in law that I entended against him, in the behalfe of my father, whose honest reputation I was in many dueties to tender. Yet to some conceited witt, that could take delight to discouer knaueries, or were a fitte person to augment the history of conny-catchers, O Lord, what a pregnant occasion were here presented to display leaud vanity in his liuely coullours, and to decipher the very misteries of that base arte! Petty cooseners are not woorth the naming: he, they say, was the monarch of crosbiters, and the very emperour of shifters. I was altogether vnacquainted with the man, and neuer once saluted him by name: but who in London hath not heard of his dissolute and licentious liuing; his fonde disguisinge of a Master of Arte with ruffianly haire, vnseemely apparell, and more vnseemelye company; his vaineglorious and Thrasonicall brauinge; his piperly extemporizing and Tarletonizing; his apishe counterfeiting of euery ridiculous and absurd toy; his fine coosening of iuglers, and finer iugling with cooseners; hys villainous cogging and foisting; his monstrous swearinge and horrible forswearing; his impious profaning of sacred textes; his other scandalous and blasphemous rauinge; his riotous and outragious surfeitinge; his continuall shifting of lodginges; his plausible musteringe and banquettinge of roysterly acquaintaunce at his first comminge; his beggarly departing in euery hostisses debt; his infamous resorting to the Banckeside, Shorditch, Southwarke, and other filthy hauntes; his obscure lurkinge in basest corners; his pawning of his sword, cloake, and what not, when money came short; his impudent pamphletting, phantasticall interluding, and desperate libelling, when other coosening shiftes failed; his imployinge of Ball (surnamed Cuttinge Ball), till he was intercepted at Tiborne, to leauy a crew of his trustiest companions to guarde him in daunger of arrestes; his keping of the foresaid Balls sister, a sorry ragged queane, of whome hee had his base sonne Infortunatus Greene; his forsaking of his owne wife, too honest for such a husband; particulars are infinite ;-his contemning of superiours, deriding of other [othes?], and defying of all good order? Compare base fellowes and noble men together, and what in a manner wanted he of the ruffianly and variable nature of Catiline or Antony, but the honourable fortunes of Catiline and Antony? They that haue scene much more then I haue heard (for so I am credibly infourmed) can relate straunge and almost incredible comedies of his monstrous disposition: wherewith I am not to infect the aire or defile this paper."-p. 9. "How he departed, his ghostly mother Isam can truliest, and will fauourabliest, report: how he liued, London remembreth. Oh, what a liuelie picture of vanity! but, oh, what a deadlie image of miserie! and, oh, what a terrible caueat for such and such! I am not to extenuate or preiudice his wit, which could not any way be great, though som way not the least of our vulgar writers, and mani-waies very vngracious but who euer esteemed him either wise, or learned, or honest, or any way credible? how many gentlemen and other say of him, 'Let the paltry fellow go. Lord, what a lewde companion was hee! what an egregious makeshift! Where should conny-catchers haue gotten such a secretarie? How shal cosenage do for a new register, or phantasticallitye for a new autor?" They wronge him much with their epitaphes and other solemne deuises, that entitle him not at the least, The Second Toy of London, The Stale of Poules, The Ape of Euphues, The Vice of the Stage, The Mocker of the Simple World, The Flowter of his Friendes, The Foe of Himselfe, and so foorth. What durst not hee vtter with his tongue, or diuulge with his penne, or countenance with his face? Or whome cared hee for, but a carelesse crewe of his own associates ? Peruse his famous bookes: and, in steede of Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit vtile dulci (that, forsooth, was his professed poesie), loe, a wilde head, ful of mad braine and a thousand crochets, a scholler, a discourser, a courtier, a ruffian, a gamester, a louer, a souldier, a trauailer, a merchaunt, a broker, an artificer, a botcher, a petti-fogger, a player, a coosener, a rayler, a beggar, an omnigatherum, a gay nothing; a stoarehouse of bald and baggage stuffe, vnwoorth the aunswering or reading; a triuiall and triobular autor for knaues and fooles; an image of idlenes; an epitome of fantasticalitie; a mirrour of vanitie; Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas. Alasse, that anie shoulde say, as I haue heard diuers affirme, 'His witte was nothing but a minte of knauerie; himselfe a deuiser of iugling feates; a forger of couetous practises; an inuentour of monstruous oathes; a derider of all religions; a contemner of God and man; a desperate Lucianist; an abhominable Aretinist; an arch-atheist; and he arch-deserued to be well hanged seauen yeares agoe."—Id. p. 24. Gabriel supposes his dead brother John Harvey to address Greene in the following powerful "SONNET. "John Harueys Welcome to Robert Greene. Come, fellow Greene, come to thy gaping graue; Thou ouer-long hast plaid the madbrain'd knaue, These hungry wormes thinke long for their repast: Come on I pardon thy offence to me; It was thy liuing: be not so aghast; A foole and [a] phisition may agree: And for my brothers, neuer vex thyselfe; They are not to disease a buried elfe."