Part 44

In respect of his relations with Shakespeare, I cannot but feel that he has been harshly judged. We shall be justified in calling the _Shakescene_ remarks unduly rancorous when it has been ascertained that the "admired inventions" of Greene and of those whom he was addressing in the _Groatsworth_ had not been borrowed by the young actor-playwright; or that Greene should have let himself be plundered without protest by this revamper of plays because the revamper was destined some day to be illustrious, in fact to be the Shakespeare. I have not observed that dramatists _et id omne genus_, nowadays, offer the cheek with any more Christian grace than characterized Robert Greene.

=His Development as a Dramatist: Order of Plays.=[1155]--A painstaking investigation of the evidence leads me to conclude that none of the plays assigned to Greene was produced before the end of 1586, or, probably, the beginning of 1587; that their order is as follows: _Alphonsus_, _Looking-Glasse_, _Orlando_, _Friar Bacon_, _James IV._; and that if _Selimus_ and the _Pinner_ are his, they range respectively with _Alphonsus_ and _James_.

1. The earliest extant exemplar of _The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, King of Aragon_, by R. G.,[1156] and without motto, "as it hath bene sundrie times acted" was "brinted" by Thomas Creede, London, 1599. The play is generally supposed to have been written in emulation of the _Tamburlaine_, which was on the stage in 1588,--perhaps, indeed, as early as the end of 1586.[1157] While similarity of diction and conceit might indicate a contemporaneous production, the lines in _Alphonsus_,--

"Not mighty Tamburlaine, Nor soldiers trained up amongst the wars,"[1158]

are proof presumptive of the priority of Marlowe's play. Indeed, Dr. Grosart is justified in asserting that "to take _Alphonsus_ without a tacit reference to _Tamburlaine_ is to miss the entire impulse of its writer"; for the dramatist appears to be attempting a burlesque; and the vainglorious claim that he makes for his hero[1159] is a manifest challenge to Marlowe and that bombastic brood. Greene may have been writing the play as early as 1587; he was, at any rate, interested in the hero then, for he mentions him in the _Dedication_ to _The Carde of Fancie_.[1160] That the _Alphonsus_ was well known in the early spring of 1589 would appear from an allusion in Peele's _Farewell_,[1161] which couples it with _Tamburlaine_ so closely as further to suggest that it already clung like a burr to its magniloquent predecessor. Whether the series of satiric reprisals in which, between 1588 and 1590, Greene and Nashe indulged at Marlowe's expense,[1162] was stimulated by some counter-burlesque of _Alphonsus_ is uncertain; but that Marlowe shortly before March 29, 1588, had been privy to some public burlesque of a production of Greene's, may reasonably be inferred from Greene's preface to the _Perymedes_ of that date. For there we learn that two "gentlemen poets" had recently caused two actors to make a mockery of his motto _Omne tulit punctum_, because his verse fell short of the bombast and blasphemy with which Marlowe captivated the vulgar. If it was the verse of the _Alphonsus_ that was derided by these "madmen of Rome," we have here a date before which the play had been both acted and burlesqued. Now, it is interesting to note that our earliest copy of _Alphonsus_ (1599) has neither motto nor colophon. This is strange, for in all other respects the edition is uniform with that of _James IV._, which had been brought out by the same publisher, Creede, only the year before, with Greene's _Omne tulit punctum_ upon its title-page. In fact, all other plays written by Greene alone, and bearing his name, have a motto of some kind. One may naturally query whether it was to Creede's advantage to dissociate this particular play from some eleven or twelve years' old derision; or, whether he was following, without definite purpose, the policy of some previous edition, now lost, which likewise had omitted the motto.

