men the high princes greatly delight them. To this man's house the king oft resorted from hunting, and with great pleasure he would eat radish roots with him. Within a while after, when Lewis was restored home and had the governance of France in his hand, this husbandman was counselled by his wife to take a goodly sort of radish roots and to go and give ther to the king, and put him in mind of the good cheer that he had made him at his house. Conon would not assent thereto. "What, foolish woman!" quoth he; "the great princes remember not such small pleasures." But for all that she would not rest till Conon took out a great sight3 of the fairest roots and took his journey toward the Court. But as he went by the way he ate up all the radishes save one of the greatest.

Conon peaked into the Court, and stood where the king should pass by: by and by the king knew him and called him to him. Conon stepped to the king and presented his root with a glad cheer. And the king took it more gladly, and bade one that was nearest to him to lay it up among those jewels that he best loved; and then commanded Conon to dine with him. When dinner was done, he thanked Conon: and when the king saw that he would depart home, he commanded to give him a thousand crowns of gold for his radish root. When this was known in the king's house, one of the Court gave the king a proper minion horse. The king perceiving that he did it because of the liberality showed unto Conon, with very glad cheer he took the gift, and counselled with his lords how and with what gift he might recompense the horse that was so goodly and fair. This meanwhile the pickthank had a marvellous great hope, and thought in his mind thus: If he so well recompensed the radish root, that was given of a rustical man, how much more largely will he recompense such an horse, that is given of me that am of the Court? When every man had said his mind as though the king had counselled about a great weighty matter, and that they had long fed the pickthank with vain hope, at last the king said: "I remember now what we shall give him ;" and so he called one of his lords, and bade him in his ear go fetch him that that he found in his chamber (and told him the place where) featly folded up in silk. Anon he came and

2 Sort, collection.

3 Sight in the sense of quantity was common in old colloquial English, and is good vulgar English now, "a sight of money," "a precious sight," &c. It was never so used by Shakespeare, or in the best literature. Mr. Halliwell Phillipps quotes from John Palsgrave's "Acolastus" (1540), "Where is so great a strength of money, where is so huge a sight of money."

Peaked. Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood in his Etymological Dictionary gives "To peak, Peaking, Peaking, puling, sickly, from the pipy tone of voice of a sick person. It. "pigolare," to peep as a chicken, to whine or pule; Russ. "pikat," Esthon, "pikama," "piiksuma," to peep as a chicken; Sw. "pjaka," 'pjunka," to pule. "The same connection," Mr. Wedgwood adds, "between the utterance of a thin high note and the idea of looking narrowly, which is noticed under 'Peep,' is exemplified in the present word, which was formerly used in the sense of peeping.

"That one eye winks as though it were but blind,
That other pries and peeks in every place."-Gascoigne.
"Why stand'st thou here then,

Sneaking and peaking as though thou would'st steal linen?
-Beaumont and Fletcher.

5 By and by, immediately.

6 Pickthank is one who does a service for the sake of picking an occasion to obtain substantial return of thanks. "Fine heads," wrote John Lyly, "will pick a quarrel with me if all be not curious, and a thank if anything be current." So Shakespeare, in "Henry IV.," Part I., Act iii. scene 2:

"Of many tales devised

Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hearBy smiling pickthanks."

brought the radish root, and even as it was folded up the king gave it with his own hand to the courtier, saying: "We suppose your horse is well recompensed with this jewel, for it hath cost us a thousand crowns." The courtier went his way never so glad, and when he had unfolded it, he found none other treasure but the radish root almost withered.

shillings. "Whither shall we bring them?" quoth they. "To the Swan in Long Lane by Smithfield," quoth he, and so left them, and sped him thither the next 2 way. When he came to the good man of the Swan he asked if he would buy two good loads of hay? "Yes, marry," said he, "Where be they?" "Even here they come," quoth Makeshift. "What shall I pay?" said the innholder. "Four nobles," quoth he: but at length they agreed for xx shilling. When the hay was come, Makeshift bade them unload. While they were doing so, he came to the innholder, and said: "Sir, I pray you let me have my money, for while my men be unloading I will go into the city to buy a little stuff to have home with me." The goodman was content and gave it him. And so

GREENE RAISED FROM THE GRAVE.

