Part 45

This consideration confirms the assignment of _Friar Bacon_ to some time within a year after the production of _Dr. Faustus_ (1588 _end_ or 1589 _beginning_). So, also, the resemblances in style to Greene's other writings of that period. The love theme in _Friar Bacon_ is similar to that in _Tullie's Love_ (1589); the style is akin to that of _Orlando_ (December, 1588). These two are also closely related as dramatic productions. The earlier, to be sure, confines itself more narrowly to the satirical intent, while the later aims in æsthetic respects, also, to surpass its Marlowan predecessor. It is, consequently, an improvement upon _Orlando_ in construction and characterization. The dramatist is now working with free hand, and, for the first time in this field, employs the ease and invention for which, as a story-teller, he was already famous. In versification these two plays continue the methods of the _Looking-Glasse;_ but the rhymed lines are sensibly fewer. In _Orlando_ they appear at the end of the first half-dozen speeches; in _Friar Bacon_ they are to seek. In both plays, about three-quarters of the verses avoid the singsong pause at the end of the second foot. In the _Orlando,_ I should say that more than a third of the verses escape, in addition, the penthimimeral cæsura; in the _Friar Bacon_, almost a third. The dodecasyllable with which Greene is experimenting in the interest of freedom, is somewhat frequent in both plays. For the reason already given, there is not so much prose as in the _Looking-Glasse_, perhaps only half as much. Still, of _Orlando_, one-fifth is written in prose, and of _Friar Bacon_ nearly a fourth.

5. Storojenko[1208] holds that _The Scottish Historie of James the Fourth_ betrays a novel tendency toward native themes and simple style, and that, with _Bacon_ and _The Pinner_, it furnished the model for Shakespeare's romantic comedies. Professor Brown, pointing out that _James IV._ is "among the first plays to have an acted prologue and interplay," thinks that Shakespeare followed Greene's example in the _Taming of the Shrew_ and the _Midsummer Night's Dream_; and he groups _James IV._ with _The Pinner_ and the _Looking-Glasse_ as later than the three other plays of Greene, and free from their "alluring pedantry."[1209] But we have already seen that the _Looking-Glasse_ preceded both _Orlando_ and _Bacon_; and I think it can be proved that _James IV._ followed them. The unique exemplar, printed by Creede, "as it hath bene sundrie times publikely plaide," is of 1598, and is probably a reprint of a lost edition of 1594.[1210] Henslow makes no mention of the play; nor have we record of its acting. Storojenko conjectures some date after the summer of 1589 for its composition; Brown, some date between 1587 and 1592; Ward, about 1590; Fleay, after August 23, 1589,[1211] because it uses the shorter motto (but elsewhere,[1212] 1591--probably in collaboration with Lodge).

The following observations will, I think, fix the limits as 1590-1591. Ida's lines, 270-279 in Act I., beginning "And weele I wot, I heard a shepheard sing,"[1213] are a reminiscence of the _Heard-groome wᵗ his strawberrie lasse_ in Peele's _Hunting of Cupid_: "What thing is love? for (wel I wot) love is a thing," etc.[1214] Notice the recurrence in Drummond's version of the "weele I wot." The "shepheard" to whom Ida has reference is, of course, one of the swains of the _Hunting_, or Peele himself. The _Hunting_ was not registered for printing till July 26, 1591; but then with the proviso "that if it be hurtful to any other copy before licensed ... this to be void." The proviso was frequently mere form, but it suggests that Greene may have drawn the verses from a manuscript copy, or from the public performance before July 26, 1591. I do not think that the _Hunting_ was written very long before it was registered, because the atmosphere and phraseology are still fresh in Peele's mind when he writes his _Descensus Astrææ_, October, 1591. But it is interesting to note that there occurs a premonition or echo of these same verses on Love in Greene's _Mourning Garment_,[1215] which had been registered in 1590, from eight to twelve months before the registration of the _Hunting_. We may, with reasonable latitude, assign the composition of the _Hunting_ to the year 1590, and that of _James IV_. to a later date in proximity to that of Greene's _Mourning Garment_--say about July, 1590. Confirmation of this conclusion may be found in other resemblances of sentiment and style between _James IV_. and the _Mourning Garment_,[1216] as well as in Dorothea's reference to the Irish wars, which may have been suggested by the contemporary rising in Fermanagh; for, since the suppression of Desmond, in 1583, there had been comparative quiet in Ireland. Though the play exhibits little of the affected style which Elizabeth demanded, it is courtly, and the graceful compliment to the queen and the (English) rose in the laudation of Dorothea's attributes, together with that heroine's forecast of a union between Scotland and England,[1217] might indicate a view to court presentation, and a date of composition when such union was favourably contemplated. The further boast of Dorothea:--