Be this as it may, there is, in the preface of March 29, 1588, undoubted allusion[1163] to Greene and Lodge's _Looking-Glasse_, which, as will presently be shown, was written before June, 1587. The _Alphonsus_ must be assigned to a still earlier date, because, in its prologue,[1164] it gives evidence of priority to Greene's other efforts in serious or heroic style. This conclusion is confirmed by an examination of the play. The copious crude employment of mythological lore, the creaking mechanism of the plot, the subordination of vital to spectacular qualities, betray an inexperience not manifest in Greene's other dramatic output. Moreover, in spite of the fact that our edition of _Alphonsus_ appears to preserve the details of the author's holograph, the versification makes a clumsier showing than in the rest of his plays. The lines are frequently rhymed, sometimes within the speeches, but more often in a perfunctory fashion at speech-ends. And, though this practice wanes as the play proceeds, the verses are throughout more frequently endstopped, and the rhythm more mechanical, than in the other dramas. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of the lines have the monotonous cæsura at the end of the second foot; and of the lyric cæsuræ, which should _par excellence_ lend variety to the verse, about eleven-twelfths fall in the middle of the third foot. We may indeed say that in four-fifths of the lines these sources of sameness prevail. Of prose there is no sign. Both in material and style the play is inelastic, only too easily open to attack. That Greene should prefix the _Omne tulit punctum_ of his popular prose romances was natural, but it was also courting the attack of Marlowe, Kyd, or any gentleman-poets derisively inclined.

2. _A Looking-Glasse for London and England_ made by Thomas Lodge, Gentleman, and Robert Greene, _in Artibus Magister_, is called by Professor Brown the "finest and last" of the plays in which Greene had a hand, and is assigned to a date "after Lodge's return from Cavendish's expedition in 1591." This conjecture may at once be dismissed,[1165] for that expedition did not start till August 26, 1591; none of its ships returned before June 11, 1593; and, by that time, Greene was dead. The play was registered in May, 1594, and our earliest exemplar (Creede) was printed in the same year. Henslowe records the presentation of the play, but not as new, March 8, 1591-92. We have abundant proof of its popularity. Therefore, since only four representations are recorded during the remainder of that season, which lasted till June 22, 1592,[1166] it must have had its run at an earlier date. Spencer's line in _The Tears of the Muses_, 1591, about the "pleasing Alcon" has been regarded as an allusion to Lodge's authorship of that character in the _Looking-Glasse_; and with some show of reason, for nearly all the speeches of Alcon are distinctively the work of Lodge.[1167] But an earlier reminiscence of the play may be found in Greene's mention of Ninevie and Jonas in the dedication and epilogue of the _Mourning Garment_, 1590. Since it appears, moreover, from a passage in _Scillaes Metamorphosis_, that Lodge had renounced play-writing as early as 1589,[1168] Storojenko and Grosart date the composition of _Looking-Glasse_ between the close of 1588 and the summer of 1589. I am sure that the date was earlier still; for, since the _Metamorphosis_ followed immediately upon Lodge's return from a voyage with Captain Clarke to Tercera and the Canaries, any such playwriting as that of the _Looking-Glasse_ must have been done before the departure of this expedition. According to Mr. Lee,[1169] the Expedition sailed "about 1588." Now the play contains no allusion to the Armada; it is, therefore, antecedently improbable that it was written in 1588 _later than the 29th of May_. And since a modernized morality of God's wrath impending over London, if written in that year, could not have failed to echo the first mutterings of the Spanish thunderstorm, I am led to fix the composition before June, 1587, when Philip and Sixtus concluded their treaty against England.

The date of first presentation must have been appreciably before March 29, 1588, for a character, the 'priest of the sun,' which figured in the _Looking-Glasse_, but "in no other early play,"[1170] is mentioned in the introduction to _Perymedes_, already cited. Here, Greene asserts that even if his verse did not always "jet upon the stage in tragicall buskins," or his "_everie_ worde" blaspheme, he could, an he pleased, fill the mouth "like the fa-burden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heaven with that Atheist Tamburlan"; and, by way of proof, he sets side by side with Tamburlan, the impious ranting of his own "mad preest of the Sonne." The reference is, of course, to the scene in the _Looking-Glasse_, where the mitred priests of the sun, "carrying fire in their hands," hail Rasni as a "deitie";[1171] and he assumes that the mention of one of the characters will indicate the play,--a justifiable expectation if the play had been before the public for nine or ten months.

