Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/177

Rh tragic poet, he very probably, wished to outdo him in &quot;business,&quot; and to equal him in the rant which, since there has been an English theatre, has been sure to bring down at least part of the house. Alphonsus is accordingly not less sensational than Tamburlaine, and supplied its share of quotations to ancient Pistol. It is a history proper, a dra matized chronicle or narrative of warlike events, and a very effective one of its kind. Its fame could never equal that of Marlowe s tragedy ; but its composition showed that Greene could seek to rival the most popular drama of the day, without falling very far short of his model. In the Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (not known to have been acted before February 1592, but very possibly written by 1588) Greene once more attempted to emulate Marlowe ; but on this occasion, while -producing something very different from the play with, which he placed his own in competition, he succeeded in producing a masterpiece of his own. Marlowe s Doctor Fanstus, which there is every reason to believe suggested the composition of Greene s comedy, is a work which, even in the form in which it has come down to us, reveals the mighty tragic genius of its author ; and it was fortunate for Greene s fame that he resolved on an altogether distinct treatment of a cognate theme. Interweaving with the popular tale of Friar Bacon and his wondrous doings a charming idyl (so far as we know, of his own invention), the story of Prince Edward (I.) s love for the Fair Maid of Fressingfield, he produced a comedy brimful of amusing action and genial fun, and at the same time containing a dramatic love-story of unsurpassed freshness and brightness. Friar Bacon remains a dramatic picture of English life with which The Merry Wives alone can vie ; and not even the ultra-classicism in the similes of its diction can destroy the naturalness which constitutes its perennial charm. In The Scottish Historic of James IV. (not printed till 1598, acted by 1592) Greene seems to have reached the climax of his dramatic powers. The &quot; historical &quot; character of this play is pure pretence, so that one wonders how a Tudor dramatist could have dared to in vent a fictitious name and unreal experiences (of a painful kind) for King Henry VII. s daughter. Its theme is the illicit passion of King James for the chaste lady Ida, to obtain whose hand he .endeavours, at the suggestion of a villain called Ateukin, to make away with his own wife. She escapes in doublet and hose, attended by her faithful dwarf ; but on her father s making war upon her husband to avenge her wrongs, she effects a reconciliation between them. Not only is this well-constructed story effectively worked out, but the char acters are vigorously drawn, and in Ateukin there is a touch of lago. The fooling by Slipper, the clown of the piece, is unexceptionable ; and lest even so the play should hang heavy on the audience, its action is carried off by a &quot; pleasant comedie &quot; i.e., a prelude and some dances be tween the acts &quot;presented by Oboram, King of Fayeries&quot; the Oberon of A Midsummer Niglifs Dream (probably later in date than Greene s play). It is hard to have to abandon the belief that George-a- Greene the Pinner of Wakefield (printed 1599), a delightful picture of English life fully worthy of the author of Friar Bimgay, has been rightly attributed to him. Of the comedy of Fair Em, which resembles Friar Bacon in more than one point, it is most improbable that Greene was the author The disputed question as to his supposed share in the plays on which the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. are founded has been already referred to. He was certainly joint author with Thomas Lodge of the curi ous drama called A Looking Glasse for London and England (printed 1594) a dramatic apologue conveying to the living generation of Englishmen the warning of Nineveh s corruption and prophesied doom. The lesson was fre quently repeated in the streets of London by the &quot; Nine- vitical motions &quot; of flie puppets; but there are both fire and wealth of language in Greene and Lodge s oratory. The comic element is not absent-, being supplied in abundance by Adam, the clown of the piece, who belongs to the family of Slipper and of Friar Bacon s servant, Miles. Greene s dramatic genius has nothing in it of the inten sity of Marlowe s tragic muse ; nor perhaps are there any passages in his poetry equalling certain of Peele s when at his best. On the other hand, of none of Shakespeare s pre decessors or contemporaries can it be said, as of Greene, that his dramatic poetry is occasionally animated with the breezy freshness which no artifice can simulate, but which nothing but obtuseness can mistake. He can construct neatly and with facility, though of course belonging to a period of our dramatic literature when the art of construc tion was still in its infancy. He has created no character of commanding power unless Ateukin be excepted ; but his personages are living men and women, and marked out from one another with a vigorous but far from rude hand. His comic humour is undeniable, and he unites a spirit of true farcical fnn with a capacity for light and graceful dia logue. His diction is overloaded with classical ornament; but even this he frequently employs with pleasing aptness. His versification is easy and fluent ; and its cadence is at times singularly sweet. He creates his best effects, like a true artist, by the simplest means ; and he is indisputably one of the most gifted and one of the most pleasing among our early dramatic authors.

 GREENFINCH (German Grünfink) or , as it is very often called, a common European bird, the FringitLa chloris of Linnaeus, ranked by many systematists with one section of Hawfinches, Coccothraustes, but appar ently more nearly allied to the other section Ilesperiphona (cf. FINCH, vol. ix. p. 192), and perhaps justifiably deemed the type of a distinct genus, to which the name Chloris or Ligurinus has been applied. The cock, in his plumage of green and gold, is one of the most finely coloured of our common birds, but he is rather heavily built, and his song is hardly commended. The hen is much less brightly tinted. Throughout Britain, as a rule, this species is one of the most plentiful birds, and is found at all seasons of the year, It pervades almost the whole of Europe, and in Asia reaches the river Ob, It visits Pales tine, but is unknown in Egypt. It is, however, abundant in Mauritania, whence specimens are so brightly coloured that they have been deemed to form a distinct species, the Ligurinus aurantiiventris of Dr Cabanis, but that view is now generally abandoned. In the north-east of Asia and its adjacent islands occur two allied species the Fringilla sinica of Linnaeus, and the F. kawarahiba of Temminck. No species of Greenfinch is found in America. (A. N.)

 GREENHEART, one of the most valuable of timbers, is the produce of Nectandra Rodiæi. nat ord. Lauraceæ, a tree 