Longsh. Villain, you wrong the man, hands off.

Frier. Maisters, I beseech you leave this brawling and give me leave to speak; so it is, I went to dice with St. Francis and lost five nobles: by good fortune his cashier came by, receaved it of me in readie cash. I, being verie desirous to trie my fortune further, playde still, and as the dice, not beinge bound prentice to him or anie man, favored me, I drew a hand and won a hundred marks; now I refer it to your judgements whether the Frier is to seeke his winnings.

Longsh. Marrie, Frier, the Farmer must and shall paye thee honestlie ere he passe.

Farmer. Shall I, sir? why will you be content to paye halfe as you promist me.

Longsh. Ay, Farmer, if you had beene rob'de of it, but if you be a gamester I'le take no charge of you."

Peele was also the author of a comedy, called The Old Wives' Tale; and a play never printed, as appears from his merry_conceited jests, under the title of The Turkish Mahomet, and Hyren the faire Greeke; besides pageants, for his talent in which he was much celebrated*.

We shall now proceed to Greene's Orlando Furioso, taken from Ariosto, an irregular piece not divided into acts. It does not appear to us, to be worth while to give any account of this play, and we shall, therefore, merely observing that the madness of Orlando is nearly as sane as the rest of the scenes, make two or three extracts, to shew the style in which it is written. Amongst the several pretenders to the hand of Angelica, Orlando urges his claims.

"Orlando. Lords of the southe, and princes of esteeme, Viceroyes unto the state of Africa:

I am no king, yet I am princely borne,
Decended from the royall house of France,
And nephew to the mightie Charlemaine,
Surnam'de Orlando, the Countie Palatine.

Swift fame that sounded to our western seas

The matchless beautie of Angelica,

Fairer than was the nymphe of Mercurie,

Who when bright Phoebus mounteth up his coach,
And tracks Aurora in her silver steps,

In the play of the Puritan, in which he is conjectured, by Mr. Steevens, to be represented under the character of George Pieboard, he is described as "an excellent scholar, and especially for a mask." There can be no doubt, that the conjecture is correct;-one of the incidents in the play is taken with but a slight variation from Peele's jests.And a baker's pye-board is still called a peele.

Doth sprinkle from the folding of her lap,
White lilies, roses, and sweete violettes.
Yet thus believe me, princes of the south,
Although my countrie's love, dearer than pearle
Or mynes of gold, might well have kept me backe,
The seas by Neptune hoysed to the heavens,

Whose dangerous flawes might well have kept me backe;
The savage Mores and Anthropagei

Whose landes I past might well have kept me backe;

The doubt of entertainment in the court

When I arriv'de might well have kept me backe:

But so the fame of faire Angelica,

Stampt in my thoughts the figure of her love,
As neither country, king, or seas, or cannibals,
Could by dispairing keepe Orlando backe.
I list not boaste in notes of chivalrie,

(An humor never fitting with my minde)
But come there forth, the proudest champion
That hath suspicion in the Palatine,
And with my trustie sword Durandell
Single I'le register upon his helme,

What I dare doe for faire Angelica.

But leaving these, such glories as they bee;
I love, my Lord!

Angelica herselfe shall speake for me."

There is some animation in the soliloquy of Sacripant, a lover of Angelica, or rather of the crown.

"Sacripant. Sweet are the thoughts that smother from conceit: For when I come and sit me downe to reste, My chaire presents a throne of majestie : And when I set my bonnet on my head, Methinks I fit my forehead for a crowne : And when I take my truncheon in my fist, A sceptre then comes tumbling in my thoughts. My dreames are princely, all of diadems. Honor methinks the title is too base.

Mightie, glorious, and excellent:

Aye, these my glorious genius sounds within my mouth,

These please the eare, and with a sweete applause,

Make me in tearmes coequall with the gods.

Then these, Sacripant, and none but these."

The following is a favorable example of the manner in

which Greene lavishes gorgeous expressions on things, to which the application is extravagant.

Orlando. Thanks, my good lords; and now, my friends of France,
Frollicke, be merrye, we will hasten home,

So soone as King Marsilius will consent,
To let his daughter wend with us to France.
Meanwhile wee❜le richly rigge up all our fleete,
More brave than was that gallant Grecian keele,
That brought away the Colchian fleece of gold.
Our sailes of sendal spread into the winde,
Our ropes and tacklings all of finest silke,
Fetcht from the native loomes of labouring wormes,
The pride of Barbarie and the glorious wealthe,
That is transported by the western bounds:
Our stems cut out of glassy ivorie,

Our planks and sides fram'de out of cypresse wood,
That bears the name of Cyparissus' change,

To burst the billows of the ocean sea,

Where Phoebus dips his amber-tresses oft,
And kisses Thetis in the daye's decline,

That Neptune proud shall call his Trytons forth,
To cover all the ocean with a calme."

