and The Woman in the Moon') dreams. The younger gave the world a masterpiece in the romantic style of Comedy, when he produced his 'Midsummer Night's Dream.'

Lyly was emphatically a discoverer. He discovered euphuism, and created a fashionable affectation, which ran its course of more than twenty years. He discovered the dialogue of repartee in witty prose. He discovered the ambiguity of the sexes, as a motive of dramatic curiosity. He discovered what effective use might be made of the occasional lyric, as an adjunct to dramatic action. He discovered the suggestion of dramatic dreaming. He discovered the combination of Masque and Drama, which gave rise to the Courtly or Romantic Comedy.

Shakspere bettered Lyly's best, and used his discoveries with such artistic freedom, such poetic supremacy, that we are tempted to forget the quaint petitioner at Court who 'fished the murex up.' It is the duty, however, of historic criticism to indicate origins. And in the study of Shakspere we are bound to remember that Lyly preceded him; just as when we estimate the greatness of Michel Angelo in Rome, we have to turn our eyes back upon Ghirlandajo and Signorelli.

CHAPTER XIV

GREENE, PEELE, NASH, AND LODGE.

I. Playwrights in Possession of the Stage before Shakspere-The
Scholar-Poets-Jonson's Comparison of Shakspere with his Peers—
The Meaning of those Lines-Analysis of the Six Scholar-Poets.-II.
Men of Fair Birth and Good Education-The Four Subjects of this
Study.-III. The Romance of Robert Greene's Life-His Autobio-
graphical Novels His Miserable Death-The Criticism of his
Character-His Associates.-IV. Greene's Quarrel with Shakspere
and the Playing Companies-His Vicissitudes as a Playwright-His
Jealousy.-V. Greene's transient Popularity-Euphuistic Novels-
Specimens of his Lyrics-Facility of Lyric Verse in England.—VI.
Greene's Plays betray the Novelist-None survive from the Period
before Marlowe James IV. of Scotland'-Its Induction-The Cha-
racter of Ida-'Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'-Florid Pedantry a
Mark of Greene's Style.-VII. Peele-Campbell's Criticism-His
Place among Contemporaries-Edward I.'Battle of Alcazar'-
'Old Wives' Tale '-Milton's' Comus '-'The Arraignment of Paris'
-David and Bethsabe '-Non-Dramatic Pieces by Peele.-VIII.
Thomas Nash-The Satirist-His Quarrel with Harvey-His
Description of a Bohemian Poet's Difficulties-The Isle of Dogs-
His Part in Dido, Queen of Carthage '—' Will Summer's Testament
-Nash's Songs.-IX. Thomas Lodge-His Life-His Miscellaneous
Writings-Wounds of Civil War.'-X. The Relative Value of these
Four Authors.

I

WHEN Shakspere left Stratford-upon-Avon for London, and began his career as actor and arranger of old plays for the Lord Chamberlain's Servants, a group of distinguished scholar-poets held possession of the stage. The date of this event, so memorable in modern literary history, cannot be fixed with certainty. But we may refer it with probability to the year 1585. Before 1600 Shakspere had already shown himself the greatest dramatist of the romantic school, not only by the production but also by the publication of his earlier comedies and tragedies. In that period of fifteen

years, between 1585 and 1600, the men of whom I speak either died or left off writing for the theatre. They were Robert Greene, George Peele, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Nash, and Thomas Kyd. Greene died in 1592, Marlowe in 1593, Peele in 1597, Kyd not later than 1594. Nash produced his only extant play in 1592, and died soon after 1600. The tragedy by which Lodge is best known as a playwright, was printed in 1594. He exchanged literature for medicine, and practised as a physician until his death in 1625. Lyly, it will be remembered, died soon after 1600.

These are the playwrights with whom Ben Jonson, in his famous elegy, thought fit to compare Shakspere-not, as it seems to me, in spite, but because they were contemporaries. William Basse, writing on the same occasion, bade Spenser, Chaucer, and Beaumont lie somewhat closer, each to each, in order to make room for Shakspere in their 'threefold, fourfold tomb.' Jonson says he will not use a similar rhetorical contrivance; for Shakspere is 'a monument without a tomb,' living as long as his book lives, as long as there are men to read and praise him. Then he proceeds:

That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,

I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses;
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.

