1

No, marry, shall he, sir, quoth I;

epicures, whose loose life hath maile religion loathsome I'll lay my cloak underneath him.

to your cars ; and when they soothe you with terms of I took my cloak, spread it all along,

mastership, remember Robert Greene (whom they have And his horse on the midst of it.

often flattered) perishes for want of comfort. ReGeorge. Thou clown, did'st thou set his horse upon member, gentlemen, your lives are like so many lightthy cloak ?

tapers that are with care delivered to all of you to Jenkin. Ay, but mark how I served him.

maintain ; these, with wind-puffed wrath, may be exMadge and he were no sooner gone down into the tinguished, with drunkenness put out, with negligence ditch,

let fall. The fire of my light is now at the last snuff. But I plucked out my knife, cut four holes in my My hand is tired, and I forced to leave where I would cloak,

begin ; desirous that you should live, though himself And made his horse stand on the bare ground. be dying.–ROBERT GREENE.' *Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay' is Greene's best comedy. His friars are conjurors, and the piece con

Content - A Sonnet. cludes with one of their pupils being carried off to hell on the back of one of Friar Bacon's devils. Mr Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content: Collier thinks this was one of the latest instances of The quiet mind is richer than a crown : the devil being brought upon the stage in propria Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent : persona. The play was acted in 1591, but may have The poor estate scorns Fortune's angry frown. been produced a year or two earlier.

Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, In some hour of repentance, when death was nigh Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss. at haid, Greene wrote a tract called A Groat's Worth The homely house that harbours quiet rest, of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance, in which The cottage that affords no pride nor care, he deplores his fate more feelingly than Nash, and The mean, that 'grees with country music best, also gives ghostly advice to his acquaintances, 'that The sweet consort of mirth’s and music's fare. spend their wit in making plays.' Marlow he Obscured life sets down a type of bliss ; accuses of atheism: Lodge he designates "young A mind content both crown and kingdom is. Juvenal,' and ' a sweet boy;' Peele he considers too good for the stage; and he glances thus at Shaks.

✓ (Sephestia's Song to her Child, peare : For there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapt

After escaping from Shipwreck.) in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bom

Mother's wag, pretty boy, bast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being

Father's sorrow, father's joy, an absolute Johannes Fac-totum, is, in his own

When thy father first did see conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country. The

Such a boy by him and me, punning allusion to Shakspeare is palpable: the

He was glad, I was woe, expressions, 'tiger's heart,' &c. are a parody on the

Fortune changed made him so ; line in Henry VI., part third

When he had left his pretty boy, O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide.

Last his sorrow, first his joy.

Weep not my wanton, smile upon my knee ; The Winter's Tale is believed to be one of Shaks

When thou art old, there's grief enough for thee. peare's late dramas, not written till long after Greene's death; consequently, if this be correct, the

The wanton smiled, father wept, unhappy man could not allude to the plagiarism of

Mother cried, baby leap'd ;

More he crow'd, more he cried, the plot from his tale of Pandosto. Some forgotten

Nature could not sorrow hide; play of Greene and his friends may have been aliuded to; perhaps the old dramas on which Shaks

He must go, he must kiss

Child and mother, baby bless ; peare constructed his Henry VI., for in one of these,

For he left his pretty boy, the line, 0 tiger's heart,' &c., also occurs. These

Father's sorrow, father's joy. old plays, however, seem above the pitch of Greene

Weep not my wanton, smile upon my knee ; in tragedy. The 'Groat's Worth of Wit' was published after Greene's death by a brother dramatist,

When thou art old, there's grief enough for theo. Henry Chettle, who, in the preface to a subsequent work, apologised indirectly for the allusion to Shaks

The Shepherd and his Wife. peare. I am as sorry,' he says, “as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen It was near a thicky shade, his demeanour no less civil than he excellent in the That broad leaves of beech had made, quality he professes. Besides, divers of worship have Joining all their tops so nigh, reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his That scarce Phoebus in could pry; honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that ap- Where sat the swain and his wife, proves his art.' This is a valuable statement: full Sporting in that pleasing life, justice is done to Shakspeare's moral worth and civil That Coridon commendeth 80, deportment, and to his respectability as an actor and All other lives to over-go.* author. Chettle's apology or explanation was made He and she did sit and keep in 1593.

