• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 21167 0

able to extirpate in small time the generation of mankinde? for if sic volo, sic iubeo, holde in those that are able to command, and if it be lawfull fas et nefas, to doo any thing that is beneficiall, onely tyrants should possesse the earth, and they, striving to exceed in tiranny, should each to other be a slaughterman, till, the mightyest outliving all, one stroke were left for Death, that in one age mans life should end.... With thee I joyne young Juvenall, that byting satyrist, that lastly with mee together writ a comedie. Sweet boy, might I advise thee, be advised, and get not many enemies by bitter words; inveigh against vaine men, for thou canst doo it, no man better, no man so well; thou hast a libertie to reproove all and name none; for one being spoken to, all are offended—none being blamed, no man is injured. Stop shallow water still running, it will rage; tread on a worme, and it will turne; then blame not schollers who are vexed with sharpe and bitter lines, if they reproove thy too much liberty of reproofe.

"And thou no lesse deserving then the other two, in some things rarer, in nothing inferiour, driven, as myselfe, to extreame shifts, a little have I to say to thee; and, were it not an idolatrous oath, I would sweare by sweet S. George, thou art unworthy better hap, sith thou dependest on so mean a stay. Base-minded men all three of you, if by my misery yee bee not warned; for unto none of you, like me, sought those burs to cleave; those puppits, I meane, that speake from our mouths, those anticks garnisht in our colours. Is it not strange that I to whom they have been beholding, is it not like that you to whom they all have been beholding, shall, were yee in that case that I am now, be both of them at once forsaken? Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with his Tygres heart wrapt in a players hyde, supposes hee is as well able to bombast out a blanke-verse as the best of you; and, beeing an absolute Johannes-fac-totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. Oh, that I might intreat your rare wittes to bee imployed in more profitable courses, and let these apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaynte them with your admyred inventions! I knowe the best husband of you all will never proove an usurer, and the kindest of them all will never proove a kinde nurse; yet, whilst you may, seeke you better maisters; for it is pitty men of such rare wits should bee subject to the pleasures of such rude groomes.

"In this I might insert two more that both have writte against these buckram gentlemen; but let their owne worke serve to witnesse against their owne wickednesse, if they persever to maintaine any more such peasants. For other new comers, I leave them to the mercie of those painted monsters, who, I doubt not, will drive the best-minded to despise them; for the rest, it skills not though they make a jeast at them...."

It is now accepted by critics that these allusions of Greene's were directed against Shakespeare, and that the line "Tygres heart wrapt in a players hyde" refers to Shakespeare's revision of The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York, a play in the original composition of which Greene evidently had some hand. It has not before been suggested, however, that this play was performed by the Earl of Pembroke's company, under Shakespeare's management, in 1592. It was evidently the publicity given Marlowe's and Shakespeare's revision by the stage revival of the play by Pembroke's company at this time that called forth Greene's attack. This brings us to the end of the year 1592 in outlining chronologically the evidences of the antagonism of the scholars to Shakespeare.

In June 1593 George Peele shows animus against Shakespeare by echoing Greene's phrases in the introduction to The Honour of the Garter. In these verses, in complimenting several noblemen and "gentlemen poets," such as Sidney, Spenser, Harrington, Fraunce, Campion, and others, he refers also to

"ordinary grooms,

With trivial humours to pastime the world,