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eclipse all of them :- For there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Fac-totum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country.' The punning allusion to Shakspeare is unmistakable: the expressionstiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide,' are a parody on the following line in Henry the Sixth :

O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide.

The 'Groat's Worth of Wit' was published after Greene's death by a brother dramatist, Henry Chettle, who, in the preface to a subsequent work, thus apologizes for the allusion to Shakspeare. 'I am sorry,' he says, 'as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his demeanor no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes. Beside, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that approves his art.' This apology was published in 1593, and is the more valuable, because it does full justice to Shakspeare's moral worth, and civil deportment, and to his respectability as an actor and author.

The following conclusion of Greene's 'Groat's Worth of Wit,' contains more pathos than all his plays combined. It is, indeed, a harrowing picture of genius debased by vice, and sorrowing in repentance :

'But now return I again to you three (Marlow, Lodge, and Peele), knowing my misery is to you no news: and let me heartily entreat you to be warned by my harms. Delight not, as I have done, in irreligious oaths; despise drunkenness, fly lust, abhor those epicures, whose loose life hath made religion loathsome to your ears; and when they soothe you with terms of mastership, remember Robert Greene (whom they have often flattered) perishes for want of comfort. Remember, gentlemen, your lives are like so many light tapers that are with care delivered to all of you to maintain; these, with wind-puffed wrath, may be extinguished, with drunkenness put out, with negligence let fall. The fire of my light is now at the last snuff. My hand is tired, and I forced to leave where I would begin; desirous that you should live though himself be dying.-ROBERT GREENE.'

Greene died in September 1592, owing, it is said, to a surfeit of red herring and Rhenish wine! We shall conclude this melancholy picture with his sonnet on Content, and the Song of the Shepherdess.

CONTENT.

Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content:

The quiet mind is richer than a crown:

Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent:

The poor estate scorns Fortune's angry frown.

Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss,
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss.

The homely house that harbours quiet rest,
The cottage that affords no pride nor care,

The mean, that 'grees with country music best,
The sweet consort of mirth's and music's fare.
Obscured life sets down a type of bliss;
A mind content both crown and kingdom is.

THE SONG OF THE SHEPHERDESS.

Ah! what is love! It is a pretty thing,
As sweet unto a shepherd as a king,
And sweeter too:

For kings have cares that wait upon a crown,
And cares can make the sweetest cares to frown:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?'

His flocks are folded; he comes home at night
As merry as a king in his delight,

And merrier too:

For kings bethink them what the state require,
Where shepherds, careless, carol by the fire:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?

He kisseth first, then sits as blithe to eat
His cream and curd as doth the king his meat,
And blither too:

For kings have often fears when they sup,
Where shepherds dread no poison in their cup:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?

Upon his couch of straw he sleeps as sound
As doth the king upon his bed of down,
More sounder too:

For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to spill,
Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?

Thus with his wife he spends the year as blithe
As doth the king at every tide or syth,

And blither too:

For kings have wars and broils to take in hand,
When shepherds laugh, and love upon the land:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?

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THOMAS LODGE was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, of which he became servitor in, 1573. From Oxford he removed to London, and entered Lincoln's Inn as a student of law; but if he ever followed the legal pro

fession, it must have been for only a short time, as in 1584, he was con-
nected with one of the London theatrical companies as an actor.
He soon
after retired to the continent, studied medicine, and took his doctor's degree
at Avignon, in the south of France. In 1590, he first appeared as an author
by the production of a novel under the title of Rosalind Ephues' Golden
Legacy, in which he recommends the fantastic style of Lyly. From part of
the story of 'Rosalind,' Shakspeare constructed his 'As You Like It.' In 1594,
Lodge wrote a historical play, the Wounds of Civil War, Lively set forth in
the True Tragedies of Marius aud Sylla. The play, as a whole, is heavy and
uninteresting, but the author had the good taste to adopt, as will appear from
the following example, the blank verse for which Greene had already become
so distinguished:-

Ay, but the milder passions show the man;
For, as the leaf doth beautify the tree,
The pleasant flowers bedeck the painted spring,
Even so in men of greatest reach and power,

A mild and piteous thought augments renown.

The play 'A Looking-glass for London and England,' already alluded to in our notice of Greene, is directed to the defence of the stage. It applies the Scriptural story of Nineveh to the city of London, and amid drunken buffoonery and clownish mirth, contains some powerful satirical writing. Lodge also translated Josephus wrote a volume of Satires, and other poems, and a serious defence of the drama, in prose. In 1600, he visited the continent in company with Henry Savell, and on his return to London he merged the actor and dramatist in the physician, and soon became prosperous and wealthy. He died in London, of the plague, in 1625.