Flocks of kids and flocks of sheep : The conclusion of Greene's. Groat's Worth of Wiť He upon his pipe did play, contains more pathos than all his plays: it is a har. She tuned voice unto his lay. rowing picture of genius debased by vice, and sor- And, for you might her housewife know, rowing in repentance :

Voice did sing and fingers sew.

He was young, his coat was green, But now return I again to you three (Marlow, With welts of wbite seamed between, Lodge, and Peele), knowing my misery is to you no Turned over with a flap, news : and let me heartily intreat you to be warned That breast and bosom in did wrap, by my harms. Delight not, as I have done, in irre- Skirts side and plighted free, ligious oaths, despise drunkenness, fly lust, abhor those Seemnly hanging to his knee,

169

A whittle with a silver chape ;

For kings have often fears when they sup, Cloak was russet, and the cape

Where shepherds dread no poison in their cup: Served for a bonnet oft,

Ah then, ah then, To shroud him from the wet aloft:

If country loves such sweet desires gain, A leather scrip of colour red,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain ! With a button on the head ;

Upon his couch of straw he sleeps as sound A bottle full of country whig,

As doth the king upon his beds of down, By the shepherd's side did lig ;

More sounder too : And in a little bush hard by,

For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to spill, There the shepherd's dog did lie,

Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill : Who, while his master 'gan to sleep,

Ah then, ah then, Well could watch both kids and sheep.

If country loves such sweet desires gain, The shepherd was a frolic swain,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain ! For, though his 'parel was but plain, Yet doonthe authors soothly say,

Thus with his wife he spends the year as blithe His colour was both fresh and gay;

As doth the king at every tide or syth, And in their writs plain discuss,

And blither too : Fairer was not Tityrus,

For kings have wars and broils to take in hand, Nor Menalcas, whom they call

When shepherds laugh, and love upon the land : The alderleefest swain of all !

Ah then, ah then, Seeming him was his wife,

If country loves such sweet desires gain, Both in line and in life.

What lady would not love a shepherd swain ! Fair she was, as fair might be, Like the roses on the tree ;

THOMAS LODGE, | Buxom, blithe, and young, I ween, Beauteous, like a summer's queen;

THOMAS LODGE was an actor in London in 1584. For her cheeks were ruddy hued,

He had previously been a servitor of Trinity college, As if lilies were imbrued

Oxford (1573), and had accompanied Captain Clarke With drops of blood, to make the white in his voyage to the Canary Islands. He first Please the eye with more delight.

studied law at Lincoln's Inn, but afterwards prac1 Love did lie within her eyes,

tised medicine. He took the degree of M.D. at In ambush for some wanton prize ;

Avignon. In 1590, he published a novel called RosaA leefer lass than this had been,

lind, Euphues' Golden Legacy, in which he recomCoridon had never seen.

mends the fantastic style of Lyly. From part of Nor was Phillis, that fair may,

this work (the story of Rosalind) Shakspeare conHalf so gaudy or so gay.

structed his As You Like It. If we suppose that She wore a chaplet on her head ;

Shakspeare wrote first sketches of the Winter's Tale' Her cassock was of scarlet red,

and As You Like It,'before 1592 (as he did of Romeo Long and large, as straight as bent ;

and Juliet,' • Hamlet,' &c.), we may account for Her middle was both small and gent.

Greene's charge of plagiarism, by assuming that the A neck as white as whales' bone,

words. beautified with our feathers,' referred to the Compast with a lace of stone;

tales of Pandosto' and · Rosalind.' In 1594, Lodge Fine she was, and fair she was,

wrote a historical play, the Wounds of Civil War, Brighter than the brightest glass ;

Lively set forth in the True Tragedies of Marius and Such a shepherd's wife as she,

Sylla ; this play is heavy and uninteresting, but Waz not more in Thessaly.

Lodge had the good taste to follow Marlow's Tam

bur ne, in the adoption of blank erse. For ex[Philador, seeing this couple sitting thus lovingly, noted the ampleconcord of country amity, and began to conjecture with him.

Ay, but the milder passions show the man; self, what a sweet kind of life those men use, who were by their

For, as the leaf doth beautify the tree, birth too low for dignity, and by their fortunes too simple for

The pleasant flowers bedeck the painted spring, envy. well, he thought to fall in prattle with them, had not

Even so in men of greatest reach and power, the shepherd taken his pipe in hand, and began to play, and his wife to sing out, this roundelay :-)

A mild and piteous thought augments renown.