From the title-page to John Dickenson's "Greene in Conceipt," 1598.

This is, from the same collection, the ancient story that has passed into a proverb, of the appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober:

OF THE WOMAN THAT APPEALED FROM KING PHILIP TO KING PHILIP.

A woman which guiltless on a time was condemned by King Philip of Macedon when he was not sober, wherefore she said "I appeal:" "Whither?" quoth the king: "To King Philip," quoth she; "but that is when he is more sober and better advised." Which saying caused the king to look better on the matter, and to do her right.

This writeth Val. Maximus. But Plutarch sayeth it was a man, and King Philip was half asleep when he gave sentence.

And here, akin to the literature of " Coneycatching," is one more story of a shifter:

OF HIM THAT SOLD TWO LOADS OF HAY.

In London dwelled a merry, pleasant man (which for his time we may call Makeshift), who being arrayed somewhat harvestlike, with a pitchfork on his neck, went forth in a morning and met with two load of hay coming to the cityward, for the which he bargained with the owners to pay xxx

This cut, the only known approach to a portrait, if it can be called a portrait, of Greene, is from the title-page to a book entitled "Greene in Conceipt. New raised from his grave to write the Tra gique Historie of faire Valeria of London, &c. Received and reported by I. D." The only discovered copy of it is in the Bodleian. A facsimile of its title-page is given by the Rev. Dr. Grosart in his privately printed volume of the Prose and Verse of John Dickenson, one of the most interesting of a peculiarly useful series of reprints of volumes that survive only in very few or single copies, each reprint being limited to fifty impressions.

AN ELIZABETHAN SHILLING.3 (From Speed's Historie of Britain, 1611.)

66

he went his way. When the men had unloaded the hay they came and demanded their money; to whom the innholder said, "I have paid your master." "What master?" quoth they. "Marry," quoth he, "the same man that made you bring the hay hither." "We know him not," quoth they. "No more do I," quoth he; "that same man bargained with me for the hay and him have I paid: I neither bought nor sold with you." "That is not enough for us," quoth they; and thus they strove together. But what end they made I know not. For I think Makeshift came not again to agree them.

It is a little characteristic of the taste for ingenuity that this shifter is called, by a storyteller who aims at suggestions of practical wisdom, nothing worse than "a merry pleasant man." The purpose of putting men upon their guard against the tricks of rogues was associated with a distinct pleasure in the telling and the reading of them. În what Lyly called the "idolatry of wit" there was a half friendly welcome even for the wit of thieves.

Let us turn now to some wit shaken by an earthquake out of a distinguished member of the University of Cambridge. It seemed wit to him, but to us it rather represents the good-humoured banter among

2 Next, nearest. First English "neah," nigh or near; "nearre," nigher or nearer; "nyhst," or "néhst," nighest or next.

3 An Elizabethan shilling is figured above from the heading to Elizabeth's reign in Speed's History (Edition of 1611). The silver shilling (of twelve pence) was divided into two parts, sixpences or testons (whence the vulgar English tester), and that was again subdivided into pieces worth threepence. Five shillings made a crown, six-and-eight pence a noble, two nobles or thirteen-and-fourpence were a mark. A crown under Elizabeth was a gold coin weighing one pennyweight and nineteen grains. The cross on the shilling and ou other money was a common subject of allusion in literature and in daily life. So in Massinger's "Bashful Lover," "The devil sleeps in my pocket, I have no cross to drive him from it;" and of the same origin is the phrase of "crossing" a fortune-teller's hand with silver. The "angel," also often punned upon, was figured on a gold noble, therefore known as the Angel Noble to distinguish it from the George Noble and the Old Noble. The amount of gold in the Old Noble was 4 dwts. 9) grs.; in the George Noble 3 dwts.; and in the Angel 3 dwts. 7 grs. This was only about 7 grains less than the Elizabeth sovereign. The gold coin representing twenty shillings was known as the Great Sovereign, and weighed ten pennyweights.

