poet, in the words which they uttered and the colours with which they were garnished, had once cleaved to him like burs. But a change had taken place: "Is it not strange that I, to whom they all have been beholding - is it not like that you, to whom they all have been beholding, shall, were ye in that case that I am now, be, both, of them at once forsaken ?" This is a lamentable picture of one whose powers, wasted by dissipation and enfeebled by sickness, were no longer required by those to whom they had once been serviceable. As he was forsaken, so he holds that his friends will be forsaken. And chiefly for what reason? Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapped 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 factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." There can be no doubt that Shakspere was here pointed at; that the starving man spoke with exceeding bitterness of the successful author; that he affected to despise him as a player; that, if "beautified with our feathers" had a stronger meaning than "garnished with our colours," it conveyed a vague charge of borrowing from other poets; and that he, Greene, parodied a line from "The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York," which we hold to be Shakspere's performance; and which does not differ, in any very material

B

degree from the third part of Henry VI. Greene proceeds to exhort his friends "to be employed in more profitable courses. "Let these apes

imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions.". "Seek you better masters." It is perfectly clear that these words refer only to the players generally; and, possibly, to the particular company of which Shakspere was a member. As such, and such only, must he take his share in the names which Greene applies to them, of apes," "rude grooms, "buckram gentlemen," 66 peasants," and "painted monsters." It has been held that Greene intended to accuse Shakspere of robbing him of the profits of his labour, by new-modelling a work originally produced by him. We shall notice this matter in another place. It is sufficient here to mention, that the editor of the posthumous attack apologised to the "upstart crow: "I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself hath seen his demeanour no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes: besides, 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 not written by Chettle at some distant period; it came out in the same year with the pamphlet which contained the insult.

There was an indistinct echo of Greene's complaint, by some "R. B." in 1594:

"Greene gave the ground to all who wrote upon him: Nay, more; the men that so eclips'd his fame Purloin'd his plumes,-can they deny the same?" We believe that never yet any great author appeared in the world who was not reputed, in the onset of his career, to be a plagiarist; or any great literary performance produced by one whose reputation had to be made, that was not held to be written by some one else than the man who did write it there was some one behind the curtain some mysterious assistant - whose possible existence was a consolation to the envious and malignant.

The passages in Spenser's "Tears of the Muses," and Greene's "Groat's worth of Wit," which it is morally impossible to apply to any other man than Shakspere, are still only indirect evidence of the opinion which was formed of him when he was yet a very young writer. But a few years later we encounter the most direct testimony to his pre-eminence. He it was that, in 1598, was assigned his rank, not by any vague and doubtful compliment, not with any ignorance of what had been achieved by other men ancient and modern, but by the learned discrimination of a scholar; and that rank was with Homer, Hesiod, Euripides, Æschylus, Sophocles, Pindar, Phocylides, and Aristophanes amongst the Greeks; Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Silius-Italicus, Lucan, Lucretius, Ausonius, and Claudian amongst the

Latins; and Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Marlowe, and Chapman amongst the English. According to the same authority, it was "in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakspere” that "the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives.” This praise was applied to his Venus and Adonis, and other poems. But, for his dramas, he is raised above every native contemporary and predecessor: "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latins; so Shakspere among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage." These are extracts with which many of our readers must be familiar. They are from "The Wits' Commonwealth" of Francis Meres, "Master of Arts of both Universities;" a book largely circulated, and mentioned with applause by contemporary writers. The author delivers not these sentences as his own peculiar opinion; he speaks unhesitatingly, as of a fact admitting no doubt, that Shakspere, among the English, is the most excellent for Comedy and Tragedy. Does any one of the other "excellent" dramatic writers of that day rise up to dispute the assertion, galling, perhaps, to the self-love of some amongst them ? Not a voice is heard to tell Francis Meres that he has overstated the public opinion of the supremacy of Shakspere. Thomas Heywood, one of this illustrious band, speaks of Meres as an approved good scholar; and says that his account

of authors is learnedly done.* Heywood himself, indeed, in lines written long after Shakspere's death, mentions him in stronger terms of praise than he applies to any of his contemporaries.† Lastly, Meres, after other comparisons of Shakspere with the great writers of antiquity and of his own time, has these words, which nothing but a complete reliance upon the received opinion of his day could have warranted him in applying to any living man: "As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speak with Plautus' tongue, if they would speak Latin; so I say that the Muses would speak with Shakspere's fine filed phrase, if they would speak English."

Of the popularity of Shakspere in his own day, the external evidence, such as it is, is more decisive than the testimony of any contemporary writer. He was at one and the same time the favourite of the people and of the Court. There is no record whatever known to exist of the public performances of Shakspere's plays at his own theatres. Had such an account existed of the re

*Here I might take fit opportunity to reckon up all our English writers, and compare them with the Greek, French, Italian, and Latin poets, not only in their pastoral, historical, elegiacal, and heroical poems, but in their tragical and comical subjects, but it was my chance to happen on the like, learnedly done by an approved good scholar, in a book called Wits' Commonwealth,' to which treatise I wholly refer you, returning to our present subject."- Apology for Actors, 1612. † Hierarchy of Blessed Angels, 1635.