Though affected by its moral configuration, the _Looking-Glasse_ is well constructed. In plot, characterization, manners (especially those of low life), in worldly wisdom and fervour, it leaves _Alphonsus_ far behind. The subtler handling of classical adornment and the bubble of the humour would, of themselves, justify us in assigning it to the same period with _Orlando_ and _Friar Bacon_. The advancing maturity is manifest also in its verse and prose. I do not attribute Greene's improvement in blank verse entirely to Lodge's coöperation; for Lodge's verse in the _Civill War_, 1587, was not markedly easier than that of the _Alphonsus_, and his verse in this play[1172] is but a trifle more elastic than in the _Civill War_. Taking at random fifty-seven of Greene's verses,[1173] I find that some fifty-two avoid the monotone, and, of these, no fewer than twenty-five escape the penthimimeral cæsura as well. In other words, five-sixths of the rhythms are free, and one-half of these skilfully varied. In the prophetic verses the monotone is properly more prevalent. About thirty per cent of Greene's have it. But even there almost half of the 'free' rhythms display artistic handling. Speech-end rhythms are fewer than in _Alphonsus_; rhyme, indeed, is altogether less in evidence--except in the prophetic rhapsodies. Lodge's lines for Oseas rhyme, however, more than Greene's for Jonas. Not only is the proportion of prose larger than in any other of Greene's plays,--a feature which is, perhaps, due to the fact that each collaborator had his own set of mechanicals to exploit,--but the style of it is more conversational than in any preceding English play.

3. Our earliest impression of _Orlando Furioso, One of the Twelve Peeres of France_, "as it was playd before the Queenes Maiestie," is published by Burbye, 1594. It had been entered for Danter, December 7, 1593, but was transferred to Burbye on the ensuing May 28. He issued a second edition in 1599.[1174] Greene was accused in 1592[1175] of having sold the play to the Lord Admiral's men while the Queen's company, to which he had previously disposed of it, was "in the country." Now the Queen's men had acted at court for the last time, December 26, 1591; and they did not reappear in London till April, 1593.[1176] But the Admiral's, meanwhile (February, 1592), had entered into a temporary alliance with Lord Strange's,[1177] through Henslowe and Edw. Alleyn; and under the auspices of the latter company almost immediately (February 21) the _Orlando_ was acted in one of Henslowe's theatres.[1178] It was already an old play; and Henslowe records no later performance. During the same period three or four other plays formerly belonging to the Queen's passed into the hands of Lord Strange's company.[1179] The date of the second sale of _Orlando_ would accordingly seem to have been during January or February, 1592. It appears, then, that up to December 26, 1591, it belonged to the Queen's men; and it had probably been presented at court by them, for its classical and Italian features were evidently from the first designed to suit her Majesty's taste.[1180]

That the play was written later than July 30, 1588, may be deduced from a mention (ll. 89-95) of the "rebate" of "mightie Fleetes" which "Came to subdue my Ilands to their king;" for the allusion to the Armada is historically minute (note the conjunction of 'Portingale' with 'Spaniard' in reference to the start from Lisbon), the sequence does not savour of afterthought or actor's clap-trap, and the theme receives attention in other parts of the play.[1181] Now, between the "rebate" of the Armada and the disappearance of the Queen's men from London that company acted at court ten times;[1182] and upon at least one of these occasions I conclude that the _Orlando_ was played. During the year that followed the Armada there are but two such occasions on record, December 26, 1588, and February 9, 1589; and of the latter the notice is open to question.[1183] In any case the former is more likely to be the date of the presentation of _Orlando_; for the reference to the Armada, and the championing of Elizabeth under the figure of Angelica, would be the policy of a court play acted on the St. Stephen's day following the Spanish defeat. If this was the play, we may be sure that it won her Majesty's approval; and that the dramatist seized the opportunity to further his good fortune. And that is precisely what Greene did. In February, 1589, he brought out his _Spanish Masquerado_, which was hailed with such enthusiasm that his friend Lodge declared that the name of Greene was become a terror to the _gens seditieux_, that his laurel was deathless, and that from a mortal he had become a companion of the gods.[1184] Now I incline to think that the success of _Orlando_ contributed to this popularity; there is certainly not enough of political or literary worth in the _Masquerado_ alone to account for it. There is further reason for dating the _Orlando_ before 1590 if the resemblances between it and the _Old Wives Tale_[1185] are due, as I think they are, to Peele's acquaintance with the former. And if, in his _Farewell_, the same poet is alluding to our play, under the title of _Charlemagne_,[1186]--which, considering Orlando's frequent brag of kinship with the emperor, is not unlikely,--the play must have been acted before the spring of 1589. That Greene was occupied with the _Orlando_ at a still earlier date would appear from his repeating in it no less than five of the character-names which he had used in one of the stories of the _Perymedes_.[1187] Nor does the tracing of certain resemblances to their common source in the epos lessen the general probability that Greene's story and play were written at approximately the same period; the latter following, as the former had preceded, the summer of 1588. Mr. Fleay would, indeed, push the date back to 1587 "when the Admiral's men re-opened after the plague,"[1188] and Professor Brown sets it with that of _Alphonsus_ and _Bacon_, between 1584 and 1587;[1189] but I do not think that the contents warrant either of these conclusions.