The play, A Looking-Glass for London and England, Ah! what is love! It is a pretty thing,

written by Lodge and Greene, is directed to the deAs sweet unto a shepherd as a king,

fence of the stage. It applies the scriptural story And sweeter too :

of Nineveh to the city of London, and amidst drunken For kings have cares that wait upon a crown, buffoonery, and clownish mirth, contains some power. And cares can make the sweetest cares to frown:

ful satirical writing Lodge also wrote a volume of Ah then, ah then,

satires and other poems, translated Josephus, and If country loves such sweet desires gain,

penned a serious prose defence of the drama. He What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?

was living in 1600, as is proved by his obtaining that His flocks are folded ; he comes home at night year a pass from the privy council, permitting him. As merry as a king in his delight,

self and his friend, · Henry Savell, gent.,' to travel And merrier too:

into the archduke's country, taking with them two ser. For kings bethink them what the state require, vants, for the purpose of recovering some debts due Where shepherds, careless, carol by the fire: them there. The actor and dramatist had now Ah then, ah then,

merged in the prosperous and wealthy physician: If country loves such sweet desires gain,

Lodge had profited by Greene's example and warning. What lady would not love a shepherd swain? According to Wood, Lodge died of the plague in He kisseth first, then sits as blithe to eat

September 1625. His cream and curl, as doth the king his meat,

It is impossible to separate the labours of Greene And blither too :

and Lodge in their joint play, but the former was certainly the most dramatic in his talents. In Lodge's "Rosalind,' there is a delightful spirit of romantic fancy

.

I Do.

Sec. Sch. Pray thou, and we will pray, that God may [Scenes from Marlow's Paustus.]

have mercy upon thee. FAUSTUS.-WAGNER, his Servant

Paust. Gentlemen, farewell ; if I live till morning, Faust. Say, Wagner, thou hast perused my will.

I'll visit you : if not, Faustus is gone to hell. How dost thou like it!

Scholars. Faustus, farewell.
Wag. Sir, so wondrous well,

FAUSTUS alone. -The Clock strikes Eleven.
As in all humble duty I do yield
My life and lasting service for your love. [Erit.

Faust. Oh, Faustur,

Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
Three Scholars enter.

And then thou must be damn'd perpetually.
Paust. Gramercy, Wagner.

Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, Welcome, gentlemen.

That time may cease and midnight never come. First Sch. Now, worthy Faustus, methinks your Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make looks are changed.

Perpetual day : or let this hour be but Faust. Oh, gentlemen.

A year, a month, a week, a natural day, Sec. Sch. What ails Faustus !

That Faustus may repent and save his soul. Faust. Ah, my sweet chamber-fellow, had I lived O lente lente currite, noctis equi. with thee, then had I lived still, but now must die The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, eternally. Look, sirs, comes he not comes he not ! The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.

First Sch. Oh, my dear Faustus, what imports this Oh, I will leap to heaven : who pulls me down ! fear !

See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament: Sec. Sch. Is all our pleasure tumed to melancholy? One drop of blood will save me: Oh, my Christ, Third Sch. He is not well with being over solitary. Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ.

Sec. Sch. If it be so, we will have physicians, and Yet will I call on him: 0 spare me, Lucifer.
Faustus shall be cured.

Where is it now? 'tis gone !
First Sch. 'Tis but a surfeit, sir ; fear nothing. And see a threat’ning arm, and angry brow.

Faust. A surfeit of a deadly sin, that hath damnd Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me, both body and soul.

And hide me from the heavy wrath of heaven. Sec. Sch. Yet, Faustus, look up to heaven, and re- No ? then I will headlong run into the earth : member mercy is infinite.

Gape earth. Oh no, it will not harbour me. Faust. But Faustus's offence can ne'er be pardoned. You stars that reign'd at my nativity, The serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Whose influence have allotted death and hell, Faustus. Oh, gentlemen, hear me with patience, and Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist tremble not at my speeches. Though my heart pant Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud ; and quiver to remember that I have been a student That when you vomit forth into the air, here these thirty years, Oh, would I had ne'er seen My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths, Wirtemberg, never read book ! and what wonders have But let my soul mount and ascend to heaven. I done, all Germany can witness, yea, all the world : for which Faustus hath lost both Germany and the world ; yea, heaven itself, heaven the seat of God, the Oh, half the hour is past : 'twill all be past anon. throne of the blessed, the kingdom of joy, and must Oh, if my soul must suffer for my sin, remain in hell for ever. Hell, Oh hell, for ever. Sweet Impose some end to my incessant pain. friends, what shall become of Faustus being in hell Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years, for ever?

