THE HUTH LIBRARY. LIFE AND WORKS OF ROBERT GREENE, M.A. VOL. I. STOROJENKO'S LIFE OF ROBERT GREENE: ~ WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. ; " "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players ; They have their exits and their entrances And one man in his time plays many parts. As You Like It, ii. 1^ X-^ "^"«^*»., ILH r ELIZABETH AN- JACOBEAN ^. irty (/-e/t.'i^- 'i^Uzytey Yerse and Prose LAR G E LY TroTV^ l7v6 Ziirary oi J .J BY TH E FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY C|)e ^utb iLi&rarp. THE Life and Complete Works IN PROSE AND VERSE OF ROBERT G_REENE. M.A. CAMBRIDGE AND OXFORD. IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES. FOR THE FIRST TIME COLLECTED AND EDITED, WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, ETC., BY THE REV. ALEXANDER B. GROSART, D.D., LL.D. (Edin.), F.S.A. (Scot.), .Sf. George's, Blackburn, Lancashire. VOL. I. STOROJENKO'S life of ROBERT GREENE, Translated by E. A. B. HOdgetts, Esq., London, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES by the Editor. PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY. i88i-86. 50 coptes.\ Printed by Hazell, WaUon, &= Viney. Ld., London and Aylesbury. CONTENTS. PAGE Note vii Introduction ix '• Life . i Appendix A and B 257 Facsimile of Greene's Handwriting. Toface title-^age „a3ei aUa wfdjimac^ta Sick! 6rim ^octb^i^n gfcmcDte! 3(?( ttwUf, Mi^ ttmcfff teas aaga'a kap ((jji's fiua/m Swmte'." Goethe, — NOTE. I wish to record my right hearty thanks to E. A. B. Hodgetts, Esq., for his translation of Professor Storojenko's Life of Greene. It has been to him no perfunctory work, but a task of love and sympathy. I would emphasize my deep indebtedness to " mine ancient friend," Dr. Brinsley Nicholson, of Surrenden Lodge, for continuous and much prized help and suggestions. Anything more requiring to be said will be found in our Introduction and Notes throughout. It is no common satisfaction thus to have completed (.for the first time) the Works of Robert Greene along with those of his asscfciates, Thomas Nashe (6 vols.), and Dr. Gabriel Harvey (3 vols.). To students of Eliza- bethan-Jacobean literature it is believed the service thus rendered will be increasingly and wideningly appreciated. Whilst I write these words, an examination of Bp. Grindal's Register (fol. 213), which was Newcourt's authority, shows that Robertus Grene was admitted to ToUesbury on 19th June, 1584, on the death of ffrancis Searle ; and that fol. 225, in recording the succession of Moody, spells the name Greene, and adds—" per liberam et spontaneam resignationem Roberti Greene clerici ultimi "—the latter circumstance to be noted as inferentially telling us there had been no misconduct to lead to the resignation. The absence of the M.A. of Cambridge after the name introduces an element of doubt, but like absence in other entries pre- vents our rejecting this Robert Greene as the dramatist. R. W.'s ' red-nosed minister ' in Martin Mar-Sixtus, and the Pinner noting •minister,' seem to make it indubitable that whether he were vicar of ToUesbury or no, or whether he ever held a benefice or no, the dramatist was a cleric. Besides, let the dates and facts be kept in recollection as fitting in with the incumbency at ToUesbury: (i) In 1584 he published the ' Mirrour of Modestie,' also ' Arbasto '—the Vicar being appointed 19th June, 1584; (2) In 1585 he only published ' Planetomachia ' Vicar resigned 17th Feb. 1585, i.e. 1586; (3) In 1586 Greene published nothing, this being the year of his marriage. For the original of our fac-simile of Greene's handwriting (as it is believed), I am indebted to a private collector in London. A. B. G. ' This strange eventful history.'' As You Like It, ii. 7. INTRODUCTION TO PROFESSOR STOROJENKO'S LIFE OF GREENE. By the Editor. it is ; HILST a pleasant proof—among many—of the breadth of interest modernly taken in our great English Literature, that it has been deemed ex- pedient to furnish a new Life of Robert Greene mainly in a translation of that in Russian by Professor Storojenko of Moscow, and whilst I give ungrudging recognition to this Life (as well as to his " Predshestveniky Shakspeara "), three matters-of- fact nevertheless demand statement, toward modifying the apparent blame of our own countrymen for leaving it to a Stranger to fulfil this task of love. (a) That Dyce, in his matterful and careful "Account of Robert Greene and his Writ- ings," prefixed to both his editions of his Dramatic Works and minor Poems, long since laid a " good foundation " for his suc- cessor, and on which that successor has necessarily built his own superstructure, with- " X EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION out such definite and detailed and generous acknowledgment of indebtedness as it had been a pleasure to English scholars to have