friends that in 1580 and in 1880 is essentially the same, however its outward forms may vary. Gabriel Harvey was in 1580 about thirty years old. He was the eldest of four sons of a prosperous ropemaker, at Saffron Walden, who spent money very liberally in the education of his children. Gabriel had gone to Cambridge and distinguished himself there. He had lectured on rhetoric, had aspired to the post of Public Orator, had been employed by the Earl of Leicester upon confidential service, and his lively interest in literature had thus brought him into an acquaintance that became familiar friendship with Leicester's nephew, Sir Philip Sidney. When Edmund Spenser went to Cambridge he found Harvey there with a standing acquired by his abilities, and honour among students of the University as a young leader in matters of taste and criticism. Between Harvey and Spenser a strong friendship was established, and it was Harvey who, just before 1580, had found an opportunity of introducing his friend Spenser into Leicester's service and giving him his first start in the world. Gabriel Harvey had been strongly interested in the publication of Spenser's first book, "The Shepherd's Calendar," in 1579-Spenser's age then being six-and-twenty, Harvey's perhaps twentyeight or twenty-nine-and the introduction to Leicester had not only brought Spenser and Philip Sidney together, joining Spenser to the friendship between Sidney and Harvey and to their discussions about poetry, but led to Spenser's appointment as secretary to Earl Grey of Wilton, with whom he went to Ireland in 1580. While he was still in London, Spenser received from his friend Harvey a letter occasioned by the earthquake which happened in England on the evening of the 6th of April in that year. Harvey published this with two other letters between himself and Spenser, under the title of "Three proper and wittie familiar Letters lately passed betweene two University men, touching the Earthquake in April last and our English reformed versifying, with the preface of a well-wisher to them both." He had two purposes in the publication; one was to recommend the notion, then much occupying his mind, of adopting Latin measures as the form of English verse; the other was to oppose the general tendency to look upon earthquakes as miracles portending calamity, or otherwise prophetic, and suggest that they had causes which were to be found among the usual operations of nature. His endeavour to find these causes was bounded by the knowledge of the time, but he was right in the way of his endeavour to abate a superstition based on ignorance. His letter to Spenser-addressed by his name as the new poet, Immerito-written on the morning after the earthquake, gives this lively sketch of familiar talk in an Elizabethan country house near Saffron Walden on the evening of the 6th of April, 1580:

A PLEASANT AND PITHY FAMILIAR DISCOURSE OF THE EARTHQUAKE IN APRIL LAST.

To my loving friend, M. Immerito.

Signor Immerito, after as many gentle goodmorrows as yourself and your sweet heart listeth: May it please your Mastership to dispense with a poor Orator of yours for break