"Shall never Frenchman say an English maid Of threats of forraine force will be afraid,"[1218]

was doubtless intended for the ear of the virgin queen, who, in 1590 and 1591, was busily landing forces in France to thwart the schemes of her implacable enemies, the Guises. This play may, therefore, have been presented by Greene's company, at court, on December 26, 1590, or as one of their five performances during 1591.

The moral atmosphere is that of the penitential pamphlets; while the pictures of roguery coincide with those of the conycatching series. The portrayal of character is that of a mature dramatist; the plot is more skilfully manipulated than in _Friar Bacon_, and covers a larger canvas; but, though it smacks of the folk, it has hardly the simple domestic interest of that drama. Still, Ward calls it the happiest, Brown the most perfect, of Greene's plays; in fact, "the finest Elizabethan historical play outside of Shakespeare."

The versification of _James IV._ gives proof of a mature quality of experimentation. Because rhyme prevails, Collier assigned the play to Greene's earlier period; but the criterion is inconclusive. Though Greene conformed to the blank verse fashion as early as 1588, he made it clear, at the time, that he was no convert.[1219] And, while in 1590-91 he recognizes the merits of a richer and more varied rhythm, he is not yet convinced that rhyme should be abandoned; in tender and gently romantic passages he counts it _utile_ as well as _dulce_. Some of the scenes in which Ida and the queen figure are, accordingly, almost altogether rhymed. The rhythmical movement is, however, no less liberal than in _Orlando_ and _Bacon_; the proportion of monotone and penthimimeral is as low; and as many as fifty per cent of the _cæsuræ_ are lyrical. Fully one-quarter of the play is in prose.

Having a regard only to the unquestioned plays of Greene, we notice that his employment of dramatic prose dates from the association with Lodge in the _Looking-Glasse_; that his renunciation of rhyme was short-lived, and that its resumption did not hamper the freedom of rhythmical movement. In none of the later plays, however, is the verse so elastic as in his own dramatic portions of the _Looking-Glasse_. And there the mobility was probably due to a desire for contrast with the prophetic monologues.

=Attributions.=--Various other plays have, in whole or in part, been assigned to Greene; _A History of Jobe_,[1220] not extant; part of _The Troublesome Raigne of King John_,[2] and of the _First and Second Parts of Henry VI._;[1221] _Fair Emm_[1222] (with no show of reason), and others mentioned by Dyce; _Titus Andronicus_;[1223] _The Pinner of Wakefield_, _Selimus_, and _A Knack to Know a Knave_.[1224] We can consider only the last three.

1. The earliest extant exemplar of _George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield_ is in the Duke of Devonshire's library. The author's name does not appear. But the printer, publisher, year, vignette, and motto (_Aut nunc aut nunquam_) are the same as on the title-page of the 1599 _Orlando_; and the same printer, Burbye, had, in 1592, published other works of Greene: the _Third Part of Conny-Catching_ and _The Repentance_. These items do not, however, prove anything concerning the identity of the author. The play was entered to Burbye, April 1, 1595. We learn from the title-page that the Sussex company acted it; and Henslowe records five of these performances between December 29, 1593, and January 22, 1594. But, though the Sussex men soon afterwards twice assisted Greene's former company in the presentation of _Friar Bacon_, they do not seem at this, or any previous period, to have owned any of the unquestioned plays of Robert Greene. Henslowe does not mark this one 'new,' and the dramatic contents give no indication of its date, save that one of the _dramatis personæ_ refers to Tamberlaine.[1225] No light is thrown upon the authorship by contemporary publications; and, as late as Kirkman's _Catalogue_, 1661, the play was still anonymous. It has been assigned to Greene on the manuscript evidence which has already been shown to be inconclusive.[1226] In the last resort our decision must depend upon the detection of Greenian characteristics. Dr. Ward has observed that the play possesses "one of Greene's most attractive notes,--a native English freshness of colouring,"--glimpses of which may also be had in _Friar Bacon_ and _James IV._ This is true. The representation of the characters, manners, and speech of the middle and lower classes is such as might have contributed to Chettle's estimate of the dramatist,--"the only comedian of a vulgar writer in this country."[1227] In the "plotting," also, of the play, no ordinary skill is evinced, and that is the "quality," says Nashe, wherein Greene was master of his craft.[1228] The material is a popular story, like the material of _Friar Bacon_. One of the incidents, indeed, existed not only in the popular story, but in the experience of Robert Greene as well.[1229] The rhetorical style here and there affords an inkling of this "very supporter" of native comedy: a word that seems to be his,[1230] a phrase or trick of the tongue,[1231] a figure or two,[1232] occasionally a bejewelled verse,[1233] and once, at least, a sentiment,--