A hundred thousand, and at the last be saved : Sec. Sch. Yet, Faustus, call on God.

No end is limited to damned souls. Faust. On God, whom Faustus hath abjured ! on Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul ? God, whom Faustus hath blasphemed! Oh, my God, I | Or why is this immortal that thou hast ! would weep, but the devil draws in my tears. Gush | Oh, Pythagoras, Metempsycosis, were that true, forth blood instead of tears, yea, life and soul. Oh, he This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd stays my tongue : I would lift up my hands, but see, Into some brutish beast. they hold'em, they hold'em !

All beasts are happy, for when they die, Ścholars. Who, Faustus ?

Their souls are soon dissoly'd in elements : Paust. Why, Lucifer and Mephostophilis. Oh, gen- But mine must live still to be plagued in hell. tlemen, I gave them my soul for my cunning. Curst be the parents that engender'd me : Scholars. Oh, God forbid.

No, Faustus, curse thyself, curso Lucifer, Faust. God forbid it indeed, but Faustus hath done That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven. it : for the vain pleasure of four-and-twenty years hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity. I writ them

The Clock strikes Twelve. a bill with mine own blood; the date is expired : this It strikes, it strikes ; now, body, turn to air, is the time, and he will fetch me.

Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell. First Sch. Why did not Faustus tell us of this be- Oh soul, be chang’d into small water drops, fore, that divines might have prayed for thee? And fall into the ocean : ne'er be found.

Faust. Oft have I thought to have done so ; but the devil threatened to tear me in pieces if I named God ;

Thunder, and enter the Devils.
to fetch me body and soul if I once gave ear to divi-Oh mercy, heaven, look not so fierce on me.
nity; and now it is too late. Gentlemen, away, lest Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while •
you perish with me.

Ugly hell gape not; come not, Lucifer:
Sec. Sch. Oh, what may we do to save Faustus ! I'll burn my books : Oh, Mephostophilis !
Paust. Talk not of me, but save yourselves, and depart.
Third Sch. God will strengthen me, I will stay with

Enter Scholars.
Faustus.

First Sch. Tempt not God, sweet friend, but let us Pirst Sch. Come, gentlemen, let us go visit Faustus, into the next room and pray for him.

For such a dreadful night was never seen Paust. Ay, pray for me, pray for me; and what Since first the world's creation did begin; noise soever you hear, come not unto me, for nothing Such fearful shrieks and crics were never heard.

Pray heaven the Doctor have escaped the danger.

The Watch strikes.

8

.

Sec. Sch. O help us heavens ! see here are Faustus' vengeance on his enemies, he is overmatched himself, he thus limbs

confesses his crimes, and closes his career :-) All torn asunder by the hand of deatn.

Then Barabas, breathe forth thy latest fate, Third Sch. The devil whom Faustus serv'd hath torn

And in the fury of thy torments, strive him thus :

To end thy life with resolution : For 'twixt the hours of twelve and one, methought

Know, Governor, 'tis I that slew thy son ; I heard him shriek and call aloud for help;

I fram'd the challenge that did make them meet. At which same time the house seem'd all on fire

Know, Calymath, I aim'd thy overthrow; With dreadful horror of these damned fiends.

And had I but escap'd this stratagem, Sec. Sch. Well, gentlemen, though Faustus' end be

I would have brought confusion on you all, such

Damn'd Christian dogs, and Turkish infidels. As every Christian heart laments to think on ;

But now begins the extremity of heat Yet, for he was a scholar once admired

To pinch me with intolerable pangs. For wondrous knowledge in our German schools,

Die life, fiy soul, tongue curse thy fill, and die. We'll give his mangled limbs due burial :

[Dies. And all the scholars, cloth'd in mourning black, Shall wait upon his heavy funeral.

