The nature and simplicity of this scene is worth all the ambitious imagery, and rhetorical ornaments, which modern authors lavish upon their dramas, combined. Kid died toward the close of Elizabeth's reign.

Of the dramatic authors who preceded Shakspeare, we have still to notice Nash, Greene, Lodge, Munday, Chettle, and Marlow.

THOMAS NASH was born at Leostoff, Suffolk, in 1562. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and took orders; but the irregularity of his life preventing his preferment, he repaired to the metropolis, and was soon after known as a professed wit. After indulging his satirical vein for some time against the 'Puritans,' he became a dramatist, and produced, as his first play, a comedy called Summer's Last Will and Testament, which was exhibited before Queen Elizabeth in 1592. He next wrote a satirical play under the title of the Isle of Dogs, for the severity of which, though the play was never printed, he was, for some time, imprisoned. Another production of Nash's, entitled the Supplication of Pierce Penniless to the Devil, was published in 1592, and was followed during the next year by his last important performance, Christ's Tears over Jerusalem. He died about 1600, after a 'life spent,' he says, 'in fantastical satirism, in whose veins heretofore I misspent my spirit, and prodigally conspired against good hours.'

The versification of Nash is hard and monotonous, and his style possesses little variety. The following extract is from the comedy of 'Summer's Last: Will and Testament,' and is a favorable specimen of his blank verse :—

I never lov'd ambitiously to climb,

Or thrust my hand too far into the fire.
To be in heaven sure is a blessed thing,
But, Atlas-like, to prop heaven on one's back
Can not but be more labour than delight.
Such is the state of men in honour placed:
They are gold vessels made for servile uses;

High trees that keep the weather from low houses,
But can not shield the tempest from themselves.

I love to dwell betwixt the hills and dales,

Neither to be so great as to be envied,

Nor yet so poor the world should pity me.

In his poem of 'Pierce Penniless,' Nash draws the harrowing picture of

the despair of a poor scholar :

Ah, worthless wit! to train me to this woo:
Deceitful arts that nourish discontent:

Ill thrive the folly that bewitch'd me so!
Vain thoughts adieu! for now I will repent-
And yet my wants persuade me to proceed,
For none take pity of a scholar's need.
Forgive me, God, although I curse my birth,

And ban the air wherein I breathe a wretch,
Since misery hath daunted all my mirth,
And I am quite undone through promise breach;
Ah, friends!-no friends that then ungentle frown
When changing fortune casts us headlong down.

ROBERT GREENE was a native of Norfolk, and was educated at ClareHall, Cambridge. He early entered into orders, and for a short time held the vicarage of Tollesbury, in Essex, which, however, he lost in 1585. He had, a short time previous to this event, entered upon his career as an author, and in the course of a few years he produced the following plays: -History of Orlando, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Alphonsus, King of Arragon, George-a-Green, The Pinner of Wakefield, James the Fourth, and the Looking-glass for London and England; the last of which was written in conjunction with Lodge. Besides his plays, Greene was the author of a number of tracts, one of which, Pandosto, the Triumph of Time, written in 1588, was the source whence Shakspeare derived his 'Winter's Tale.' Some lines contained in this tract, such as the following, are extremely beautiful:-

Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair,

Or but as mild as she is seeming so,

Then were my hopes greater than my despair-
Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe.
Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand,
That seems to melt e'en with the mildest touch,
Then knew I where to seat me in a land
Under the wide heavens, but yet not such.
So as she shows, she seems the budding rose,
Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower;
Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows,
Compass'd she is with thorns and canker'd flower;
Yet, were she willing to be pluck'd and worn,

She would be gather'd though she grew on thorn.

Greene's imagination was lively and discursive, fond of legendary lore, and filled with classical images and illustrations. In his 'Orlando' he thus apostrophizes the evening star :

Fair queen of love, thou mistress of delight,
Thou gladsome lamp that wait'st on Phoebe's train,
Spreading thy kindness through the jarring orbs,
That in their union praise thy lasting powers;
Thou that hast stay'd the fiery Phlegon's course,
And mad'st the coachman of the glorious wain
To droop in view of Daphne's excellence;
Fair pride of morn, sweet beauty of the even,
Look on Orlando languishing in love.
Sweet solitary groves, whereas the nymphs
With pleasance laugh to see the satyrs play,
Witness Orlando's faith unto his love.

Tread she these lawns ?-Kind Flora, boast thy pride:

Seek she for shades ?-Spread, cedars, for her sake.

Fair Flora, make her couch amidst thy flowers.

Sweet crystal springs,

Wash ye with roses when she longs to drink.

Ah thought, my heaven! Ah heaven that knows my thought!
Smile, joy in her that my content hath wrought.