Though the _Orlando_ must be of later date than the _Alphonsus_,[1190] it betrays the influence of the still earlier _Tamburlaine_. But it is more than a sensational or spectacular play; it is a parody of the ranting "mad plays" which were then the rage. Numerous characteristics which appear to some critics to be defects of construction are proof of this. Orlando's sudden insanity and the ridiculously inadequate occasion of it, the headlong _dénouement_, the farcical technique, the mock-heroic atmosphere, the paradoxical absence of pathos, the absurdly felicitous conclusion,--all seemingly unwitting,--are purposive and satirical. Of such a burlesque the author of _The Spanish Tragedy_,[1191] perhaps of the pre-Shakespearian _Hamlet_, may have been the butt. Greene and Nashe had no affection for Kyd. The raving and bombast of this play--the stuff, too, that the actor Alleyn injected--suggest a parody of Kyd; and the dates accord. At any rate I think it likely that the _Orlando_[1192] was produced while the pre-Shakespearian _Hamlet_ was fresh; and this consideration also looks toward 1588.

Many similarities of style may be pointed out between _Orlando_ and other of Greene's productions during 1588 and 1589.[1193] The resemblances to _Friar Bacon_ not merely in diction, imagery, and allusion,[1194] but in quality of verse, are numerous. In respect of this last the plays may be considered together since they are of a piece. They were apparently written within a year of each other, both with a view to presentation at Court.

4. The earliest impression of _The Honorable Historie of frier Bacon and frier Bongay_ (as it was plaid by her Maiesties servants) is of 1594, and was printed for Edward White, in whose name (substituted for Adam Islip's, erased) it had been entered, S. R. May 14, of the same year.[1195] The earliest record of its presentation is Henslowe's of 1591-92: "Rd at fryer bacone, the 19 of febrary, satter-daye ... xvijˢ iij.ᵈ" The play is first in the list of those performed by "my Lord Strange's men"; but is not marked "new." It is, however, a drawing play: Strange's men act it about once every three weeks, between February 19 and May 6; and once a week, between the ensuing January 10 and January 30, while Queen's and Sussex act it twice in an engagement of a week beginning April 1, 1593-94. It must have preceded the anonymous play _Faire Em, the Miller's Daughter of Manchester_, which imitates it[1196]--perhaps with ironic intent. Indeed, _Bacon_ would seem to have been acted as much as twelve months before _Faire Em_ appeared. For in Greene's Epistle (about the middle of 1591) prefixed to the _Farewell to Follie_, where he reproaches the imitating dramatist with general lack of invention and with profane borrowing from the Scriptures, he further twits him with having consumed "a whole year" in "enditing" his foolish and inartistic play.[1197] That is to say, a whole year from the production of the play which it so evidently imitated. Now, what was the date of _Faire Em_? If, as Professor Schick[1198] points out, its main source was Jacques Yvers's _Printemps d'Iver_, it would probably follow the fresh editions of that book of 1588 and 1589. And it did. I place its date between that of Greene's _Address to the Gentlemen Schollers_ prefixed to the _Mourning Garment_ and that of the _Address_ prefixed to his _Farewell_. For in the former he undertakes to forestall, in general, the "fooles" who may "scoffe" at his repentance, and in the latter while he makes a show of ignoring the "asses" that "strike" at him (_i.e._ at his _Mourning Garment_) he specifies one "ass" who may be expected to flout his _Farewell_, viz., the author of _Faire Em_,--that being indicated by quotations. In other words the _Faire Em_ is to be dated between November 2, 1590 (when the _Mourning Garment_ was registered),[1199] and the middle of 1591 (when the _Farewell_ with this prefatory _Address_) appeared.[1200] Since the "blasphemous rhetoricke" of _Faire Em_ was well known when Greene criticised it, we may suppose that the play had been in existence since November or December, 1590. And if its author had been "a whole year enditing" this imitation of _Friar Bacon, Friar Bacon_ must have been a notable play in November or December, 1589. But if _Englands Mourninge Gowne_, which was registered July 1, 1590, be Greene's _Mourning Garment_ under another name,[1201] then _Faire Em_ may have appeared as early as July or August of the same year; and _Friar Bacon_, preceding _Faire Em_ by a twelvemonth, might be dated July or August, 1589. Even if we do not strictly construe Greene's "whole year," we must allow some such opportunity for the vogue of _Friar Bacon_, and for the composition, presentation, and vogue of _Faire Em_, before the publication of Greene's retort in the 1591 edition of the _Farewell to Follie_. Hence the period between July and the end of 1589 will probably cover the production of _Friar Bacon_; but the latter limit might include the spring of 1590.