-Id. p. 71. To this torrent of abuse Nash replied somewhat weakly in that comparatively small portion of his Strange Newes,† &c., 1592, which is devoted to the subject of See the latter part of the quotation from Christopher Bird's letter, note, p. 66. + Strange Newes, Of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Conuoy of Verses, as they were going Priuilie to victuall the Low Countries. Unda impellitur unda. By Tho. Nashe Gentleman. Printed 1592, 4to. I believe this piece was never reprinted, but was again put forth with a new title Greene. He seems to have felt that little could be said in defence of the character of his companion, and is evidently anxious to show that no particular intimacy had existed between them. Most of what relates to Greene in the Strange Newes, &c., has been page as The Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse, or Strange Newes, Of the intercepting certaine Letters, &c. 1593. Chettle imagines the dead poet to write the following letter to Nash. "Robert Greene to Pierce Pennilesse. "Pierce, if thy carrier had beene as kinde to me as I expected, I could haue dispatched long since my letters to thee: but it is here as in the world, donum a dando deriuatur; where there is nothing to giue, there is nothing to be got. But hauing now found meanes to send to thee, I will certifie thee a little of my disquiet after death, of which I thinke thou either hast not heard or wilt not conceiue. "Hauing with humble penitence besought pardon for my infinite sinnes, and paid the due to death, euen in my graue was I scarse layde, when Enuie (no fit companion for Art) spit out her poyson, to disturbe my rest. Aduersus mortuos bellum suscipere, inhumanum est: there is no glory gained by breaking a deade mans skull. Pascitur in viuis liuor, post fata quiescit: yet it appeares contrary in some, that inueighing against my workes, my pouertie, my life, my death, my burial, haue omitted nothing that may seeme malitious. For my bookes, of what kind soeuer, I refer their commendation or dispraise to those that haue read them: onely for my last labours, affirming, my intent was to reproue vice, and lay open such villanies as had beene very necessary to be made knowne, whereof my Blacke Booke, if euer it see light, can sufficiently witnesse. "But for my pouertie, mee thinkes wisedome would haue brideled that inuectiue; for cuiuis potest accidere, quod cuiquam potest. The beginning of my dispraisers is knowne; of their end they are not sure. For my life, it was to none of them at any time hurtful; for my death, it was repentant; my buriall like a Christians. Alas that men so hastily should run, To write their own dispraise as they haue done! "For my reuenge, it suffices, that euery halfe-eyd humanitian may account it, instar belluarum immanissimarum sæuire in cadauer. For the iniurie offred thee, I know I need not bring oyle to thy fire. And albeit I would disswade thee from more inuectiues against such thy aduersaries (for peace is nowe all my plea), yet I know thou wilt returne answere, that since thou receiuedst the first wrong, thou wilt not endure the last. "My quiet ghost (vnquietly disturbed) had once intended thus to haue exclaimd; 'Pierce, more witlesse than pennilesse, more idle than thine aduersaries ill imployde, what foolish innocence hath made thee (infant like) resistlesse to beare whateuer iniurie enuie can impose? 'Once thou commendedst immediate conceit, and gauest no great praise to excellent works of twelue yeres labour: now, in the blooming of thy hopes, thou sufferest slaunder to nippe them ere they can bud thereby approuing thy selfe to be of all other most slacke, beeing in thine owne cause so remisse. 'Colour can there be none found to shadowe thy fainting; but the longer thou deferst, the more greefe thou bringst to thy frends, and giuest the greater head to thy enemies. 'What canst thou tell if (as my selfe) thou shalt bee with death preuented? and then how can it be but thou diest disgrac'd, seeing thou hast made no reply to their twofold edition of inuectiues? 'It may bee thou thinkst they will deale well with thee in death, and so thy shame in tollerating them will be short: forge not to thyself one such conceit, but make me thy president, and remember this olde adage, Leonem mortuum mordent catuli. 'Awake, secure boy, reuenge thy wrongs; remember mine: thy aduersaries began the abuse, they continue it if thou suffer it, let thy life be short in silence and obscuritie, and thy death hastie, hated, and miserable.' "All this had I intended to write; but now I wil not giue way to wrath, but returne it vnto the earth from whence I tooke it; for with happie soules it hath no harbour. Robert Greene." Kind-Harts Dreame, &c., n.d., &c. [1592] Sig. E. The "Blacke Booke" mentioned in this letter was afterwards published under the title of The already given,-see p. 29 (note), p. 33, p. 55 (note), p. 56 (note), p. 57 (note), p 58, p. 64 (two notes), p. 65 (note), p. 66 (text and note): a few passages still remain to be quoted: 'Why should art answer for the infirmities of maners? Hee had his faultes, and thou thy follyes. "Debt and deadly sinne who is not subiect to? With any notorious crime I neuer knew him tainted."-Sig. E 4. "What Greene was, let some other answere for him as much as I haue done; I had no tuition ouer him; he might haue writ another Galateo of manners, for his manners euerie time I came in his companie; I saw no such base shifting or abhominable villanie by him. Something there was which I haue heard, not seene, that hee had not that regarde to his credite in which [which it] had beene requisite he should."