In Lodge's 'Rosalind' there is a delightful spirit of romantic fancy, and a love of nature that marks the true poet; and some of his minor pieces, such as the following, are truly beautiful :

ROSALIND'S MADRIGAL.

Love in my bosom, like a bee,

Doth suck his sweet;

Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet.

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,

His bed amidst my tender breasts;

My kisses are his daily feast,

And yet he robs me of my rest:
Ah, wanton, will ye?

And if I sleep, then percheth he

With pretty flight,

And makes his pillow of my knee,

The live-long night.

Strike I my lute, he tunes the string;

He music plays if so I sing;

He lends me every lovely thing,

Yet cruel he my heart doth sting:
Whist, wanton, still ye?

Else I with roses every day

Will whip you hence,

And bind you, when you long to play,

For your offence;

I'll shut mine eyes to keep you in,

I'll make you fast it for your sin,

I'll count your power not worth a pin;
Alas! what hereby shall I win,

If he gainsay me?

What if I beat the wanton boy

With many a rod?

He will repay me with annoy,
Because a god.

Then sit thou safely on my knee,
And let thy bower my bosom be;
Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee,
O, Cupid! so thou pity me,

Spare not, but play thee.

BEAUTY.

Like to the clear in highest sphere,
Where all imperial glory shines,
Of self-same colour is her hair,
Whether unfolded or in twines:

Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
Refining heaven by every wink;
The gods do fear, when as they glow,
And I do tremble when I think.

Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud,
That beautifies Aurora's face;

Or like the silver crimson shroud,

That Phoebus' smiling looks doth grace.

Her lips are like two budded roses, Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh, Within which bounds she balm incloses, Apt to entice a deity.

Her neck like to a stately tower,

Where Love himself imprison'd lies,

To watch for glances, every hour,

From her divine and sacred eyes.

With orient pearl, with ruby red,

With marble white, with sapphire blue,

Her body everywhere is fed,

Yet soft in touch, and sweet in view.

Nature herself her shape admires,

The gods are wounded in her sight; And Love forsakes his heavenly fires, And at her eyes his brand doth light.

282

ANTHONY MUNDAY.-HENRY CHETTLE.

[LECT. XII. ANTHONY MUNDAY's name frequently occurs among the dramatic authors of this period, but of his life very little is known. He appeared before the public as a dramatic writer as early as 1579, and was concerned in the production of fourteen plays; and such was the reputation to which he attained that Francis Meres, in 1598, calls him the 'best plotter' among the writers for the stage. One of his dramas, Sir John Oldcastle, was written in conjunction with Drayton and others, and was printed in 1600, with the name of Shakspeare on the title-page! The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington, printed in 1601, was Munday's most popular play, and it is said he was assisted in it by Chettle. The pranks of Robin Hood and Maid Marian in merry Sherwood, are thus gayly set forth :

Wind once more, jolly huntsmen, all your horns,
Whose shrill sound with the echoing woods assist,
Shall ring a sad knell for the fearful deer;
Before our feather'd shafts, death's winged darts,
Bring sudden summons for their fatal ends.
Give me thy hand: now God's curse on me light,
If I forsake not grief in grief's despite.
Much, make a cry, and yeomen stand ye round:
I charge ye never more let woful sound

Be heard among ye; but whatever fall,
Laugh grief to scorn, and so make sorrow small.
Marian, thou seest, though courtly pleasures want,
Yet country sport in Sherwood is not scant.

For the soul-ravishing delicious sound
Of instrumental music, we have found

The winged quiristers, with divers notes,

Sent from their quaint recording pretty throats,
On every branch that compasseth our bower,
Without command contenting us each hour.
For arras hangings, and rich tapestry,
We have sweet nature's best embroidery.

For thy steel glass, wherein thou wont'st to look,
Thy crystal eyes gaze on the crystal brook.

At court, a flower or two did deck thy head,

Now, with whole garlands it is circled;

For what in wealth we want, we have in flowers,
And what we lose in halls, we find in bowers.

HENRY CHETTLE is as little known as Munday. It is supposed by Collier that he had written for the stage before 1592, when he published Greene's posthumous work, 'A Groat's Worth of Wit.' He was a very prolific writer, and was engaged in the composition of no less than thirtyeight plays, during the six years that followed from 1597. Amongst his plays, the names of which have descended to us, is one on the subject of Cardinal Wolsey, which probably was the origin of Shakspeare's 'Henry the Eighth.' The best drama of this author, that we now possess, is a comedy called Patient Grissell, taken from the Italian of Boccaccio. The humble charms of the heroine are thus finely described :

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