my very share in playing apparell will not bee solde for two hundred pounds: truely (sayde Roberto) it is strange, that you should so prosper in that vaine practise, for that it seemes to me your voyce is nothing gracious. Nay then, sayd the Player, I mislike your iudgement: Why, I am as famous for Delphrygus, and the king of Fairies, as euer was any of my time. The twelue Labours of Hercules haue I terribly thundered on the Stage, and played three Scenes of the Diuell in the highway to heauen. Haue ye so (said Roberto) then I pray you pardon me. Nay more (quoth the player) I can serue to make a pretty speech, for I was a country Author, passing at a morall, for it was I that pend the Morall of mans wit, the Dialogue of Diues, and for seuen yeeres space was absolute interpreter of the Puppets. But now my Almanacke is out of date. The people make no estimation Of Morals, teaching Education. Was not this prety for a plaine rime extempore? if ye will yee shall haue more. Nay, it is enough, said Roberto, but how mean you to vse me? Why sir, in making Playes, sayde the other, for which you shall bee well paied, if you will take the pains. Roberto perceiuing no remedie, thought it best to respect his present necessitie, to trye his witte, went with him willinglie: who lodged him at the townes end in a house of retayle, where what happened our Poet, you shall hereafter heare. There by conuersing with bad company, hee grew A malo in peius, falling from one vice to another, and so hauing found a veine to finger crownes, hee grew cranker then Lucanio, who by this time began to droope, being thus dealt withall by Lamilia. Shee hauing bewitched him with her enticing wiles, caused him to consume in lesse then two yeares that infinite treasure gathered by his Father with so many a poore mans curse. His lands solde, his Iewels pawnde, his money wasted, hee was casseered by Lamilia that had coosened him of all. Then walked he like one of D. Humfreyes Squires, in a threed-bare cloake, his hose drawne out with his heeles, his hose [qy. shoes] vnseamed lest his feete should sweate with heate: now (as witlesse as he was) he remembred his fathers wordes, his kindnes to his brother, his carelesnesse of himselfe. In this sorrow hee sate downe on pennilesse bench, where when Opus and Vsus tolde him by the chimes in his stomacke, it was time to fall vnto meate, he was faine with the Camelion to feed vpon the ayre and make patience his repast. While he was at his feast, Lamilia came flaunting by, garnished with the iewels whereof shee beguiled him, which sight serued to close his stomacke after his cold cheare. Roberto hearing of his brothers beggerie, albeit he had little remorse of his miserable state, yet did hee seeke him out, to vse him as a property, whereby Lucanio was somewhat prouided for. But being of simple nature, he serued but for a blocke to whet Robertoes wit on: which the poore foole perceiuing, he forsooke all other hopes of life, and fell to be a notorious Pandar, in which detested course he continued till death. But Roberto now famoused for an Arch-playmaking Poet, his purse like the sea, sometime sweld, anon like the same sea fell to a low ebbe, yet seldome he wanted, his labours were so well esteemed. Marry this rule hee kept, whateuer he fin gered aforehand, was the certaine meanes to vnbinde a bargaine, and being asked why he so sleightly dealt with them that did him good? It becomes me, sayth he, to be contrarie to the world, for commonly when vulgar men receiue earnest, they doe performe, when I am payd any thing afore hand, I breake my promise. He had shifte of lodgings, where in euery place his hostesse writte vp the wofull remembrance of him, his Laundresse and his boy, for they were euer his inhoushold, besides retayners in sundrie other places. His company were lightly the lewdest persons in the land, apt for pilferie, periurie, forgerie, or any villanie. Of these he knew the caste to cogge at cardes, coosin at Dice, by these he learned the legerdemaines of nips, foysts, conicatchers, crosbyters, lifts, high Lawyers, and all the rabble of that vncleane generation of vipers: and pithelie could hee paint out their whole courses of craft: So cunning he was in all crafts, as nothing rested in him almost but craftinesse. How often the Gentlewoman his wife laboured vainely to recall him, is lamentable to note: but as one giuen ouer to all lewdnes, he communicated her sorrowfull lines among his loose sculs, that iested at her bootlesse laments. If he could any way get credit on scores, hee would then brag his Creditors carried stones, comparing euery round circle to a groning O, procured by a painfull burthen. The shameful end of sundry his con sorts, deseruedly punished for their amisse, wrought no compunction in his heart: of which one, brother to a brothell he kept, was trust vnder a tree, as round as a ball." Here I must interrupt the narrative, and call the reader's attention to the concluding part of the sentence last quoted, which has not been noticed by any of Greene's biographers. The person who was trust under a tree as round as a ball," undoubtedly means an infamous character named Ball* (commonly called Cutting Ball), who was hanged at Tyburn this worthy, when Greene was "driven to extreme shifts," used to gather together a band of ruffianly companions, to guard him from arrests. By "the brothell he kept," we are as certainly to understand the said Ball's sister, who bore a son to Greene, and who (as we shall afterwards see) was one of the few persons who visited the poet when on his death-bed. Roberto, the tale goes on, was "nothing bettered, but rather hardened in wickednes. At last was that place iustified, God warneth men by dreames and visions in the