2. The Stage in the Time of Shakespear.

10. We are now arrived at Shakespear's dramatic contemporaries, men, though they began to write before he did, who not only lived at the same time, but for some time divided with him the attention of the playThis circumstance must raise the curiogoing world. sity of every reader, since every one must be anxious to see the actual condition of our stage when that extraordinary genius appeared upon it,- how much he is indebted to it, and it to him.

Robert Greene*, the first of these contemporaries (he died in 1592), was a native of Norwich. The time of his birth is unknown; but it could not well have been later than 1560, as in 1578 he took, at If, as many of his Cambridge, his bachelor's degree. biographers have suspected, and as some have positively asserted, he was the same Robert Greene whom, in 1576, we find one of the queen's chaplains, and rector of

For the following account of Greene, we are indebted to Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, by Bliss; to several instruments in Malone's Shakspeare, by Boswell; to three of Greene's prose tracts; to Collier's History of the Stage and Dramatic Poetry; to Baker's Biographia Dramatica; to some notices in Dodsley 's Old Plays, last edition; to Campbell's Specimens of Dvce's recent edition of Greene's Works, &c.

Walkington, he must have been born some years earlier. By one writer it has been affirmed—we know not on what authority-that in 1584 he was presented to the vicarage of Tollesbury, in Essex, which he resigned the year following. It is certain that the year preceding this (1583) he took his master's degree; and, as the statutes of the university provided that no dispensation for holding a second living should be granted to any one below that degree, we have something like a presumption that Greene the clergyman, and Greene the dramatist, were the same individual. In confirmation of this inference we may add, that by one contemporary writer he is styled "his Reverence;" and that a note, unquestionably written by another contemporary, on the titlepage of an old play attributed to him, may be understood in the same sense. * After all, however, we have presumption only for the statement, and it might be weakened by some considerations. If the dramatist were really a clergyman, the fact must have been notorious to the world; yet by none of those whom his irregularities had alienated, or his ridicule provoked, is he taunted with a charge which, considering the dissipation of his later years, would have been of the severest kind. If the dramatist were a clergyman, Gabriel Harvey, his enemy, who pursued his memory with the most vindictive rancour, would, we should suppose, have dwelt on his dishonouring his gown; yet he gives us no other intimation than what is afforded by the cynical epithet of "his Reverence." In the third place, we have no proof that the Pinner of Wakefield was written by Greene; indeed we have no evidence for the assertion beyond the note below. Internally it has not the least impress of his peculiar manner, none of his bombast, his raving frenzy, his affectation; it is too natural and too vigorous for him. Add that his name was probably as common a one as any in that age, and we shall hesitate

*The Pinner of Wakefield, "Written by a minister, who played the nart of the Pinner himself."

before we positively identify the clerical with the dramatic individual. On this subject, enveloped as it is in so much uncertainty, we will not venture to decide. To the memory of the dramatist, as we shall soon perceive, enough of reproach must for ever remain attached; and until stronger evidence be adduced, we will not help to load it with greater infamy.

The events of this person's life are wrapt in some obscurity. Until his premature death, and the malignity which, as we shall perceive, followed him beyond the tomb, nobody took any trouble to ascertain what he It was sufficient for He had been, or what he had done.

the world to know that he was a popular writer. was not, indeed, very anxious that the details of a life so profligate as his should be scanned too nicely. His profligacy appears to have commenced from his residence at college; but it was greatly confirmed, as he himself acknowledges, by a tour on the Continent, The vices, the infidelity of the especially in Italy. period, are well known to the readers of ecclesiastical history. If they scandalised such a man as Martin Luther, who had visited the eternal city half a century severer effect on before, they were sure to have a Greene: the former had sufficient depth of religious conviction to contrast the conduct with the professions of the priesthood, and from the exercise to derive profit; the latter, having apparently no religious impressions, or at least none but those of a transient character, converted every thing which he saw into moral poison. In a tract which he wrote in 1592, his "Repentance," the very year of his death-he confesses that he saw and practised such villanies as were too abominable to be mentioned. On his return, he was not likely to edify the world by his example. That he was dissolute, profligate, worthless, the companion of ruffians and courtezans, is certain ; but we are scarcely able to trace There are, indeed, two the gradations of his guilt. works of his, his Never too Late, and his Groatsbought by a Million of Repentance,-(the

former printed two years before his death, the latter immediately after it) which under feigned names undoubtedly embody some of his adventures. For this inference we have, in the one case, the evidence of his known adventures with some of those attributed to Francesco in Never too Late: in the other, we have his own direct testimony that Roberto's life agreed for the most part with his own. The incidents, however, in both pieces are so heightened, so exaggerated, that though the foundation is true, nothing is more difficult than to determine what we ought to receive as fact. We will rapidly consider each in succession, and leave the reader to judge how far they are conformable with the real actions of this adventurer. We commence with the Never too Late.*

He

In the city of Caerbranck, during the reign of Palmerin, king of Britain, there dwelt a gentleman named Francesco. Though his lineage was worshipful, his substance was not great; and he was constrained to live in great moderation. At length he fell in love with the daughter of an old country gentleman, declared himself, and was accepted by her, provided he could obtain the father's consent. This, however, he was unable to compass: he had not wealth enough for her hand. was forbidden the house, and the young lady carefully placed under bolt and bar. Nay, lest she should think of escaping from the window, her very clothes were taken from her every night before she retired to rest. But the ardour of the lovers was not to be quenched: they bribed a domestic to open a communication between them; and at midnight Francesco contrived to run away with the fair Isabel-a large man's cloak serving

*Greene's Never too Late; or a Powder of Experience sent to all youthfull Gentlemen, to roote out the infectious follies, that over-reeching conceits foster in the spring time of their youth. Decyphering in a true English Historie those particular vanities, that with their frostie vapours nip the blossoms of every ripe braine, from attaining to his intended perfection: as pleesent as profitable, being a right pumice stone, apt to race out Idleness with Delight, and Follie with Admiration. Robert Greene in Artibus Magyster. Omne tulit punctum. London, 1590.

Their lives were pursuit was begun ; but before the lovers could be found, the indissoluble knot had been tied. for some time happy: he keeping a school, and she employing her leisure in ornamental needle work. business at length called him to the capital, where he was occupied nine weeks. At the conclusion of this period, though he sometimes wished, he had not resolution to return home: he was smitten by a syren, who dwelt on the opposite side of the street in which he lived. Being now entangled by her wiles, he forgot his home, his duty, his virtuous partner, and infant son, and lavished all that he had on the mistress. When his funds were exhausted, his very clothes sold, and arrests threatening him, she, of course, forbad him the house. To return to his wife was his first wish; but how face her in such a state, after an absence too of three years? He resolved rather to die. At length he fell in with some players, and was persuaded to was able to try what he could do in comedy. He succeeded beyond his hopes; and in a year or two more, to revisit his deserted home, probably for the purpose of bringing his wife to town.

Such is the account which Robert Greene wishes to be received as his early experience in the marriage state. It is sufficiently dishonourable to his memory. It is, however, drawn in colours much too favourable. There is reason to doubt whether he ever returned to the suffering, faithful, woman he had abandoned. Certainly, as we shall soon perceive, they had not lived together for some years before his death; and we have evidence enough to show that he has passed gently over his irregularities during his early residence in the metropolis, especially after his connection with the stage. when he wrote this Never too Late, he probably intended - evanescent were all his good intentions-to reform, and was unwilling to let the world know the denth of his depravity. But in his Groat's Worth of