Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/10

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [w» a. iv. JOLT i, popular as he was voluminous, and his reck- less life demanded lavish supplies and prodi- gality of cash. One other that Greene borrows from is himself—his repetitions will be noticed briefly later on. Two well-known facts about Greene should be referred to; but I am not attempting an exhaustive account of either his life or his •writings. His attack upon Shakespeare is dealt with in all the text - books, and Dr. Sidney Lee has left no more to be said. The other circumstance one immediately recalls is Gabriel Harvey's post-mortem vituperation of Greene, which is fully dealt with in editions of both writers. Neither of these comes •within my purview, and both are threadbare. So far I have not flattered Greene, and yet a study of his prose, but particularly of the lyrics interspersed throughout his prose, in- spires one with a great liking for him. He has not Nashe's wit, force, or originality; but he is devoid of Harvey's pompous conceit. He has not Sidney's dignity and lovableness of language and of thought; but he is more human and alive—when he chooses to be. And although Lyly is to be preferred, per- haps, when they walk the same pace and track, yet Greene is an easier companion to beguile the way, since he gives us incidents and accidents with s_ome stir of reality about them. Greene, too, in his tracts upon cheat- ing—his conny-catching series, and one or two others—has no rival, excepting, perhaps, one contemporary ("Cuthbert Coneycatcher'') whose identity is unknown. To these later reference will occur. I should be inclined to classify Greene's qualities (1580-90) as follows: an incomparable songster (' Mena- phon,' ' Perimedes,' ' Farewell to Follie,' e.g.); an unblushing plagiarist; an endless reiterater; an exaggerated euphuist ; an excellent scholar ; an adroit Latinist ; an adept story-teller (e.g. ' Koxander,' Gros. vi. 271, &c., and 'Perimedes' where non-euphu- istic); and a versatile genius. Greene's versatility is hardly sufficiently dwelt upon, and is a very distinctive feature of his abilities. If we divide his work into three blocks—his romantic prose, his tracts against cozenage and such pamphlets, and his plays and other poetical work—we see what a gifted mind he nad ; and it is to be remem- bered that ho can have been little over thirty years of age at his death. His reiteration was simply due to the speed that creditors and publishers drove him at. In his drama.1 we do not meet it, nor can he be accused ol repeating himself in his plays, to any blameable extent, from his prose. Those three sections of his work, on a careless survey, night almost belong to three different hands, low different with Lyly or with Dekker I At almost every page in Lyly's plays euphuism is rampant : and throughout Dekker's prose the turns of thought and expression are echoes of his efforts for the stage. Moat of Greene's stories appear to be original. Mostly, too, they are slightly woven, impossible, and of an altogether lirnsy fabric. Sometimes he condescends make use of well - known tales, as in ' Susanna and the Elders.' Philidor's tale in Grosart, ix. 193) is the Prodigal Son. We nave also Ninus and Semiramis in the same volume. But the bulk of his tales are, so far as we know, of his own invention. Nevertheless, when his aptitude in appro- priating the work of others is remembered, it would be the reverse of surprising to find, by the light of further research, that this view is erroneous. One characteristic of all liis tales will ever redound to his credit— their total freedom from licentiousness,, a trait in which he followed his predecessor Lyly, but which Greene's successors did not here to. This is the more meritorious when his familiarity with the Italian novelists is considered. Greene generally pitches his scene in some unknown or mythical region in the sunny South. The company one meets is usually royal or princely, with a blend of the shep- herd's life thrown in—often the prettiest, or only pretty, part of the result. Commonly a courtier falls in love with an incomparable princess, or the disparity may be the other way. In the meetings which take place there is seldom anything clandestine, and subjects for debate, such as love, friendship, single life, &c., are allotted to speakers of both sexes. Cupid is, of coarse, plying his trade throughout. Letters speedily pass announcing the wondrous states of the writers' _ feelings, supported by all those euphuistic parallels we become so familiar with—from all departments of untrue natural history—from the experiences of gods and herpes, philosophers and their wives and their writings, classical heroes, or from the author's own imagination, in some cases, apparently. Alliterative antithesis does its- lion's share of the work, and proverbial phi- losophy is unusually rampant in Greene's- method—not usually trite,, homely saws, but sound and at that time dignified sayings. Homer and Aristotle, Pliny, mediaeval bes- tiaries, Conrad Gesner, AJbertus Magnus, Aldrovandus, and_ Topsell have much to- answer for; and it is often, a stubborn coa-