found. {b) That besides his obligations throughout to Dyce, Professor Storojenko, in his most dis- tinctive conclusions and critical results, had been anticipated by a good year by Professor College, Christ- J. M. Brown, of Canterbury church, New Zealand; who in 1877 published his brilliant and penetrative literary Study entitled " An Early Rival of Shakespere in the New Zealand Magazine, a Quarterly Journal of Ge?ieral Literature, No. 6, April 1877 (pp. 97- 133)- {c) That it will be seen that, with all its pains- taking and insight, this Life has had to be read somewhat vigilantly, and to be frequently and fully annotated, with correc- tive and supplemental additions. O' times, because of this, one was tempted to give an original Life and utilise Professor Storojenko's criticisms and comments. But it was felt that the announcement of a translation of Storojenko's Life required redemption. With reference to Professor J. M. Brown's Paper, I mean in the outset, and as the first half of this Introduction, to reproduce it substantially, and thus reclaim for a " brither Scot " things that otherwise might seem to belong exclusively to the Foreigner. If Professor Storojenko worked out his problems independently (and certes he gives no faintest inti- mation of acquaintance, with the Essay in question, — — EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. xi although it is well known in Germany), the twofold agreement on the main points will be mutually con- firmatory. And after every abatement, (meo judicid) this Russian Life of Robert Greene is noticeably well- informed, thoughtful, and fresh in substance ; sound and sober, not speculative ; practical and intelligible, not misty or super-ingenious ; in style, lucid, and luminous ; and as such deserving of translation. Compared with German investigators e.g., Bernhardi and Bodenstadt—it has exceptional merits. Turning now to the Paper of Professor J. M. Brown, it thus opens : " 'There is an upstart Crowe beautified with our feathers, that with his "Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide," supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you : and being an absolute Johannes fac- totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrie.' Unconditional admiration has become so pre- vailingly the mood of nineteenth-century criticism of Shakespere, that to speak of the possibility of rivalry, or to question his supremacy, is to raise a contemptuous smile. To such a mood the sentence quoted seems little more than envious folly and untruth. But the circumstances in which it was written, if nothing else, demand for it serious consideration. The writer, Robert Greene, saw death close upon him when he wrote it ; he was driven before the wildest of his repentant moods ; and his repentances were ever whirlwinds of self-accusation, fiery, brief, and ruthlessly candid. Doubt has been thrown on the sincerity of his written repentances; and it must be granted that Greene was capable in his more Bohemian moods of the most hideous jests. But any one who studies the broken glimpses of his life, indistinct though it is as the very ' dream of a shadow,' sees its uncontrollable fits of dissipa- tion and its equally uncontrollable fits of remorse, and then reads the passionate fervour of his last appeal to his brother dramatists, in which this attack on Shakespere occurs, will — — xii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. not hesitate to accept it as a genuine utterance of Greene's last thoughts. Else it is the weakest jest ever was perpe- trated " (pp. 97-8). Only the ghoul-like heart of Dr. Gabriel Harvey could have doubted, much less made mock of the final " Repentance " of Robert Greene, and my friend pays too much heed to suspectors of this ignoble type by spending a line upon them. Sincerity and reality pulsate in every word of these ultimate utterances, and I for one do not envy the man who can read them with dry eyes even at this late day. He proceeds : " If the sentence be accepted .as genuine and serious, the charge must have had some foundation. The real question, therefore, is how far Greene was justified by his facts in the attack. Allowance must be made for the exaggeration of passion ; so also for the unwholesome state of the author's mind at the time. But when all allowance is made, a kernel of truth remains worthy investigation, corroborated, as it is, ' ' by the author of Greene's Funeralls (1594), who says ; "Nay more, the men that so eclipst his fame, " Purloynde his plumes ; can they deny the same ? The most noticeaMe point is that the line ' Tygers heart wrapt in a Player's hide ' parodies a line in Henry VI. (Pt. III., Act i., sc. 4), ' O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide,' which also occurs in Tfie True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York.