"The sweet content of men that live in love Breeds fretting humours in a restless mind."

But in Greene's undoubted productions the Greenian attributes are not so far to seek: the curious imagery, the precious visualizing, the necromantic monstrous toys. With his brocaded rhetoric fancy is captivated and judgment disarmed. He gluts each appetite in turn with 'semblances,'--rare, remote, and meretricious. His silks are gay with 'sparks' and margarites, redolent of sandalwood and spice, stiff with oriental gold. They rustle richly on the ear. The atmosphere is sense idealized; the melody, a bell. I do not find these earmarks in _The Pinner_; nor the coloured negligence of Greene, the studied, off-hand blush, the conscious affectation of unconscious art. Of such devices _James IV._, indeed, is by no means compact; but, in its first fifth, there are four or five times as many references to the foreign, the historical, astrological, mythical, as in all _The Pinner_. The three or four classical allusions in _The Pinner_ are stark. But Greene's employment of the mythological is never unattractive; it is _sui generis_. It has always a quiddity of the indirect, the unexpected: a relish of distinction. These bald "Cæsars" and "Helenas" of _The Pinner_ are not Greene. On the contrary, we come across many words, fashions of prose dictions and comic devices, that savour of Lodge as we know him in the _Civill War_ and the _Looking-Glasse_, and suspect him in _Mucedorus_. The conversations are sometimes reminiscent of Greene; but, on the whole, they fail of his humorous indirection and his craft.

The verse is so vilely divided in the original that even after Dyce's attempt at reconstruction, no basis for conclusive attribution of authorship is available. Prose forms a large proportion; indeed, it looks as if the author were trying to see how near prose he might come without ceasing to produce unrhymed pentameters. Fragmentary lines, dodecasyllables, feminine endings, and rhetorical pauses abound. These last are to me more suggestive of Greene's association with the play than is any other feature; for more than once or twice they yield the genuinely Greenian rhythm.[1234] If Greene had a hand in _The Pinner_, the metrical style would fix its date just before or after _James IV._ It has the ease and variety of _Bacon_, but is as signal an experiment in conversational blank verse as was _James IV._ in rhymed dramatic; and it is a fairly successful experiment.