night, and by knowne examples in the day: but if he returne not, he comes vpon him with iudgement that shall be felt. For now when the number of deceites caused Roberto bee hatefull almost to all men, his immeasurable drinking had made him the perfect image of the dropsie, and the loathsom Scourge of Lust tyrannized in his bones: Liuing in extreme pouerty, and hauing nothing to pay but chalk, which now his Host accepted not for currant, this miserable man lay comfortlessly languishing, hauing but one groat left (the iust proportion of his Fathers Legacie) which looking on, he cryed, O now it is too late, too late to buy wit with "His [Greene's] imploying of Ball (surnamed cuttinge Ball) till he was intercepted at Tiborne, to leauy a crew of his trustiest companions, to guarde him in daunger of Arrestes: his keping of the foresaid Balls sister, a sorry ragged queane, of whom he had his base sonne Infortunatus Greene."-Gabriel Harvey's Foure Letters, and certaine Sonnets: Especially touching Robert Greene, &c. 1592, p. 10. Nash alludes to this blackguard: " and more, (to plague you for your apostata conceipts) ballets shalbee made of your base deaths, euen as there was of Cutting Ball."-Haue with you to Saffron-Walden, 1596, Sig. 1. thee: and therefore will I see, if I can sell to carelesse youth what I negligently forgot to buy. "Heere (Gentlemen) breake I off Roberto's speech, whose life in most part agreeing with mine, found one selfe punishment as I haue done. Hereafter suppose me the said Roberto, and I will go on with that he promised: Greene will send you now his groatsworth of witte, that neuer shewed a mites worth in his life: and though no man now be by, to doe mee good, yet ere I die, I will by my repentance indeuor to do all men good." The author's striking Address to his brother Poets, at the end of this tract, I reserve for a later part of the present Essay. As the reader has now been made intimately acquainted with the Never too Late and The Groats-worth of Wit, he is left to set down as auto-biographical whatever portions of those pieces he may think proper. There is no doubt that Greene became the husband of an amiable woman, whom after she had borne him a child, he abandoned. His profligacy seems to have been the cause of their separation : but that they had once been strongly attached to each other is evident from the letter (hereafter to be given) which he wrote to her with his dying hand, wherein he affectingly conjures her to perform his last request by "by the loue of our youth." It was, I apprehend, immediately after this rupture of his domestic ties that he repaired to the metropolis, determined to rely solely on the labours of his pen for the means of subsistence.* From the following interesting but somewhat confused account of his carreer in The Repentance of Robert Greene, it would seem that, even before his unfortunate marriage, he was well known as a writer:— “At my return into England [from travelling on the continent] I ruffeled out in my silks, in the habit of Malcontent, and seemed so discontent, that no place would please * Wood's assertion that he used his pen for the support of his wife, I am unwillingly obliged to regard as one of worthy Anthony's many mistakes: "Other trifles he hath extant, which he wrote to maintain his wife, and that high and loose course of living which poets generally follow."-Fasti Oxon. Part I. p. 246. ed. Bliss. me to abide in, nor no vocation cause mee to stay myselfe in but after I had by degrees proceeded Maister of Arts, I left the Vniuersitie and away to London, where (after I had continued some short time, and driuen my self out of credit with sundry of my frends) I became an Author of Playes, and a penner of Love Pamphlets, so that I soone grew famous in that qualitie, that who for that trade growne so ordinary about London as Robin Greene. Yong yet in yeares, though olde in wickednes, I began to resolue that there was nothing bad that was profitable: whereupon I grew so rooted in all mischiefe, that I had as great a delight in wickednesse, as sundrie hath in godlinesse: and as much felicitie I tooke in villainy as others had in honestie." Sig. C. "Yet let me confesse a trueth, that euen once, and yet but once, I felt a feare and horrour in my conscience, and then the terrour of Gods iudgementes did manifestly teach me that my life was bad, that by sinne I deserued damnation, and that such was the greatnes of my sinne, that I deserued no redemption. And this inward motion I receiued in Saint Andrews Church in the Cittie of Norwich, at a Lecture or Sermon then preached by a godly learned man, whose doctrine, and the maner of whose teaching I liked wonderfull well yea (in my conscience) such was his singlenes of hart and zeale in his doctrine, that hee might have conuerted the most [qy. worst] monster of the world. Well, at that time, whosoeuer was worst, I knewe myselfe as bad as he: for being new come from Italy (where I learned all the villainies vnder the heauens) I was drownd in pride, whoredome was my daily exercise, and gluttony with drunkennes was my onely delight. "At this Sermon the terrour of Gods iudgementes did manifestly teach me that my exercises were damnable, and that I should bee wipte out of the booke of life, if I did not speedily repent my loosenes of life, and reforme my misde. meanors. "At this Sermon the said learned man (who doubtles was the child of God) did beate downe sinne in such pithie and perswasiue manner, that I began to call vnto mind the daunger of my soule, and the preiudice that at length would befall mee for those grosse sinnes which with greediness I daily committed in so much as sighing I said to myselfe, Lord have mercie vpon mee, and send me grace to amend : |