Count. And why?

'Ida. Since these are means to draw the mind

From perfect good, and make true judgment blind.

Count. Might you have wealth and fortune's richest store?

Ida. Yet would I (might I chuse) be honest poor; For she that sits at fortune's feet alow,

Is sure she shall not taste a farther woe; 'But those that prank on top of fortune's ball, 'Still feare a change, and fearing, catch a fall.

'Count. Tut, foolish maid, each one contemneth need. 'Ida. Good reason why-they know not good indeed. 'Count. Many, marry then, on whom distress doth lour. 'Ida. Yes, they that virtue deem an honest dower.

Madam, by right this world I may compare

'Unto my work, wherein with heedful care

The heavenly workman plants with curious hand, 'As I with needle draw each thing on land, Even as he list. Some men like to the rose 'Are fashioned fresh, some in their stalks do close, 'And born do sudden die: some are but weeds, And yet from them a secret good proceeds. 'I with my needle, if I please, may blot

The fairest rose within my cambric plot :

'God with a beck can change each worldly thing,
'The poor to earth, the beggar to the king.
'What then hath man wherein he well may boast,
Since by a beck he lives, a lour is lost ?'

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The resemblance is prettily made out, and the moral delicately worded: the line And yet from them a secret good proceeds,' reminds one of Shakespeare's There is some soul of goodness in things evil.' In Act ii., Ateukin, the King's parasite and favourite, is sent to court Ida on behalf of his sovereign, and

this scene is conducted in blank-verse, with the exception of occasional couplets.

'Ateukin. Fair, comely nymph, the beauty of your face, 'Sufficient to bewitch the heavenly powers,

'Hath wrought so much in him, that now of late
He finds himself made captive unto love;
And though his power and majesty require
'A straight command before an humble suit,
'Yet he his mightiness doth so abase

'As to intreat your favour, honest maid.

• Ida. Is he not married, Sir, unto our Queen ? 'Ateuk. He is.

• Ida. And are not they by God accurst

'That sever those whom he hath knit in one?

'Ateuk. They be: what then? we seek not to displace The Princess from her seat; but since by love

'The King is made your own, he is resolv'd * 'In private to accept your dalliance,

In spite of war, watch, or worldly eye.

Ida. Oh, how he talks, as if he should not die!

'As if that God in justice once could wink

Upon that fault I am asham'd to think.'

Here we see an instance how Greene appears to rise and improve with his rhyme; yet the blankverse is more varied than usual with him.

In Act iv., there is a scene between the King and his parasite Ateukin, in which the latter, after the supposed assassination of Dorothea, incites the former to persevere against Ida: the King at last exclaims

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Enough! I am confirm'd. Ateukin, come,

'Rid me of love, and rid me of my grief.

*The old copy reads 'she is resolv'd,' which is certainly wrong.

'Drive thou the tyrant from this tainted breast,

Then may I triumph in the height of joy.

'Go to mine Ida: tell her, that I vow

'To raise her head and make her honours great.
'Go to mine Ida: tell her, that her hairs
'Shall be embellished with orient pearls ;

And crowns of sapphires, compassing her browes, 'Shall war with those sweet beauties of her eyes.

Go to mine Ida: tell her, that my soul

'Shall keep her semblance closed in my breast,
' And I, in touching of her milk-white mould,
'Will think me deified in such a grace.'

These lines, it will be acknowledged, are better than any others of the same kind we have yet seen by Greene: they have more passion, and the language is not ill adapted to express it.

From the obvious improvement of the style, its greater ease and diversity, we may conclude that George-a-Green the Pinner of Wakefield, 1599, was written by Greene not long before his death: it is a lively story, cheerfully told, and was certainly popular : it includes among its characters, the Kings of England and Scotland, and their nobility, together with Robin Hood and his merry men. George-a-Green, the hero, in various ways gets the better of all of them, no doubt to the great satisfaction of the kind of audiences before whom the pleasant conceited comedy' was performed. I shall not enter into the plot, because the piece has been often reprinted. It has only been ascertained to be the work of Greene within the last few years, when a copy came to light, on the title-page of which, in a hand-writing of the time

and upon the testimony of Juby the actor, it was asserted to be by Robert Greene *.

In the comic scenes, among the inferior characters, a good deal of the dialogue is in prose, although printed in disjointed lines; and in the blank-verse there is not only more ease and lightness, but generally more spirit and variety. Here too we find, what has rarely occurred in Greene's previous productions, a number of trochees at the end of the lines, which gives them additional vivacity: one short quotation will contain evidence of different improvements in style. It is from a scene, near the close, between the Kings of England and Scotland, George-a-Green, Robin Hood, and all the principal characters, who are brought together upon the stage. King Edward tells George to rise, to which he replies,

Nay, good my liege, ill-nurtur'd we were then :
Though we Yorkshire men be blunt of speech,

And little skill'd in court or such quaint fashions,

'Yet nature teacheth us duty to our king;

'Therefore, I

'Humbly beseech you, pardon George-a-Green.

Robin-hood. And, good my lord, a pardon for poor

Robin;

And for us all a pardon, good king Edward.

Shoemaker. I pray you a pardon for the Shoemakers. Edward. I frankly grant a pardon to you all; 'And George-a-Green, give me thy hand: there is

* In the same hand-writing it is registered, that The Pinner of Wakefield was written by a Minister,' and W. Shakespeare is mentioned as the witness to the fact. Greene had been in the church, and probably he was the person meant, though a blank was left for the name. See Dyce's Greene's Works, i. v.

เ

None in England that shall do thee wrong.
Even from my court I came to see thyself,

' And now I see that fame speaks nought but truth.

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George. I humbly thank your royal majesty.

‹ That which I did against the Earl of Kendall,

Was but a subject's duty to his sovereign,

' And therefore little merits such good words.'

The commencement of the piece contains an allusion to Marlow's Tamburlaine the Great, which of course maintained its popularity when The Pinner of Wakefield was written.

One of the rarest of Greene's plays is called on the title-page, The comical History of Alphonsus, King of Arragon, printed in 1599, and it is in many respects a singular performance: like The Pinner of Wakefield, it also mentions 'the mighty Tamburlaine,' who had become a common example of enterprise and bravery, and whose martial achievements Greene seems to have here imitated. It contains the story of Carinus, King of Arragon, (which the author places in Italy), and his son Alphonsus, who had been driven from their rightful possessions by a usurper named Flaminius. In the opening of the piece we find the old king and the young prince in exile: the latter soon afterwards, as a common soldier, enters the army of Belinus, King of Naples, who was then defending his territory against the invasion of Flami

* The old copy, and Mr. Dyce following it, read 'It was,' &c., but it is redundant in sense and metre. I have also ventured to regulate the lines somewhat differently than he has given them; the word 'England' is to be pronounced as a trisyllable.