ing one principal grand rule of our old inviolable rules of rhetoric, in showing himself somewhat too pleasurably disposed in a sad matter: Of purpose, to meet with a couple of shrewd witty new-married gentlewomen which were more inquisitive than capable of Nature's works, I will report you a pretty conceited discourse that I had with them no longer ago than yesternight, in a gentleman's house here in Essex. Where being in the company of certain courteous gentlemen, and those two gentlewomen, it was my chance to be well occupied, I warrant you, at cards (which I dare say I scarcely handled a whole twelvemonth before), at that very instant that the earth under us quaked and the house shaked above: besides the moving and rattling of the table and forms where we sat. Whereupon, the two gentlewomen having been continually wrangling with all the rest, and especially with myself, and even at that very same moment making a great loud noise and much ado, "Good Lord," quoth I, "is it not wonderful strange that the delicate voices of two so proper tine gentlewomen should make such a sudden terrible earthquake? Imagining, in good faith, nothing in the world less than that it should be any earthquake indeed, and imputing that shaking to the sudden stirring and removing of some cumbrous thing or other in the upper chamber over our heads: which only in effect most of us noted, scarcely perceiving the rest, being so closely and eagerly set at our game, and some of us taking on as they did. But behold, all on the sudden there cometh tumbling into the parlour the gentleman of the house, somewhat strangely affrighted and in a manner all aghast, and telleth us, as well as his head and tongue would give him leave, what a wondrous violent motion and shaking there was of all things in his hall; sensibly and visibly seen, as well of his own self as of many of his servants and neighbours there. I straightways beginning to think somewhat more seriously of the matter: "Then I pray you, good sir,” quoth I, "send presently one of your servants into the town to enquire if the like hath happened there, as most likely is, and then must it needs be some earthquake." Whereat the good fearful gentleman being a little recomforted (as misdoubting and dreading before, I know not what in his own house, as many others did), and immediately dispatching his man into the town, we had by and by certain word that it was general over all the town, and within less than a quarter of an hour after, that the very like happened the next town too, being a far greater and goodlier town. The gentlewomen's hearts, nothing acquainted with any such accidents, were marvellously daunted: and they that immediately before were so eagerly and greedily preying on us, began now, forsooth, very demurely and devoutly to pray unto God, and the one especially, that was even now on the housetop, "I beseech you heartily," quoth she, "let us leave off playing and fall a praying. By my truly, I was never so scared in my life. Methinks it is marvellous strange!" "What, good partner, cannot you pray to yourself," quoth one of the gentlemen, "but all the house must hear you and sing‘All In to our Lady's matins?' I see women are every way vehement and affectionate. Yourself was liker even now to make a fray than to pray, and will you now needs in all haste be on both your knees? Let us, and you say it, first dispute the matter, what danger and terror it carrieth with it. God be praised it is already ceased, and here be some present that are able cunningly and clerkly to argue the case. I beseech you, master (or mistress) your zealous and devout passion awhile." And with that, turning to me, and smiling a little at the first: "Now I pray you, Master H., what say you philosophers," quoth he, "to this sudden earthquake? May there not be some sensible natural cause thereof in the concavities of the earth itself, as some forcible and violent

superduity of Akmal sol, king not as A the sun, which hath

MEMUAT SKYgth and power, isht easily be

་་

wit sort the pores hill so stopped and wi man, that the windy exhaas & were in the bowels thereof and ascend to their natural cms of art and very natures kery unknown as they are to of work to lay open the reason to -I know well it is we you mean," de guaciowomen whom for distinction sake, and Julie they would be loth to be named, I will estivos tuquisitiva, and the other Madame Now, I bearech you, learned sir, try our wits art, and let us hear a piece of your deep University "Necing you gentlewomen will algates have it 4 good will," quoth I: and then, forsooth, very only pausing awhile, most gravely and doctorally proneeded as followeth :

"The earth, you know, is a mighty great huge body, and comandeph of many divors and contrary members and veins and Aviction and concavities wherein, to avoid the absurdity of Vacuum, must no earily be great store of substantial matter, and sundry accidental humours and fumes and spirits, either good, or bad, or mixed. Good they cannot possibly all be whercat is engendered so much bad, as namely so many poisonful and venomous herbs and beasts, besides a thousand intcctive and contagious things else. If they be bad, bad you must needs grant is subject to bad, and then can there not, I warrant you, want an object for bad to work upon. If mixed, which seemeth most probable, yet is it impossible that there should be such an equal and proportionable temperature, in all and singular respects, but sometime the evil in the devil's name) will as it were interchangeably have his natural predominant course, and issue one way or other. Which evil working vehemently in the parts, and maliciously encountering the good, forcibly tosseth and cruelly disturbeth the whole; which conflict endureth so long, and is fostered with abundance of corrupt, putrefied humours, and illfavoured gross infected matter, that it must needs (as well, or rather an ill, as in men's and women's bodies) burst out in the end into one perilous disease or other, and sometime, for want of natural voiding such feverous and flatuous spirits as lurk within, into such a violent chill shivering shaking ague as even now you see the earth have. Which ague, or rather every fit thereof, we scholars call grossly and homely Terræ motus, a moving or stirring of the earth, you gentlewomen, that he learned, somewhat more finely and daintily Terræ metus, a fear and agony of the earth: we being only moved and not terrified, you being only, in a manner, terrified, and scarcely moved, therewith. Now here, and it please you, lieth the point and quiddity of the controversy, whether our Motus or your Metus be the better and more sonsonant to the principles and maxims of philosophy: the one being manly and devoid of dread, the other womanish and most wofully quering and shivering for very fear. In sooth, I use not to dissemble with gentlewomen: I am flatly of opinion the earth whereof man was immediately made and not woman, is in all proportions and similitudes liker us than you, and when The word in the original is exhaltations.