Such passages as this prove that Greene succeeds well, as Hallam remarks, in that florid and gay style, a little redundant in images, which Shakspeare frequently gives to his princes and courtiers, and which renders some unimpassioned scenes in the historic plays, effective and brilliant.' His comedies contain much boisterous merriment and farcical humor. George-a-Green is a shrewd Yorkshireman, who meets with the kings of Scotland and England, Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and others, and who, after various tricks, receives the pardon of king Edward, accompanied with the following assurance:

George-a-Green, give me thy hand: there is
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.

The following is a specimen of the simple humor and practical jokes in the play: it is in a scene between George and his servant:

Jenkin. This fellow comes to me,

And takes me by the bosom: you slave,
Said he, hold my horse, and look

He takes no cold in his feet.

No, marry, shall he, sir, quoth I;
I'll lay my cloak underneath him.
I took my cloak, spread it all along,

And his horse on the midst of it.

George. Thou clown, did'st thou set his horse upon thy cloak?
Jenkin. Ay, but mark how I served him.

Madge and he were no sooner gone down into the ditch,
But I plucked out my knife, cut four holes in my cloak,
And made his horse stand on the bare ground.

But Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay is much the best of Greene's comedies. His friars are conjurers, and the piece concludes with one of their pupils being carried off to hell on the back of one of friar Bacon's devils. This was, perhaps, the last time the devil was introduced upon the stage in his proper person. The play was performed for the first time in 1591, but was probably written a year or two earlier.

In some hour of repentance, when death was nigh at hand, Greene wrote a tract called A Groat's Worth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance, in which he deplores his fate more feelingly than Nash, and also gives ghostly advice to his acquaintances, 'that spend their wit in making plays.' Marlow he accuses of Atheism; Lodge he designates 'young Juvenal' and 'a sweet boy;' Peele he considers too good for the stage; and he glances thus at Shakspeare, who, in all probability, at that early period began to

eclipse all of them :-'For there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Fac-totum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country.' The punning allusion to Shakspeare is unmistakable: the expressions 'tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide,' are a parody on the following line in Henry the Sixth :

O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide.

The 'Groat's Worth of Wit' was published after Greene's death by a brother dramatist, Henry Chettle, who, in the preface to a subsequent work, thus apologizes for the allusion to Shakspeare. 'I am sorry,' he says, 'as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his demeanor no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes. Beside, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that approves his art.' This apology was published in 1593, and is the more valuable, because it does full justice to Shakspeare's moral worth, and civil deportment, and to his respectability as an actor and author.

The following conclusion of Greene's 'Groat's Worth of Wit,' contains more pathos than all his plays combined. It is, indeed, a harrowing picture of genius debased by vice, and sorrowing in repentance :---

'But now return I again to you three (Marlow, Lodge, and Peele), knowing my misery is to you no news: and let me heartily entreat you to be warned by my harms. Delight not, as I have done, in irreligious oaths; despise drunkenness, fly lust, abhor those epicures, whose loose life hath made religion loathsome to your ears; and when they soothe you with terms of mastership, remember Robert Greene (whom they have often flattered) perishes for want of comfort. Remember, gentlemen, your lives are like so many light tapers that are with care delivered to all of you to maintain; these, with wind-puffed wrath, may be extinguished, with drunkenness put out, with negligence let fall. The fire of my light is now at the last snuff. My hand is tired, and I forced to leave where I would begin; desirous that you should live though himself be dying.-ROBERT GREENE.'

Greene died in September 1592, owing, it is said, to a surfeit of red herring and Rhenish wine! We shall conclude this melancholy picture with his sonnet on Content, and the Song of the Shepherdess.

CONTENT.

Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content:

The quiet mind is richer than a crown:

Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent:

The poor estate scorns Fortune's angry frown.

Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss,
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss.

The homely house that harbours quiet rest,

The cottage that affords no pride nor care,

The mean, that 'grees with country music best,
The sweet consort of mirth's and music's fare.
Obscured life sets down a type of bliss;
A mind content both crown and kingdom is.

THE SONG OF THE SHEPHERDESS.

Ah! what is love! It is a pretty thing,
As sweet unto a shepherd as a king,
And sweeter too:

For kings have cares that wait upon a crown,
And cares can make the sweetest cares to frown:

Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?

His flocks are folded; he comes home at night
As merry as a king in his delight,

And merrier too:

For kings bethink them what the state require,
Where shepherds, careless, carol by the fire:

Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?

He kisseth first, then sits as blithe to eat
His cream and curd as doth the king his meat,
And blither too:

For kings have often fears when they sup,
Where shepherds dread no poison in their cup:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

Upon his couch of straw he sleeps as sound
As doth the king upon his bed of down,

More sounder too:

For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to spill,
Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill:
Åh then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

Thus with his wife he spends the year as blithe
As doth the king at every tide or syth,

And blither too:

For kings have wars and broils to take in hand,
When shepherds laugh, and love upon the land:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

THOMAS LODGE was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, of which he became servitor in, 1573. From Oxford he removed to London, and entered Lincoln's Inn as a student of law; but if he ever followed the legal pro