2. _The First Part of the Tragicall Raigne of Selimus_ (Creede, 1594) has been reclaimed for Greene by Dr. Grosart, principally on the evidence of _England's Parnassus_ (1600) which assigns to Greene two passages taken from _Selimus_.[1235] For Dr. Grosart's presentation of the case the reader may be referred to the Introduction to his edition of Greene.[1236] It is worthy of the most careful study. Dr. Ward after examining the interval evidence decides adversely to Dr. Grosart's results.[1237] The following additional considerations incline me to the same decision. The weight of the evidence depends, not upon the number of passages from _Selimus_ assigned by Allott to Greene, but upon the style of each passage. In the _Parnassus_, Allott has assigned to Greene passages from other works, which do not belong to him; two, for instance, which have been traced to Spenser. If the passages from _Selimus_ on _Delaie_ and _Damocles_ have not Greene's characteristic, then twenty such assignments do not prove that he wrote _Selimus_. They would more logically prove that the collector, in this as in other cases, is an uncertain guide. Now there is no trace, not the faintest, of Greene's diction, sentiment, poetic quality, or rhythmical form, in the tintinnabulation of the _Delaie_, or the platitude of the _Damocles_. And so throughout the play. Neither the defects nor the merits appear to me to be Greene's. Many of the lines are, indeed, resonant, scholarly, and strong, but not in Greene's quality. If the play were written by Greene, it could not have been written later than the _Alphonsus_: stanzaic form, and the crudities of rhythm, diction, and technique determine that; nor, on the other hand, could it have been written earlier than the _Alphonsus_, for with _Alphonsus_ Greene _began_ "to treat of bloody Mars." It is not incumbent upon me to find an author for _Selimus_, but I think that the probabilities indicate Lodge (_circa_ 1586-87). It has perhaps not been noted that Bullithrumble's lines (1955-1958) about godfathers are duplicated by Lodge's Alcon in the _Looking-Glasse_ (l. 1603); and that the parlance of Bullithrumble is paralleled by Curtall and Poppey in Lodge's _Civill War_ (_circa_ 1587). The dogberryisms, clipped words, and inverted phrases of the same character are of a piece also with those of Mouse in _Mucedorus_[1238]--a play which has indeed so many of the idiosyncrasies that mark the _Civill War_ that Mr. Fleay is not without warrant in conjecturing the authorship of Lodge. It should in addition be remarked that several of the expressions which Dr. Grosart finds in _Selimus_, and considers to be peculiarly Greene's, are to be found in the _Civill War_ and the _Mucedorus_; and that some non-Greenian characteristics of the _Selimus_ appear in one or the other of these plays. The "to-fore," for instance, which Dr. Grosart marks as Greenian in _Selimus_ occurs four times in _Mucedorus_ alone. The blank verse of the _Selimus_ finds its parallel in that of the _Civill War_; so, also, the quaint stanzaic form, and the apparently Greenian moralizing on 'content'[1239] (ll. 2049-2053). And conversely, the profound and easeful soliloquies and serious imagery of the _Civill War_ are nearer akin to those of the _Selimus_ than to anything of Greene's.

3. 'Young Juvenall' and the 'Comedie lastly writ.'--"With thee" says Greene to Marlowe in the _Groatsworth_, "I joyne young Juvenall, that byting satirist, that lastly with mee together writ a comedie. Sweete boy, might I advise thee," etc. Simpson and Grosart disprove the conjecture[1240] that the play was the _Looking-Glasse_ and the 'Juvenal,' Lodge: The _Looking-Glasse_ had not been lately written; the epithet 'Juvenal' did not at any time apply to Lodge; nor would Greene, in 1592, have called him a "sweete boy" as he calls this fellow-dramatist, for Lodge, born 1557, was thirty-five at the time and older than Greene by three years. It is argued that 'Juvenal' was Nashe as follows: Nashe was already proficient in satire; he had, between 1589 and 1592, published half a dozen pasquinades which had met with immediate success; he calls himself and is called by others 'Pasquil' or 'Aretine' or the 'railing Nashe'; and Meres in 1598 addresses him as "gallant young Juvenal" and mentions him with Greene among the "best writers of comedie." It must also be remembered that Nashe was 'young'--not quite twenty-five in 1592--"and that a difference of seven years made him a 'sweete boy' in Greene's regard."[1241] To these considerations I add the following: First,--Chettle feigning a letter[1242] from the dead poet to Nashe (_Robert Greene to Pierce Pennilesse_), makes Greene use almost the epithet of the _Groatsworth_, "Awake, _secure boy_, revenge thy wrongs." It may be surmised that the older poet was in the way of thus affectionately terming the younger, and that Chettle, who had edited the _Groatsworth_, had the pamphlet in mind when he conceived this letter. Second,--The pains taken by Nashe, in his _Strange Newes_, to disclaim anything like continuous companionship are occasioned by the fact that he and Greene had "lastly" been "together." He writes, in September, 1592, "Since first I knewe him [Greene] about towne, I have beene two yeares together and not seene him."[1243] The "first" refers to 1588-89 when Nashe was championing Greene's _Menaphon_ and scoring Greene's rivals in _The Anatomie_. The "two yeares" bring us to 1591, when he was engaged with Greene in the controversy with the Harveys[1244] which he here recounts with such detail as to indicate no slight acquaintance with Greene's motives and movements at the time. In that year appeared Nashe's _Astrological Prognostication_, and in the next, Greene's _Quip_, both bearing upon the subject on hand. We may infer that the revival of their literary association was connected with the 'canvazing' of the rope-maker's sons.[1245] Greene's concluding counsel is such as we should expect him to give the 'young Juvenall' with whom he had lately engaged against a common enemy.[1246] Nashe informs us also that he had occasionally, of late, caroused with the poet and that he was present at that "banquet of Rhenish and pickled herrings" from which Greene took his death.[1247] Third,--When Dekker, some fifteen years later, tells in his _Knight's Conjuring_ of the habitants of the "Fieldes of Joye," he introduces Nashe as one of that group which is exclusively restricted to the poets, and the editor, of Greene's _Groatsworth_. "Marlow, Greene, and Peele," writes he, "had got under the shades of a large vyne laughing to see Nash [the favourite of the group, and even yet the 'sweete boy'] that was but newly come to their colledge, still haunted with the sharpe and satyricall spirit that followed him heere upon earth...." And why there? He had "shorten'd his dayes by keeping company with pickle-herring" [many another night, no doubt, than that of August, 1592, with Will Monox and Ro. Greene,--but that night persisted]. And with what do they greet him? "How [do] poets and players agree _now_?" A precise _Groatsworth_ issue to which Nashe responds in proper _Groatsworth_ phrase, with echo as well from his Preface to the _Menaphon_, and with a parting fling at Harvey.[1248] Then, as if to round out the company, there enters Kind Hart, a-puffing,--Chettle, himself, the conservator of the 'Colledge.' Thus Dekker the contemporary of the _Groatsworth_ group fixes the identity of its 'Juvenall' on earth and under. And the 'comedie' was writ in 1591 or the first half of 1592.

