unity and its poetry are admirable; and its production was a veritable triumph. The theme is the classical one of the throwing by the Goddess of Discord of the apple with the motto Detur Pulcherrimae into the presence of Juno, Pallas, and Venus. In the end no one of the goddesses receives the apple, all agreeing that the nymph Zabeta alone is worthy of it. The different acts of this play stand out with perfect distinctness in their bearing on the main plot. The first shows Pan, Faunus, and Silvanus assembled to give welcome to Juno and her companions, and bringing Flora on the scene, gives the necessary atmosphere; the second is concerned with the throwing of the apple and the offers made to Paris by Juno, Pallas, and Venus; the third brings on the scene Mercury, who has been sent with the Cyclops of Vulcan to summon Paris to appear at the council of the gods; the fourth shows the council and gives the oration of Paris; and the fifth contains Diana's glowing description of Eliza, to whom the three goddesses yield their claim. In the course of the play Peele makes use of rhyme, blank verse, and the septenary. The oration of Paris is perhaps his best example of blank verse.

David and Bethsabe has the distinction of being the only play on a scriptural theme by an Elizabethan dramatist that has been preserved and is by many critics regarded as Peele's masterpiece. It has not the unity of The Arraignment of Paris, however, and more and more reveals itself as a sort of biblical chronicle play. The various incidents in the life of David or of his children are all here, but frequently they seem like so many separate episodes rather than parts of a dramatic whole, especially as the play reaches over a great number of years.

Peele, however, was not altogether without dramatic motive. The consequences of David's sin are seen throughout the play, and Amnon's crime is but a reflection of it. The blank verse moreover shows a distinct improvement on the poet's earlier work.

Peele has interesting connections with the general trend of English poetry. His Old Wives' Tale suggested to Milton the plot of Comus, and Colin and Hobbinol in The Arraignment of Paris have been thought to refer to Spenser and Gabriel Harvey. To the development of the drama he did not contribute as much as Lyly or Greene or Marlowe; but his humor is admirable, and the care that he gave to diction and meter did much for the general refinement of versification. "Before Marlowe placed his stamp upon blank verse Peele was writing it with great sweetness and a charming musical quality." "

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24. Robert Greene.-Greene (1558?-1592) was born in Norwich. He matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1575, received his A. B. there in 1578, and his A. M. at Clare Hall in 1583, and, after an interval that seems to have been spent mainly in Italy and Spain, he also received the A. M. degree at Oxford in 1588. In his later years he was proud of the fact that he represented both universities. In 1585 he married a gentleman's daughter and settled in Norwich, but he forsook his wife after she had borne him a son and he had spent her dowry. He was a man of jealous disposition; his " Address to the Gentlemen Readers" prefixed to the pamphlet entitled Perimedes the Blacke-Smith contains a rather satirical reference to Marlowe's Tamburlaine, and in A Groatsworth of Wit he spoke of Shakespeare as an "upstart crow" that

"Neilson.

beautified himself with the feathers of others and as "in his own conceit the only Shakescene in a country." He died in poverty at the home of a shoemaker who took him in.

Greene was distinctively a man of letters, a sensitive and ambitious author, and his writing generally exhibits eminent refinement and good taste. His work draws much on Italian sources, and some of his pamphlets are what we should now call novelettes. Pandosto became the source of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. In the field of the drama Greene is generally credited with six plays, though others have been ascribed to him. These are Alphonsus, King of Arragon (1589), Orlando Furioso (1592), Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1589), James the Fourth (1590), George a-Greene (1588?), and (in collaboration with Lodge) A Looking Glass for London and England (1589). In Alphonsus he seems to have had some idea of rivaling Marlowe's Tamburlaine, which had appeared in 1587; Orlando Furioso is of course founded on Ariosto's poem and anticipates Shakespeare's As You Like It in the posting of messages on trees; and A Looking Glass for London and England, in the story of Rasni, King of Nineveh, furnishes " a specimen of a peculiar Elizabethan variation on the manner of the old religious drama." Much more important, however, are the other two plays.

The Scottish Hystorie of James the Fourth, Slaine at Flodden, although it sounds like one, is not really an historical play. Suggested by a story in the Hecatommithi of Giraldi Cinthio, it is rather romantic in tone. James marries Dorothea, an English princess, only to find that he has perjured himself, as he is really in love with Ida,

• Ward.

daughter of the Countess of Arran. Ateukin, a parasite of James, tries to get Ida to play the part of a mistress to the king, but fails utterly. The noblemen of the realm inform Queen Dorothea of the king's love for Ida, but she does not believe them. Only when Jaques, a Frenchman who has been bribed by Ateukin, attempts to kill her does she change her opinion. Rescued by an old knight, she assumes the disguise of a squire, and remains for a considerable time in concealment, attended only by the dwarf Nano. Ida now marries Eustace, an English gentleman, and Ateukin, conscience-smitten, warns the king of the consequences of his deeds. The English sovereign meanwhile makes war on James because of the sufferings of Dorothea, and the Scottish king is deserted by his subjects. The queen, however, reappears on the scene and restores good feeling. This play is noteworthy for its good diction, its rapidity of action, its use of comic matter, and the excellent characterization of Dorothea.

In Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay there are two main themes. The first is that of the magic of Friar Bacon, foremost of Englishmen in his art, who confounds the German Vandermast. The second is that of the romance of Margaret," the fair maid of Fressingfield," beloved of Prince Edward, who sends Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, to woo her, only to have her fall in love with Lacy (all this being of course simply a variation of the Miles Standish idea which was also common in the age of Elizabeth, appearing among other places in Twelfth Night). The scene at Harlston Fair is one of Greene's best for the freshness of

country life. Comic interest is furnished by Bacon's servant Miles, who is carried off by the devil with the understanding that he is to have a lusty fire, a pot of good

ale, and a "pair" of cards. Lacy, before coming finally to take Margaret to be one of the ladies attending Princess Elinor, in order to test her love and patience sends her word to the effect that he is to be married to some one else. This, as Ward points out, is simply a reappearance of the Griselda motive. The play as a whole, however, well illustrates Greene's ability to weave together scattered threads of story, and his appreciation of the elements of condensation and suspense.

By his plays as well as by his pamphlets Greene becomes more closely connected with Shakespeare than any of his contemporaries. Especially did he anticipate the master dramatist in introducing genuine comedy into serious plays, in portraying the character of women, in his use of the fairy element, in the delineation of idyllic scenes, and in suggesting the national spirit. Hardly too much I emphasis can be placed on his handling of the story element. While other writers were making their contribution in form and sometimes even in spirit, Greene first fully appreciated the practical possibilities of a complicated and swiftly moving narrative.

25. Thomas Kyd.-Thomas Kyd (1558?-1594), the son of a London scrivener, Frances Kyd, in his earlier years attended the Merchant Taylors' School, but does not seem to have attended the universities. He evidently was a man of gloomy temperament, and a habit of anonymity that seemed to characterize him has raised many baffling questions with reference to his work. He made one or two translations from the French, quite certainly wrote The Tragedie of Solimon and Perseda, and, according to the convictions of the individual investigator, was also responsible for the First Part of Jeronimo and