How many plays Greene wrote it is impossible to ascertain; Nash says, "he was chief of the company, for he writ more than four others; (how well I will not say, but sat cito si bene sat)." There are, however, five plays which are known to have been written by him; the two of which we have already given an account in this and the preceding article; The comical historie of Alphonsus King of Arragon, and The Scottish Story of James the Fourth, both printed in 1599, seven years after his death; and The History of Jobe, which was never printed.

We have already intimated, that Greene could write in a purer and chaster spirit of poetry, than he thought it necessary or politic to do in his plays. It is reasonable, therefore, to assume, that the latter pieces were designedly written in an extravagant and braggart style to catch the fleeting admiration of a vulgar and unlettered audience. We shall make two extracts from his "Never too late," in illustration of the above remark, both of which are put into modern orthography.

The following ode of the penitent Palmer, allowing for a slight inaccuracy of metaphor, possesses beauty both of thought and versification.

"Whilom in the winter's rage,

A Palmer old and full of age,

Sat and thought upon his youth,

With eyes' tears, and hearts' ruth,
Being all with cares y-blent,
When he thought on years mispent ;
When his follies came to mind,

How fond love had made him blind
And wrapp'd him in a field of woes,
Shadowed with pleasure's shows;
Then he sigh'd and said, 'alas,
Man is sin and flesh is grass.

I thought my mistress' hairs were gold,
And in their lockes my heart I fold;
Her amber tresses were the sight
That wrapped me in vain delight:
Her ivory front, her pretty chin,
Were stales that drew me on to sin.

Her face was fair, her breath was sweet,
All her looks for love were meet:

But love is folly: this I know:
And beauty fadeth like to snow.
O why should man delight in pride,
Whose blossom like a dew doth glide?
When these supposes touch'd my thought,
That world was vain, and beauty nought,
I 'gan to sigh, and say, alas,

Man is sin and flesh is grass."

The next is in a deeper and more sedate spirit of moral feeling.

"With sweating brows I long have plough'd the sands;
My seed was youth, my crop was endless care,
Repentance hath sent home with empty hands,
At last, to tell how rife our follies are:
And time hath left experience to approve,
The gain is grief to those that traffick love.
The silent thoughts of my repentant years

That fill my head, have call'd me home at last :
Now love unmask'd a wanton wretch appears,
Begot by guileful thought with over haste:
In prime of youth a rose, in age a weed,
That for a minute's joy, pays endless meed.
Dead to delights, a foe to fond conceit,
Allied to wit, by want and sorrow brought:

VOL. III. PART I.

I

Farewell, fond youth, long foster'd in deceit,

Forgive me Time disguis'd in idle thought!
And Love, adieu, lo, hasting to my end,

I find no time too late for to amend !"

Reserving Marlowe for future consideration, we shall proceed to the discussion of the merits of John Lilly or Lyly, who was contemporary with the poets, whose works we have been contemplating. He was born in the Weald of Kent, studied at Oxford, and took his degree of Master of Arts in 1575. He afterwards removed to Cambridge, and thence to court, where he gained considerable reputation as a wit and a poet. John Lilly, however, was poor, and had not wit and poetry sufficient to keep him from penury. He had, it seems, or thought he had, reason to expect that the office of Master of the Revels would be bestowed upon him; and there are still extant in manuscript, two petitionary letters to Queen Elizabeth on this subject, in the last of which he describes his great poverty and disappointment of this preferment, for which he had been waiting thirteen years. Blunt, however, who collected six of his plays, says that Queen Elizabeth heard, graced, and rewarded him. The first publications of Lilly were two works in prose, called Euphues; or, the Anatomy of Wit, and Euphues and his England; which appeared in 1581 and 1582. These productions were intended to improve and purify the English language, and obtained high celebrity in the court of Elizabeth; but there were not wanting, both at that time and since, those who loaded them with the contemptuous epithets of jargon, affectation, and obscurity. How far Lilly really improved the English language or deserved the reproaches which are generally attached to him, we may probably examine more at length, in a future article on these once famous works. What we shall have to say on his plays will, however, in a great measure, apply to his other publications.

Lilly presents a remarkable contrast to the poets whom we have been considering-he is, in all respects, different, and at the same time every whit as extravagant. The subjects of his dramas are almost all of classical origin, and were, it is presumed, selected to suit the taste of the court of Elizabeth, before whom most of them were acted. The six plays collected and published by Edward Blunt, in 1632, are all in prose, with the exception of the songs with which they are interspersed. Lilly was, undoubtedly, a man of genius and of wit, but the former was circumscribed by his peculiar manner of composition, and the latter, under the same system, was as wild and extravagant. His plays are exhibitions of subtle reasoning and scholastic sophistry. He analyzes and classifies the qualities