That he meant no disparagement to Shakspere is manifest from his immediately calling upon Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, on Aristophanes, and on the tragic and comic poets of Rome, to rise and admire Shakspere's masterpieces in both kinds. To time Shakspere is no tributary, nor are his works subject to comparisons based on considerations of chronology or nationality:

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm

GREENE'S COTERIE

429

I have dwelt upon this elegy, not merely to disprove the false inference which some have drawn from it to Jonson's disadvantage, but also to show how a great contemporary poet regarded Shakspere's relation to his comrades in the dramatic art. If Shakspere is to be judged by 'years,' by chronological parallelism, says Jonson, he must be compared with that group of playwrights of whom Lyly, Marlowe, and Kyd are representatives. But Shakspere is amenable to no such jurisdiction. He belongs to the world and to all ages. The incarnation of his spirit at that precise moment is a matter of indifference.

The group of six dramatists enumerated above must further be distinguished. Marlowe stands apart, as a vastly superior genius, the true founder of Shaksperian drama, a pioneer and creator in the highest sense. Kyd is separated from the rest by the comparative insignificance of what remains to us of his work. Greene heads a little coterie of writers bound together by ties of personal comradeship, and animated by a common spirit. Greene, Peele, Nash, and Lodge attach themselves to the past rather than the future. They submit to Marlowe's unavoidable dictatorship, and receive him into their society. But they belong to a school which became doubly antiquated in their lifetime. Marlowe outshone them; and Shakspere, as they were uneasily conscious, was destined to eclipse them altogether. I propose, therefore, to treat now of these four friends, having already given a word to Kyd in isolation, while I reserve a separate study for the greatest poet of the group. This method conforms to the evolution of the Drama. But it has the disadvantage of anticipating what properly belongs to the criticism of Marlowe. He revolutionised the English stage during Greene's ascendency, and forced his predecessors to adapt their style to his inventions.

II

The men of letters who form the subject of this study were respectably born and highly educated. They prided themselves on being gentlemen and scholars, Masters of Arts

in both Universities. Robert Greene was the son of well-todo citizens of Norwich, where he was born perhaps about the year 1550.1 He took his Bachelor's degree at Cambridge. in 1578, and passed Master in 1583. George Peele was a gentleman of Devonshire, born about 1558, instructed in the rudiments at Christ's Hospital, elected Student of Christ Church in 1573, and admitted Bachelor of Arts in 1577. While still at Oxford, he acquired considerable literary reputation, and was praised by Dr. Gager-no mean judge -for his English version of an 'Iphigeneia.' Thomas Lodge was the second son of Sir Thomas Lodge, Lord Mayor of London, by his wife Anne, a daughter of Sir William Laxton. Born in 1557, he took his degree at Oxford in 1577, and entered the Society of Lincoln's Inn next year. Being of a roving nature, Lodge never settled down to literature. After wasting the time which ought to have been given to law studies, he joined the expeditions of Captain Clarke and Cavendish, visited the Canary Islands, and penned a fashionable romance in the Straits of Magellan. On his return to England he adopted medicine as a profession, studied at Avignon, and established himself as a practitioner in London. Upon his title-pages he was always careful to describe himselfThomas Lodge of Lincoln's Inn Gentleman.' Greene assumed the style of Magister utriusque Academiæ,' and Peele insisted on his Master of Arts degree. Thomas Nash, descended from an honourable family in Herefordshire, was born at Lowestoft in 1567. He took his degree at Cambridge in 1585, and after travelling in Italy, came up to London, where we find him engaged in literary work with Greene about the year 1587.

Unlike Lyly, these four friends did not attach themselves to the Court. They worked for booksellers and public theatres, selling their compositions, and living on the produce of their pen. They seem to have been diverted from more serious studies and a settled career by the attractions of Bohemian life in London. What we know of their biography, proves how fully some of them deserved the stigma This date is quite uncertain.