lies on the furface that if only the 'wrecked life' had found a friend and helper in his (later) mighty contemporary, that is if co-operation had been fought—not antagonism -English literature should have been the certain gainer. We are fo ufed to idolatrize Shakespeare because of his fimply incomparable genius, that we fhirk inquiring into his relations with his precurfors and contemporaries. I for one feel fatisfied that fuller knowledge of thefe would prove that for years, when feeling his way upward, Shakespeare was a very buccaneer in 'Spoiling the Egyptians,' or unmetaphorically in turning to his own account the MS. writings of unfortunate contemporaries who were constrained to write for the theatres. On thefe and cognate matters I must refer the reader to Professor Storojenko's Life' of Greene, with our annotations, which form vol. i. of the Works. I would fpecially commend the L'Allegro and Penferofo-like bursts of musical song that will be found in this volume. The (So-called) Paftorals have exquifite touches and fineft-wrought rhyme and rhythm. The Love-fongs are tender and paffionate. The comic vein' is genuine. His patriotic ftanding-up for the common people' (e.g., in The Pinner of Wakefield') is hiftorically moft noticeable. Altogether I shall be dif appointed if our Green Paftures'—the pun being permissible, as was Spurgeon's 'Stones from Ancient Brooks' (= Thomas Brooks, the Puritan)—be not welcomed as a pleasant surprise to be placed befide our 'Bower of Delight' of NICOLAS Breton. I close with a quotation from myself— I must take this fresh opportunity of recalling that as the converfe of Herrick's famous (or infamous) pleading, that if his verfe were impure, his life was chaste, Greene's writings are exceptionally clean. Nor must he be refused the benefit of this in any judicial eftimate of him. It is equally barfb and uncritical to fay that this confeffedly diffolute-living man wrote purely because it paid him to do fo. It did no fuch thing. It would have paid, and did pay, to write impurely, and as miniftering to the unchafte appetite of readers for garbage. To his undying honour, Robert Greene,-equally with James Thomson,-left scarce a line that dying he need have wished "to_blot." I can't understand the nature of anyone who can think hardly of Greene in the light of his ultimate penitence and abfolute confeffion. It is (if the comparison be not over-bold) as though one had taunted David with his fin after the 51ft Pfalm' (Editor's Introduction to Life: Works, i., pp. xix-xx). A. B. G. |