Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/11

 u>" s. iv. JULY 1,19050 NOTES AND QUERIES. test between the physical and the classical coffer which is to yield the more precious illustration. Lyly's stagey trick of setting his people to talk aloud to themselves and argue out the state of their feelings, first probably against them and later in favour of their unavoid- able continuance, is faithfully followed and developed by Greene. These monotonous monologues are so utterly artificial and un- real that it becomes a subject of amazement how they obtained their popularity. The veneer of learning gave assistance, and a ready belief in the miraculous gilded the pill. Their only interest now is to an antiquary or a philological student. It is of interest to note how seldom Greene's language in those earlier tales is illustrative of Shakespeare's diction. An apt or instruc- tive parallel toa difficult passage in the great dramatist's works is seldom found. It is not so with Nashe. But Greene's language is commonly simple and straightforward in itself, though his thoughts and arguments are wholly unnatural and affected. Never- theless Shakespeare seems to me to have almost set himself to avoid the style of this "friend of an ill fashion." I have two or three Shakespearian illustrations from Greene that are of interest, if not previously cited. They are, however, so characteristic of Greene that I prefer to class them under the heading " Greenisras." While speaking in the same breath of Greene and of Shakespeare, it will be interesting to refer, in a thoroughly sceptical frame of mind, to Simpson's 'School of Shakespeare,' jmssim (see his index). Simpson's study of Greene in connexion with several anonymous plays is full of interest, misleading though it often un- doubtedly appears to be. One of those "doubtful plays of Shakespeare" which he does not deal with is 'Locrine,' which ap- peared in 1505. It is hardly worthy even of Greene at his worst as a serious production, but it is devoid of neither interest nor fun. It contains traces of Greene that have not, I think, been noticed. The line, ' Locrine,' III. iv.,ed. Tyrrell, "The arm strong offspring of the doubled night," occurs in Greene's ' Menaphon ' (Grosart, vi. 89), " darling " replacing "offspring." And the first lines of Act II. sc. i. of the snail climbing a castle are (nearly) those on p. 248 in Greene's 'Anatomie of Fortune.' But Lyly can lay a prior claim in his 'Euphues and his Eng- land ' (Arber, p. 418). " Armstrong " appears 'Selimus' (probably by Greene). There is more of Greene in ' Locrine,' but this is apart from my subject. I mentioned above Laneham's ' Letter"" (describing the pageants at Kenilworth,1575). Let us dispose of this iota of information before we cull out Lyly from Greene. I quote from Burn's reprint of Laneham, 1821, p. 29, corrected by Furnivall's more accurate one in ' Captain Cox' (Ballad Society, 1871):— " The bridegroom foremost in his father's tawny worsted jacket (for his friends were fain ), a fair straw [*/ra!CT»,F.] hat with a capital crown, steeple wise on his head : a pair of harvest gloves on his hands as a sign of good husbandry: a pen and ink- horn at his back, for we would be known to be bookish : lame of a leg that in his youth was broken at football: well beloved yet of his mother, that lent him a new muffler for a napkin, that was tied to his girdle for losing," Greene has this description, applied to a wealthy farmer's son, "going very mannerly to be foreman in a morrice - dance," in ' Farewell to Follie,' 1591 (Grosart, ix. 265). Seeing that Laneham is so quaint and so noteworthy a writer throughout, it is- very odd how this passage alone came to be made use of, for I feel sure lie is nowhere else in Greene's prose. In this way Greene gets interesting terms into his glossary,, that do not appear again in his writings. "Harvest gloves" may mean, in Laneham's way, sunburnt hands. (I do not find it in ' N.E.D.'). I have a word1 or two- bo say about eu- phuism. Jusserand refers to Dr. Land man's ' Shakespeare and Euphuism' (N«w Shak- spere Soc., 188*), which demonstrated that this strange language was imported from Spain into England, and that the works of Guevara, translated by Lord Berners (1632) and by North (1577), brought it into vogue. But only slightly. Lyly found the pieces scattered about and was the artificer who put them together. The alliteration also is Lyly's own finishing touch. I-find precursors of euphuism in Stephen Gosson's 'School of Abuse' (introduction); and in North's 'Fables of Bidpai' (15-70) there are several euphuistic passages, as at p. 79t (Jacobs's edition, but not noticed there): " But wotest thou what] a little axe overthroweth a great oke. The arrowes for the most part touch the heigh tes, and ho that clyraeth of the trees falling hath a greater broose," &c. Here the alliteration is absent, but at p. 153 it appears in North. North's translation of Guevara's 'Dial for Princes' is-closely fol- lowed by Lyly. As for Guevara's- 'Golden Epistles' (Ac.), they are often referred to, as by Chapman (' Gentleman Usher,' IVi. i.) for.
 * second time in 'Locrine,' and also in