Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/539

 10 th 8. V. JUNE 9, 1906.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

44$

medes ' (vii. 43) 1589 : " Chilon the Lace- demonian, being sent in Ambassage to Corinth," &c. Greene alters here " peoples " to "cities," "staine" to "eclipse," and " ignominy " to " ignomy." He copies this whole passage again into ' The Hoy all Ex- change' (vii. 23), with one or two other altered words, adhering to "eclipse" and " ignomy." Greene's other illustration of Chilon (iii. 157) has already been dealt with from Primaudaye on 'Friendship' (chap. xiii.).

Primaudaye, chap, xxjcviii., 'Of Injustice and of Severitie,' p. 408 : * Phillip the first, king of Macedonia, was slaine by Pausanias, a meane Gentle-man, bicause he would not let him have justice against Anti pater, who had offered him wrong." Greene, 'Farewell to Follie' (ix. 342) : " Philip, King of Mace- donia," &c., the rest identical. At the same reference the succeeding passage in both is of "Demetrius the besieger, 5; who threw his subjects' supplications over a bridge into a river, and thereby lost his kingdom. Greene alters a little. In this case Primaudaye repeats himself, and gives these two anec- dotes together in chap. Ix., ' Of the Office and Dutie of a Prince.'

Primaudaye, chap, xxxviii., p. 409 : " Fer- dinando the fourth of that name putting two knights to death more through anger than justly, one of them cried aloud in this sort : O unjust king, we cite thee to appeere within thirtie daies before the tribunall seate of Jesus Christ to receive judgement

for thy Injustice Upon the last of which

daies he died likewise." Greene (ix. 343) : knight more for anger than anie just cause, the Gentleman at the sentence cried out : Injurious Emperor, I cite thee to appear before the tribunall seate of God to answere this wrong within thirtie daies : on the last of which expired therein the Emperor died."
 * ' Ferdinando the fourth putting to death a

Primaudaye, chap, xxxviii., p. 411 : "Alexander Severus handled after another

fashion a servant of his who used like

a horse-leech to fulfil their request for a

good reward caused him to be tied to a

post and choked with smoke, making this proclamation by sound of trumpet, That they which sell smoke, should so perish with smoke." Greene (ibid., p. 343) : "Alexander Severus handled his Secretary, who being a caterpillar of the court and selling the verie

favourable lookes of his maister in re-

quitall was tied to a post and choked

with smoke," &c. (as above).

We corne now to an important chapter in

Primaudaye, chap. xliv. (pp. 467-78). At any rate, Greene thought it important, for the whole of ' Peratio his discourse upon Fortune,' in ' The Second Part of Tritameron r (iii. 128-39), is annexed from the translation of the French writer. When a property is annexed on any considerable scale the new owner generally discovers many desirable nooks and corners he was hardly aware of ^ and when I first read this part of Greene it was with great interest indeed, I thought it some of his best prose. Still, I felt uneasy about it. It did not somehow ring true. Like a sheep, stolen and skilfully skinned and shorn, or a captured ship relieved of its- superfluous cargo and flying the pirates' flag, so this learned and well-laboured discourse is Robert Greene's by no manner of right, and must be restored to its lawful owner,. Peter de la Primaudaye. The method of quotation is here impossible, the extracts being so considerable. But I will endeavour to place Greene's alterations alongside of the original text as lucidly as possible, so- that any one in possession of either text can see for himself the nature of the transaction the artful Greene indulged in. Poor Greene I his " New books from the Maker, New Books from the Maker," were compelled to gallop, apace at all costs. In Dekker's ' Lanthorne and Candlelight,' chap, v., * How to catch* Birdes by the Booke,' professes to expose " strange villanies " of this description, but it lacks interest and convincingness.

Primaudaye (p. 470), after a page upon his- topic, says : ** Aristotle saith, that Fortune is a casuall & accidentall cause in things, which, being purposely done for some cer- taine end, have no apparant cause of their falling out otherwise," tfec. He has in the preceding paragraph, given us : * Plato- saith, that Fortune is an accidentall cause & a consequence in those things which proceed from the counsell of man." From the close of Aristotle's opinions, being three more lines, Primaudaye goes on with "Epicurus said that Fortune was such a cause as agreed neither to persons, times, or manners." Then, immediately, we have Theophrastus, Juvenall, Pindarus, Sylla (Greene inserts that the speaker remembers this from Livy's Decades), Mithridates and Sylla, Julius Ciesar ("Csesar and his For- tune"), and Augustus his successor. This brings us to the foot of p. 471 in Primaudaye,, and of p. 131 in Greene, who inserts here a line and a half not in his exemplar. Greene's discourse commences (p. 128) " Aristotle, who by the sharpenes of lies reason pearced, &c. [two lines of his own], made this answere :.