the bookseller doubtless would have been called upon; "see this bearer (my host) "satisfied of his debt," and sweet wife would not have bourne the burden while booksellers felt themselves blest to pay dear for the very dregs of her husband's wit.

Those writers who express no doubt of the authenticity of the posthumed pamphlets, leave their readers to set down as auto-biographical whatever portions of those pieces he may think proper. At the same time the trend of impulse is given the reader by the critics that he may not fail to read the story of the poet's life out of characters devoid of all faith in honesty and in virtue, while the author (Greene) is anxious evidently to point a moral by them and reprove vice. These forged pamphlets and so-called autobiographical pamphlets make Greene accuse himself of crimes which he surely did not commit, such as the crime of theft and murder. He says, "I exceeded all "others in these kinds of sinnes," and he

is represented as the most atrocious villain that ever walked the earth. There is not an atom of evidence adduced to show Francisco in "Never Too Late" was intended by the author for a picture of himself, and we do not believe that Greene wrote the pamphlet in which Roberto, in "Groats Worth of Wit" is one of the despicable characters.

Very little is known with any degree of certainty concerning the personal life of Robert Greene, and very little, if anything, in regard to his family or ancestry, although much prominence is given by imaginary writers to the history of his person in the manuals of our literature. These writers attach an auto-biographical reality to their dreams of fancy. They take advantage of Greene's unbounded sincerity and his own too candid confession in the address to the playwriters, and of his irrepressible desire to sermonize, whether in plays or pamphlets, with all the fervor of a devout Methodist having a license to exhort. The closest

analogy to Greene's position, in fact, is that of the revival preacher-as Prof. Storojenko puts it-"who, to make the "picture of the present as telling as pos"sible, sees and paints his past in its very "blackest colors. This self-flagellation is "strongly connected with a really attrac"tive feature of Greene's character; we "mean his sincerity, a boundless sincerity "which never allowed him to spare him"self. Robert Greene was incapable of "posing and pretending to be what he "was not. This is why we may fearlessly "believe him when he speaks of the an"guish of his soul and the sincerity of "his repentance. A man whose deflection "from the path of virtue cost him so "much moral suffering cannot, of course, "be measured by the same standard as "the man who acts basely, remains at "peace with himself and defends his "faults by all kinds of sophistry. Speak"ing further of his literary labors, he "never dealt in personalities in exposing "some of the crying nuisances of London

"and is perfectly silent as to the moral "change in his own character, which was "the fruit of his dealing with them. In "a word, he conceals all that might, in his "opinion, modify the sentence that he "pronounces on his own life for the edi"fication of others."

IV

There is a commendative piece of writing which should be read in connection with Greene's letter to "divers play"makers." We refer to the preface to "Kind Hearts Dreams," written by Henry Chettle, which was registered December 8, 1592. Chettle says, "About "three months since died M. Robert "Greene, leaving many papers in sundry "book-seller's hands, among others, his """Groats Worth of Wit' in which a letter "written to diverse play-makers is offen"sively by one or two of them taken.' Chettle's statement about many papers in sundry book-sellers hands may be discredited because of the poet's urgent necessities, and the strong desire on the part of book-sellers to publish Greene's writings. Of this we may be sure, that the letter was not placed in book-sellers hands by Greene or for him. He would not have called his friends to repentance