Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

for thou canst do it, no man better, no man fo well thou haft libertie to reprove all, and name none. Stop fhallow water flill running, it will rage; tread on a worme, and it will turn; then blame not schollers, who are vexed with sharpe and bitter lines, if they reproove too much libertic of reproof."

George Peele, as Mr. Tyrwhitt has remarked, is next addreffed. "And thou no leffe deferving than the other, two, in fome things rarer, in nothing inferior, driven, as my felfe, to extreame shifts, a little have I to fay to thee: and were it not an idolatrous oath, I would fweare by fweet S. George, thou art unworthy better hap, fith thou dependeft on fo meane a stay. Bafe-minded men all three of you, if by my mifery you be not warned: for unto none of you, like me, fought thofe burs to cleave'; those puppets, I meane. that fpeake from our mouths; thofe anticks garnifht in our colours. Is it not frange that I, to whom they all have bin beholding, is it not like that you, to whom they all have been beholding, fhall (were yee in that cafe that I am now) be both of them at once forfaken? Yes, truft them not, for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tygres heart wrapt in a players hide, fuppofes hee is as well able to bombafle out a blanke verfe as the best of you; and being an abfolute Johannes fac-totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-fcene in a countrey. O that I might intreat your rare wittes to be employed in more profitable couffes; and let thefe apes imitate your past excellence, and never

more acquaynte them with your admired inven

tions.

This tract appears to have been written by Greene not long before his death; for near the conclufion he fays, "Albeit weakness will scarce Suffer me to write, yet to my fellow-fcollers about this city will I direct thefe few infuing lines." He died, according to Dr. Gabriel Harvey's account, on the third of September, 1592. *

I have lately met with a very fcarce pamphlet entitled Kind Harts Dreame, written by Henry Chettle, from the preface to which it appears that he was the editor of Greene's Groatfworth of Wit, and that it was published between September and December 1592. ' Our poct, we find, was not without reafon difpleafed at the preceding allufion to him. As what Chettle fays of him, correfponds with the character which all his contemporaries have given him, and the piece is tremely rare, I fhall extract from the Addrefs to the Gentlemen Readers, what relates to the fubject before

us:

CX

"About three months fince died M. Robert Greene, leaving many papers in fundry bookfellers' hands, among others his Groatfworth of Wit, in which a letter written to divers play-makers is offenfively by one or two of them taken; and

MS.

Additions by Oldys to Winftanley's Lives of the Poets,

Probably in October, for on the find The Repentance of Robert Greene, tered by John Danter, O&t. 6, 1592. Greene's pamphlet is, "Greene's bought with a Million of Repentance.

Stationers' books I
Mafter of Arts, en-
The full title of
Groalfworth of Wit

because on the dead they cannot be revenged, they wilfully forge in their conceites a living author: and after toffing it to and fro, no remedy but it muft light on me. How I have, all the time of my converfing in printing, hindered the bitter inveighing against schollers, it hath been very well known; and how in that I dealt, I can fufficiently prove. With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them [Marlowe] I care not if I never be. The other, [Shakspeare,] whom at that time I did not fo much fpare, as fince I wish I had, for that as I have moderated the hate of living writers, and might have used my own difcretion, (especially in such a case, the author being dead,) that I did not, I am as forry as if the original fault had been my fault; becaufe my felfe have feen his demeanour no lefs civil than he excellent in the qualitie he profelles: Befides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing; which argues his honeftie, and his facetious grace in writing, that approves his art. For the first, whose learning I reverence, and at the perufing of Greene's booke, ftrooke out what then in confcience I thought he in fome difpleafure writ; or had it been true, yet to publish it was intollerable; him I would wish to ufe no worse than I deferve. I had onely in the copy this fhare: it was il written, as fometime Greene's hand. was none of the beft; licenfed it must bee, ere it could be printed, which could never bee, if it could not be read. To be brief, I writ it over, and as near as I could followed the copy; onely in that letter I put fomething out, but in the whole book not a word in; for I proteft it was all Greenes,

not mine, nor Mafter Nafhes, as fome unjustly have affirmed. Neither was he the writer of an Epifle to The Second Part of Gerileon; though by the workman's error T. N. were fet to the end: that I confefs to be mine, and repent it not.

"Thus, Gentlemen, having noted the private caufes that made me nominate myfelf in print, being as well to purge Mafter Nafhe of what he did not, as to juftifie what I did, and withall to confirm. what M. Greene did, I beseech you to accept the publick cause, which is both the defire of your delight and common benefit; for though the toye bee fhadowed under the title of Kind Harts Dreame, it difcovers the falfe hearts of divers that wake to commit mifchief, " &c.

That I am right in fuppofing the two who took offence at Greene's pamphlet were Marlowe and Shakspeare, whofe names I have inferted in a preceding paragraph in crotchets, appears from the paffage itfelf already quoted; for there was nothing in Greene's exhortation to Lodge and Peele, the other two perfons addreffed, by which either of them could poffibly be offended. Dr. Farmer is of opinion that the fecond perfon addreffed by Greene is not Lodge, but Nafhe, who is often called Juvenal by the writers of that time; but that he was not meant, is decifively proved by the extract from Chettle's pamphlet; for he never would have laboured to vindicate Nafhe from being the writer of the Groatsworth of Wit, if any part of it had been profeffedly addreffed to him.

• Nashe himself alfo takes fome pains in an Epiftle prefixed to Pierce Pennileffe &c. to vindicate himself from being the author of Greene's Groatsworth of Wit.

Befides, Lodge had written a play in conjunction with Greene, called A Looking Glass for London and England, and was author of fome fatirical pieces; but we do not know that Nafhe and Greene had ever written in conjunction.

Henry Chettle was himfelf a dramatick writer, and appears to have become acquainted with Shakfpeare, or at leaft feen him, between Sept. 1592, and the following December. Shakspeare was at this time twenty-eight years old; and then we find from the teftimony of this writer his demeanour was no lefs civil than he excellent in the qualitie he profeffed. From the fubfequent paragraph-"Divers of worfhip have reported his uprightnefs of dealing, which argues his honeftie, and his facetious grace in writing, that approves his art," it may be reafonably prefumed, that he had exhibited more than one comedy on the ftage before the end of the year 1592, perhaps Love's Labour's Loft in a lefs perfect flate than it now appears in, and A Midfummer Night's Dream.

In what time foever he became acquainted with the theatre, we may prefume that he had not compofed his firft piece long before it was acted; for being early incumbered with a young family, and not in very affluent circumflances, it is improbable that he fhould have fuffered it to lie in his closet, without endeavouring to derive fome profit from it; and in the miferable ftate of the drama in those days the meaneft of his genuine plays must have been a valuable acquifition, and would hardly have been refused by any of our ancient theatres.

In a Differtation on the Three Parts of King Henry VI. which I have fubjoined to those plays, I

« AnteriorContinuar »