“Edward the Second' is considered as superior to the Chorus. Cut is the branch that might have grown two plays mentioned in connexion with it: it is a full straight,

noble drama, with ably-drawn characters and splenAnd burned is Apollo's laurel bough

did scenes. Another tragedy, Lust's Dominion, was That sometime grew within this learned man: published long after Marlow's death, with his name Faustus is gone! Regard his hellish fall,

as author on the title page. Mr Collier has shown Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise

that this play, as it was then printed, was a much Only to wonder at unlawful things :

later production, and was probably written by DekWhose deepness doth entice such forward wits

ker and others. It contains passages and characTo practise more than heavenly power perinits.

ters, however, which have the impress of Marlow's The classical taste of Marlow is evinced in the fine genius, and we think he must have written the ori

Great uncertainty hangs over many apostrophe to Helen of Greece, whom the spirit Me- ginal outline. phostophilis conjures up between two Cupids,'to of the old dramas, from the common practice of gratify the sensual gaze of Faustus:

managers of theatres employing different authors,

at subsequent periods, to furnish additional matter Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships for established plays. Even Faustus was dressed up And burn’d the topless towers of llium?

in this manner : in 1597 (four years after Marlow's Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss ! death), Dekker was paid 20s. for making additions Her lips suck forth my soul-see where it flies. to this tragedy; and in other five years, Birde and Come, Helen, come give me my soul again; Rowley were paid £4 for further additions to it. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, Another source of uncertainty as to the paternity And all is dross that is not Helena.

of old plays, was the unscrupulous manner in which O thou art fairer than the evening air,

booksellers appropriated any popular name of the Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars !

day, and affixed it to their publications. In addiBrighter art thou than flaming Jupiter

tion to the above dramatic productions, Marlow When he appear'd to hapless Semele;

assisted Nash in the tragedy of Dido, Queen of CarMore lovely than the monarch of the sky

thage, and translated part of Hero and Leander (afterIn wanton Arethusa's azure arms;

wards completed by Chapman), and the Elegies of And none but thou shall be my paramour.

Ovid; the latter was so licentious as to be burned Before 1593, Marlow produced three other dra- by order of the Archbishop of Canterbury, yet they mas, the Jew of Malta, the Massacre at Paris, and interdict. Poor Marlow lived, as he wrote, wildly:

were often reprinted in defiance of the ecclesiastical a historical play, Edward the Second. The more malignant passions of the human breast have rarely but there is no trace of this in his plays. He came

he was accused of entertaining atheistical opinions, been represented with such force as they are in the Jew.

to an early and singularly unhappy end. He was attached to a lady, who favoured another lover;

Marlow found them in company one day, and in a [Passages from the Jew of Malta.)

frenzy of rage attempted to stab the man with his [In one of the early scenes, Barabas the Jew is deprived of dagger. His antagonist seized him by the wrist, and his wealth by the governor of Malta. While being comforted turned the dagger, so that it entered Marlow's own in his distress by two Jewish friends, he thus denounces his head, 'in such sort,' says Anthony Wood, 'that, notoppressors :-)

withstanding all the means of surgery that could be The plagues of Egypt, and the curse of heaven,

brought, he shortly after died of his wound.' Some Earth’s barrenness, and all men's hatred

of the accounts represent the poet's rival as a mere Inflict upon them, thou great Primus Motor !

'serving man,' the female a courtesan, and the scene And here, upon my knees, striking the earth,

of the fatal struggle a house of ill-fame. The old I ban their souls to everlasting pains

ballad to which we have alluded thus describes the And extreme tortures of the fiery deep, That thus have dealt with me in my distress.

His lust was lawless as his life, (So deeply have his misfortunes embittered his life, that he

And brought about his death ; would have it appear he is tired of it :-)

For in a deadly mortal strife, And henceforth wish for an eternal night,

Striving to stop the breath That clouds of darkness may enclose my flesh,

Of one who was his rival foe, And hide these extreme sorrows from mine eyes.

With his own dagger slain ;

He groan'd, and word spoke never moe, (But when his comforters are gone, he throws off the mask of

Pierc'd through the eye and brain. * sorrow to show his real feelings, which suggest to him schemes of the subtlest vengeance. With the fulfilment of these, the * First published in 1834 by Mr Collier, in his · New Partirest of the play is occupied, and when, having taken terrible culars regarding the Works of Shakspeare.'

affair: