Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/81



Bacon.’ Greene may have chosen this subject from the popularity of Marlowe's ‘Faustus.’ Lord Strange's men gave a performance of' Friar Bacon' 19 Feb. 1591-2 (, Diary, ed. Collier, p. 20); but we do not know when the play was first produced. Middleton wrote a prologue and epilogue on the occasion of its revival at court in December 1602. There is less rant and pedantry (though there is too much of both) in ‘Friar Bacon’ than we usually find in Greene's plays, and the love-story is not without tenderness. (35) ‘The Scottish Historie of James the fourth, slaine at Floddon. Entermixed with a pleasant Comedie, presented by Oboram, King of Fayeries,’ 1598, 4to (Brit. Mus.); licensed for publication 14 May 1594, and probably published in that year, is not founded on a Scotch chronicle, but on the first story of the third decade of Cinthio's collection of tales (P. A. Daniel, Athenæum, 8 Oct. 1881). Greene's ‘Oberon’ bears little resemblance to his namesake in the romance of ‘Huon of Burdeux,’ and certainly gave no hints to Shakespeare for ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream.’ (36) ‘The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, King of Aragon. As it hath bene sundrie times Acted,’ 1599, 4to (Devonshire House), a dreary imitation of ‘Tamburlaine,’ is the crudest of Greene's plays. From Venus's last speech we learn that there was to be a second part. (37) ‘A pleasant conceyted Comedie of George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield. As it was sundry times acted by the Seruants of the right Honourable the Earle of Sussex,’ 1599, 4to, licensed for publication 1 April 1595, has been ascribed to Greene on the authority of a manuscript note on the titlepage of a copy belonging to the Duke of Devonshire: ‘Writt by … a minister who ac[ted] the piners pt in it himself. Teste W. Shakespea[re]. Ed. Iuby saith that y s play was made by Ro. Gree[ne].’ Assuming that these memoranda are genuine, we need not accept Dyce's view that they prove Greene to have been a minister. The second note seems to contradict rather than to confirm the first. Shakespeare supposed that the play was written by a minister; on the other hand, Edward Juby,the actor, declared that Greene was the author. The old ‘History of George-a-Green’ (of which only late editions are known) supplied the playwright with his materials. Some skill is shown in the drawing of the character of the Pinner; and the homely pictures of English country life are infinitely superior to Greene's ambitious tragic scenes. (38) An anonymous play, ‘The First Part of the Tragicall Raigne of Selimus.… As it was playd by the Queenes Maiesties Players,’ 1594, 4to, has been plausibly assigned to Greene. Robert Allott, in ‘England's Parnassus,’ 1600, gives two extracts from it, ascribing both to Greene. Langbaine and others claim it for Thomas Goffe [q. v.], who was about two years old when the first edition was published. It is highly probable that Greene had some share in the authorship of the original ‘Henry VI’ plays.

Greene's fame rests chiefly on the poetry that is scattered through his romances. The romances themselves are frequently insipid; but in some of his numerous songs and eclogues he attained perfection. His plays are interesting to students of dramatic history, but have slender literary value.

A lost ballad, ‘Youthe seinge all his wais so troublesome, abandoning virtue and leanyng to vyce, Recalleth his former follies, with an inward Repentaunce,’ was entered in the Stationers' Books 20 March 1580-1, as ‘by Greene.’ He may also be the ‘R. G.’ whose ‘Exhortation and fruitful Admonition to Vertuous Parentes, and Modest Matrones,’ 1584, 8vo, is mentioned in Andrew Maunsell's ‘Catalogue of English printed Bookes,’ 1595. ‘A Paire of Turtle Doves; or, the Tragicall History of Bellora and Fidelio,’ 1606, 4to, has been attributed to Greene on internal evidence, and Steevens was under the impression that he had seen an edition of this romance in which Greene's name was ‘either printed in the title’ or ‘at least written on it in an ancient hand’ (Biblioth. Heber. pt. iv. p. 130). Samuel Rowlands in his preface to ‘Tis Merrie when Gossips Meete,’ 1602, testifies to Greene's popularity, but Ben Jonson in ‘Every Man out of his Humour,’ 1600, ii. l, hints that he was a writer from whom one could steal without fear of detection.

Alexander Dyce collected Greene's plays and poems in 1831, 2 vols. 8vo, with an account of the author and a list of his works. A revised edition of ‘The Dramatic and Poetical Works of Robert Greene and George Peele’ was issued in 1858, 1 vol. Dr. Grosart edited ‘The Complete Works of Robert Greene,’ 15 vols., 8vo, 1881-6, in the ‘Huth Library’ series. Vol. i. contains a translation by Mr. Brayley Hodgetts (from the Russian) of Professor Nicholas Storojenko's able sketch of Greene's life and works.

[Memoirs by Dyce and Storojenko; Simpson's School of Shakspere, ii. 339, &c.; F. G. Fleay's Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr.; Works of Thomas Nashe; Works of Gabriel Harvey; M. Jusserand's English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare (Engl. transl.), 1890; British Museum and Bodleian Catalogues; Bibliotheca Heberiana, pt. iv.; Bibliotheca  >