But it is not easy to determine its name. A plea might be made for _Summer's Last Will and Testament_,[1249] on certain counts of R. W.'s diatribe in _Martine Marsixtus_,[1250] but I doubt whether it would convince. Simpson thinks that the 'comedie' was not improbably _A Knack to Know a Knave_, which had been acted as new, June 10, 1592. Fleay,[1251] however, asserts that there is not the slightest ground for this conjecture; and Grosart[1252] is sure that "no one who reads _A Knack_ can possibly find in it one line from either Greene or Nashe." I shall not undertake to prove that Mr. Simpson was right: it must, however, be observed that the subject of _A Knack_ was not foreign to the genius of Nashe; that two of the characters, the satirical commentator and the Welshman, have their counterparts in his _Summer's Last Will_; and that Greene had with godly intent written up and published the whole truth about knaves and 'coosnage' only within the past year and a half. As for the plot, it may have no analogue in Nashe's works, but in one[1253] at least of its threads it parallels _Friar Bacon_, and in another[1254] the _Looking-Glasse_; and four or five of its situations[1255] reproduce peculiarities and language of those plays. As for the speeches, though more than one is reminiscent of Greene's _rococo_,[1256] the style is more like that of the _Last Will_. To be sure there are _septenarii_ in the _Knack_, and none in the _Will_; but the blank verse, such as it is, might readily have been chipped from Nashe; so also the short irregular rhymed lines, and much of the prose. The vocabulary is not unlike his. Nashe might have been capable of the classical excrescences; Greene certainly was not. These coincidences are, of course, merely suggestive. For me they indicate possibly that if Greene had no hand in the play, some one who lacked his touch and most of his cunning has freely plundered him;[1257] and that, if he had an interest in the play, it was limited to the suggestion of plot and treatment. Nashe may have thrown the material into shape. It is a small matter, but perhaps worth recording, that the _Knack_ calls itself "a most pleasant and merie new _Comedie_," that Greene calls the play "lastly writ" a 'comedie,' and that no other play connected with his name save the doubtful _Pinner_ is so described. Also that the date of the _Knack_ accords with the conditions: it was played about two months before the _Groatsworth_ was begun, and by a company that then was acting three dramas known to be Greene's.

=Friar Bacon: Stage History and Materials=.--The position of Greene's plays in the history of English comedy is indicated in Professor Woodberry's article. The play here under discussion was acted with some frequency between 1591 and 1594, sometimes at important seasons, always with fair attendance, and occasionally with large profits. It was performed at court as late as 1602, and was occasionally revived under James I. and Charles I.[1258]