-Sig. L 4. In one of his later works Nash observes; "What truly might be spoken of Greene I publisht, neither discommending him, nor too much flattering him (for I was nothing bound to him); whereas it maye be alleadgd against Gabriel, as it was against Paulus Iouius, Quæ verissime scribere potuit noluit, & quæ voluit non potuit; Those things which hee might haue related truely hee would not, and those which he would hee could not for want of good intelligence. How he hath handled Greene and Marloe since their deaths, those that read his bookes may iudge."-Haue with you to Saffron-Walden, &c., 1596, Sig. V 3. It is not the part of Greene's biographer to notice the other matters in dispute between Harvey and Nash, whose contest could be stopped only by an order from the Archbishop of Canterbury, that all their "bookes be taken wheresoever they may be found, and that none of the said bookes be ever printed hereafter." Nash must undoubtedly be regarded as the victor: he outdid his opponent in vehemency of invective; while he tortured him with a caustic irony and a coarse wit, which some writers may have equalled but which none have surpassed. I shall conclude this essay with a few extracts from the piece last quoted, Haue with you to Saffron Blacke Bookes Messenger. Laying open the Life and Death of Ned Browne, &c. : see the List of Greene's prose-pieces. In the course of the present memoir the tract called Greene's Funeralls by R. B., 1594, has been twice cited (see p. 39, and p. 61, note,). "R. B.", observes Mr. Collier, "was a most devoted admirer of Greene, as the following lines will show : 'For judgement Jove, for learning deepe he still Apollo seemde ; For floent tongue, for eloquence, men Mercury him deemde ; For curtesie suppose him Guy, or Guyons somewhat lesse. His life and manners, though I would, I cannot halfe expresse : His life, his love, his laude, so excellent they were.' It seems strange that R. B. should touch upon Greene's life and manners,' if he deserved the eharacter for vice and profligacy which his enemy, Gabriel Harvey, gave of him, after Greene was dead and could not reply." Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 147, note. Walden,* &c., 1596, his best work, and of great rarity; and, I imagine, they will be perused with satisfaction by the reader, who may have felt indignant at Harvey's spiteful attack on the memory of Greene: "Mascula virorum, Saint Mildred and Saint Agapite! more Letters yet from the Doctor? nay, then we shall be sure to haue a whole Grauesend barge full of newes, and heare soundly of all matters on both eares. Out vppon it, heere's a packet of epistling as bigge as a packe of woollen cloth or a stack of salt-fish! 'Carrier, didst thou bring it by wayne or on horse-backe?' By wayne, sir; and it hath crackt me three axeltrees, wherefore I hope you will consider me the more.' 'Heauie newes, heauie newes! take them againe, I will neuer open them.' 'Ah,' quoth he, deepe sighing, 'to mee I wot they are the heauiest, whose cart hath cryde creake vnder them fortie times euerie furlong: wherefore, if you bee a good man, rather make mud-walls with them, mend high wayes, or damme vp quagmires with them, than thus they shuld endammage mee to my eternall vndooing.' I, hearing the fellow so forlorne and out of comfort with his luggage, gaue him his Charons naulum or ferry-three-half-pence, and so dismist him to go to the place from whence he came, and play at Lodum. But when I came to vnrip and vnbumbast this Gargantuan bag-pudding, and found nothing in it but dogs-tripes, swines liuers, oxe galls, and sheepes gutts, I was in a bitterer chafe than anie cooke at a long sermon when his meate burnes. Doo the philosophers, said I to myselfe, hold that letters are no burden and the lightest and easiest houshold stuffe a man can remooue? Ile be sworne vpon Anthonie Gueuaras Golden Epistles if they will, there's not so much toyle in remoouing the siedge from a towne as in taking an inuentorie suruay of anie one of them. Letters doo you terme them? they may be Letters Patents well enough for their tediousnes; for no lecture at Surgeons Hall vppon an anatomie may compare with them in longitude. Why, they are longer than the Statutes of clothing or the Charter of London."-Sig. F. "O, tis an vnconscionable vast gorbellied volume, bigger bulkt than a Dutch hoy, and farre more boystrous and cumbersome than a payre of Swissers omnipotent galeaze breeches. But one epistle thereof to John Wolfe the printer I tooke and weighed in an ironmongers scales, and it counterpoyseth a cade of herring and three Holland cheeses. You may beleeue me if you will, I was faine to lift my chamber-doore off the hindges, onely to let it in, it was so fulsome a fat bonarobe † and terrible rounceuall. Once I thought to haue cald in a cooper that went by and cald for * Haue with you to Saffron-walden. Or, Gabriell Harueys Hunt is vp. Containing a full Answere to the eldest sonne of the Halter-maker. Or, Nashe his Confutation of the sinfull Doctor. The Mott or Posie, instead of Omne tulit punctum: Pacis fiducia nunquam. As much to say, as I sayd I would speake with him. Printed at London by Iohn Danter. 1596. 4to. bonarobe] i.e. courtezan. |