in the fate of Edward I. himself, but in a different manner. This general romantico-poetical atmosphere which pervades the play, and envelopes the multitude of actions and events in the picturesque haze of distance, again forms the chief merit of the piece.

The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe,' etc. (London 1599),* is doubtless Peele's maturest and best work. In my opinion, however, it does not belong to our consideration here, inasmuch as I am convinced it was not written till Shakspeare's Romeo and Juliet,' was already upon the boards (1591-92). I believe that, as regards style and language, there are distinct traces of Shakspeare's influence. It is more especially the love scenes and the images and similes describing the charms of the beauty of nature, that remind one of those incomparable pictures in Romeo and Juliet.' The poetical description of love, beauty and grace, of which in Peele's other pieces there are scarcely any feeble attempts, he has here depicted with a remarkably high degree of success. In accordance with the subject the play has something of the peculiar Oriental-Judæic character, (distinctly apparent in the 'Song of Solomon,') that confused and glaring splendour of colouring, that dazzling sunshine, that animating, prolific warmth, which will allow of no settled form, but in which the outlines, while endeavouring to draw the form, as it were, vanish again into infinitude. On the other hand, when the situation demands the expression of greatness or sublimity, Peele, here also, in most cases falls into bombast; the representation of power, emotion, rapid effect and stirring passion, is in fact not his strong point. Otherwise the treatment is in general the same as in The famous Chronicle of Edward I.' The subject is taken almost without alteration from the Old Testament, and arranged in an epic and chronological manner. But the whole is more rounded off, because the incidents are not so numerous, and seem to be borne by an internal ideal connection. We here have the fundamental idea of Judæic morals, the transmission of punishment from the parents upon the children, forming the basis of the whole representation. David, by yielding to his adulterous * Dyce, p. 450-487.

passion for Bethsabe, becomes for her sake, indirectly at least, the murderer of Uriah; burdened with this crime David, so to say, calls the vice of sensuality and thus family feud, into his house; his son Amnon ravishes his own sister; Absalom, quick and violent in his actions, kills his own brother in expiation of the foul deed and rebels against his father. Yet Peele had no distinct consciousness of this ideal unity, otherwise he would have brought Absalom's rebellion and fall into casual connection with the story of David and Bethsabe, and with Amnon's sin, and not, as he has done, merely connected the two actions externally, so that in reality a new piece begins with Absalom's rebellion.

The characters of David, Absalom, Bethsabe, Joab and Uriah are well contrasted and appropriately drawn throughout, but still too much by their mere actions. David, however, forms an exception, and lets us look into his soul, which is often troubled by passion, pain, remorse, paternal love, anger and indignation. The blank verse, which is but rarely mixed with occasional rhymes, and alternates with prose, appears already to be treated with great adroitness, whereas in The famous Chronicle of Edward I.' and in The Battle of Alcazar,' it is still somewhat awkward and monotonous, and is interrupted by whole scenes in rhyming lines.

CHAPTER XI.

ROBERT GREENE.

ROBERT GREENF, as I believe, has judged Peele's capabilities with a certain degree of partiality; if this is the case, he was probably induced to do so not merely on account of being his friend and associate, but also by reason of the great resemblance of mind, and the unusual equality of temperament and similarity in manner of life, which seems to have subsisted between them. The date of Greene's birth cannot be precisely determined, but there can be no doubt of its falling between 1550 and 1560.* He was descended from a family in Norwich, studied at Cambridge, received there in 1578 the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and soon afterwards made a rather long tour through Italy and Spain. During these travels-as he himself confesses in his Repentance'-he abandoned himself to the wildest excesses in the company of vagabonds, adventurers and low persons of all kinds, which weakened him both bodily and mentally, and robbed his undecided character of whatever energy and self-control, of steadiness and application it may have possessed, and which we miss in his works. He was never able to control himself, to concentrate his powers, or to mould his volatile nature into any definite form. Upon his return home in 1583 he obtained at Cambridge the higher degree of M.A. Immediately after this he proceeded to the metropolis, and here again, as he himself confesses, led a merry and dissolute life. That the Robertus Greene who (according to an ancient document), as Rector of Walkington, was presented by the Queen to the Chapter of the Diocese of York as early as

* When A. Dyce (in his edition of Greene's and Peele's Works, p. 1), says that the year of his birth falls in 1550, this, in my opinion, is too early a date. For it is not likely that Greene obtained his degree of B.A. at the age of twenty-eight, or that he should have studied so late or so long at Cambridge. Very probably he was not much older than Peele, and did not appear as an author till after him.