66

it fortuneth to be distempered and diseased, either in part or in whole, I am persuaded, and I believe reason and philosophy will bear me out in it, it only moveth with the very impulsive force of the malady, and not trembleth or quaketh for dastardly fear. Now, I beseech you, what think ye, gentlewomen, by this reason?" Reason!" quoth Madame Incredula. "I can neither pick out rhyme nor reason out of any thing I have heard yet. And yet, methinks, all should be Gospel that cometh from you Doctors of Cambridge. But I see well all is not gold that glisteneth." "Indeed," quoth Mistress Inquisitiva, "here is much ado, I trow, and little help. But it pleaseth Master H. (to delight himself and these gentlemen) to tell us a trim goodly tale of Robin Hood, I know not what; or sure, if this be Gospel I doubt I am not in good belief. Trust me truly, Sir, your eloquence far passeth my intelligence." "Did I not tell you aforehand," quoth I, "as much? And yet would you needs presume of your capacities in such profound mysteries of philosophy and privities of Nature as these be, the very thinking whereof (unless happily it be per fidem implicitam, in believing as the learned believe and saying, It is so because it is so) is nigh enough to cast you both into a fit or two of a dangerous shaking fever unless you presently seek some remedy to prevent it. And in earnest, if ye will give me leave, upon that small skill I have in extrinsical and intrinsical physiognomy, and so forth, I will wager all the money in my poor purse to a pottle of hippocras, you shall both this night, within somewhat less than two hours and a half, dream of terrible strange agues and agonies, as well in your own pretty bodies as in the might great body of the earth." You are very merrily disposed, God be praised," quoth Mistress Inquisitiva, “I am glad to see you so pleasurable. No doubt but you are marvellous privy to our dreams. But I pray you now in a little good earnest, do you scholars think that it is the very reason indeed that you spake of even now" "There be many of us, good Mistress," quoth I, “of that opinion: wherein I am content to appeal to the knowledge of these learned gentlemen here. And some again of our finest conceited heads defend this position (a very strange paradox in my fancy): the earth having taken in too much to drink and, as it were, over lavish cups, as it hath sensibly done in a manner all this winter past, now staggereth, and reeleth, and tottereth, this way and that way, up and down, like a drunken man or woman when their alebench rhetoric comes upon them, and specially the moving pathetical figure Pottyposis, and therefore, in this forcible sort you lately saw, paineth itself to vomit up again that so disordereth and disquieteth the whole body within. And, forsooth, a few contradictory fellows make no more of it but a certain vehement and passionate neesing, or sobbing, or coughing, wherewithal, they say, and as they say, say with great physical and natural the earth, in some place or other ever lightly after any great and sudden alteration of weather or diet is exceedingly troubled and pained, as, namely, this very time of the year, after the extreme pinching cold of winter, and again in autumn, after the extreme parching heat of summer. But shall I tell you, Mistress Inquisitiva? The soundest philosophers indeed, and very deepest secretaries of Nature, hold, if it please you, another assertion, and maintain this for truth (which, at the leastwise, of all other seemeth marvellous reasonable, and is questionless farthest off from heresy): that as the earth upon it hath many stately and boisterous and fierce creatures, as namely, men and women and divers beasts, whereof some one is in manner continually at variance and feud with another, evermore seeking to be revenged upon his enemy, which eftsoons breaketh forth into professed and open hostility, and then

reason,