Mr. Fleay,[1202] reasoning from the insertion of Greene's longer motto as colophon to the 1594 exemplar, places _Friar Bacon_ earlier than the _Menaphon_ (S. R. August 23, 1589), in which he says Greene's shorter motto[1203] is first used. Of the validity of this test I am not convinced. Much more convincing is the argument based by the same indefatigable scholar upon a date suggested within the drama. St. James's Day, July 25, is mentioned (Sc. i.) as falling on a Friday. Mr. Fleay insists that in such cases dramatic authors used the almanac for the current year; and he shows that 1589 is the only year of such coincidence that will meet the conditions of this play. Since the attribution of the exact day of the week to a movable feast is more likely to follow than to precede the observance, I should regard July 25, 1589, the limit before which the _Bacon_ was not finished. Now, not only the eulogy of Elizabeth at the end, but the euphuistic and classical style of the play, shows that it was intended for presentation at court. The only dates within the limits above prescribed on which the Queen's men played before her Majesty were December 26, 1589, and March 1, 1590. I lean to the former, St. Stephen's Day, as that on which _Friar Bacon_ was performed.

The relation of this play to _Dr. Faustus_ throws additional light upon the question under discussion. We must first eliminate the assumption that Marlowe's "wall of brass"[1204] was borrowed from _Friar Bacon_. The sources of the conception were common to both playwrights: the _Famous Historie of frier Bacon_, a story-book popular at the time, and "the tradition already borrowed from Giraldus Cambrensis by Spenser."[1205] And it is evident that Marlowe drew the scene where Robin conjures with one of Faustus's books directly from the story-book, not at all from Greene's play.[1206] I agree with Dr. Ward that Greene's play was suggested by Marlowe's, and that "it is hardly too great an assumption to regard Bacon's victory over Vandermast as a cheery outdoing by genuine English magic of the pretentious German article in which Faustus was the representative traveller." Greene's play is a romantic but humorous, sometimes burlesque, treatment of a theme like Marlowe's, but familiar to the audience, and attractive because domestic. It may, indeed, be surmised that some scenes in _Friar Bacon_ are parodies of their pompous analogues in _Dr. Faustus_.[1207] I think it has not been noticed that in the title of Greene's play we have a clue to his intention: the 'Honorable Historie' is in evident contrast with the 'Tragical Historie' of Dr. Faustus. For the word 'honorable' was not derived from the title of the story-book. That is a 'Famous Historie.' If he had acted in accordance with custom, Greene might have replaced 'famous' by 'comical,' to indicate the fortunate ending of his fable. No other drama that I know of, up to 1589, had been denominated an 'honorable' history. But, in this case, Greene had every provocation to emphasize the quality 'honorable.' For his purpose was to vaunt the superiority of the English magician above the tragically concluding German.