1576-is not our poet there can, in my opinion, be no doubt.* On the other hand, it is possible that in 1584, he may have accepted a clergyman's place in Essex. However, even this report is founded merely upon an incidental remark made by O. Gilchrist, for which he gives no authority, and upon a note in the style of the sixteenth century, which exists in one of the copies of the earliest edition of The Pinner of Wakefield' (1599). Greene, in the title page of his Planetomachia,' a treatise published in 1585, calls himself a student of Phisicke,' hence he gives himself this name scarcely a year after he is said to have been made Vicar of Tollesbury. He would consequently very soon have had to give up that position, and probably also the study of medicine, owing to his inveterate delight in a free adventurous life, which no doubt also led him to theatrical pursuits and to dramatic poetry. If he ever was Vicar of Tollesbury, he entered the clerical profession perhaps out of love for some pretty, amiable girl whom he married and then retired to the country to spend some time in peaceful happiness. But from his 'Never too Late,' a tale published in 1590, and his 'Groatsworth of Wit, etc.' (1592), where he describes his own life (in the former in the person of Francesco, in the latter as Roberto-except that as Dyce justly remarks, it is difficult to see how much is to be taken for fact, and how much for poetical invention), we are led to infer with certainty that he did not long continue in this peace and quietude. His wife may perhaps have wearied him with her moralising and economising; a business journey to London and the lewd arts of a courtesan may have aroused his passions; in short, he, as it seems, very soon sent his wife and child to Lincolnshire, and between 1585-86 was

* Dyce (l.c., p. 3) is of a different opinion, and refers his readers to this document as a proof that Greene entered the Church. However, he forgets that Greene was not a Bachelor of Arts till 1578, hence was no doubt studying at Cambridge in 1576, and that the Queen expressly calls the Robertus Greene of the document, a chaplain of her Royal Chapel, hence that the poet Greene must have been a clergyman and have lived in London before 1576. It also cannot be made to agree that the same Greene who, as early as 1575 was made Rector of Walkington, should seven years subsequently be appointed Vicar of Tollesbury in Essex.

† Dyce, p. 4. 77.

Dyce, p. 23.

again in London. He was fond of playing the part of a scholar, and this is probably the reason why he did not rest satisfied with his Cambridge degree he desired the same honour from the university of Oxford, which he obtained in 1588. After this, for four successive years he led a life of wild excess, at one time living in the greatest luxury, and at another in the most abject poverty; at one time lashing himself with bitter reproaches of repentance and self-contempt, then again pouring forth his easily excited fancy and feelings in poetical creations. Such was his life till 1592, in which year on the 2nd of September, he died in sincere repentance, försaken and alone, in consequence of a disease contracted by his own irregular life.*

Greene was a prolific and versatile author, at least after the year 1583, when he published his earliest known work. In addition to his dramas he composed a number of tales and poems, didactic, edifying and moral treatises, generally in a semi-poetical, often romantic form; also some pamphlets of a satirical character. Dyce counts no less than thirty-four small prose writings of this description. Of dramas there are, it is true, only six, and if 'The Looking-glass of London' is omitted, only five that can be attributed to him with certainty; but it is probable that a number of his earliest pieces (those written between 1585-88) are lost. In all he displays no common powers of mind, tenderness of feeling, a quick and lively fancy, a facility and a cleverness of thought and expression; in this he is superior to his friend Peele, but in the want of profundity of mind, of depth and solidity of feeling, of power and decision of character, as well as of moral earnestness, and of that energy of thought which, with a strong hand, controls the reins both of life and of poetry, he is completely his equal. Therefore although he, in his dramas, occasionally strove to connect the multifarious threads of the action in its actual depth, that is, below the

* Dyce, p. 55 f.-Bodenstedt (l.c., p. 59) considers the stories and sentences passed upon his dissolute mode of life as exaggerated, and also doubts the genuineness of the two pamphlets which did not appear till after his death, viz., The Repentance of R. Greene and his Groatsworth of Wit, etc.--As regards the latter, I think his doubts are unjust. Dyce, p 76 ff.

† Dyce, p. 25-76.