CHAPTER XV.

CONTEMPORARY

REFERENCES ΤΟ SHAKE

SPEARE-HIS HOME-LIFE.

HERE was no critical literature of

TH

the stage in Shakespeare's time; but there are some references to him and his plays by his contemporaries that are exceedingly interesting. Among

these is that of the dying dramatist Greene, who, when he offered his advice and warning to his literary fellowworkers, Peele, Lodge, Marlowe, and the rest, had nothing but a sneering allusion for Shakespeare. Fortunately, the ground of his dislike is obvious; and this makes his allusion all the more important. It occurs in his "Groatsworth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance," published in 1592.

Shakespeare was at this time a dif

ferent sort of man from Greene and the other roysterers; he had got beyond roystering; he had sounded the depths of folly; and having discovered its unprofitableness, had now become an earnest student, a close thinker and hard worker. Diligently yet quietly and unostentatiously laboring in his profession, he had climbed so high and gained such a prominent place in public favor, that he excited the envy of poor Greene. Greene. "Yes, trust them not," says he; "for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, who, with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in the country." The expression "with a tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide" is a parody of the line,

Oh tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!

which is found in the Duke of York's speech in the Third Part of Henry the Sixth.

Ah, indeed! he was a Factotum, was he? Well, that shows how skilful, how industrious, how willing and useful he was! He could not only act and instruct others how to act, but he could write; he could compose plays that were better liked and more successful than even those of the learned dramatists like Greene and his fellows. Having become the leading mind in the companies with which he was connected, the actors instinctively gave way to his superior power and knowledge, and confided all to him. No doubt he gave them many a useful hint in their art; no doubt his manner was as gentle as his genius was great and his knowledge extensive; no doubt they liked his assistance in all their efforts; for though some, like Greene, were envious of him, we do not find that he had a single enemy among those that knew him intimately. Like his own Bru

tus,

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, This was a man!

Giants are always kind and considerate toward those endowed with less strength than themselves; and Shakespeare treated all his associates, even those of inferior character and capacity, with consideration, with tolerance and liberality.

But Greene did not like him. It seems he had no personal acquaintance with the Poet, else he would have addressed him in the same familiar way in which he addressed his other acquaintances. He knew him only by his growing reputation, and this excited his envy, especially when he found he was not one of the university set. This successful dramatist had not, like Greene and his companions, studied at the university; he had not passed seven years within the classic precincts of Cambridge or Oxford; he had not come to town with his patrimony in his pocket, and run through it in a course of dissipation and profligacy ; he had not outraged all decency, and put himself in a fair way of dying in a hospital. No; he was quite a different

sort of man from this; he avoided brawls and quarrels; wrought steadily and soberly at his calling; studied all he could lay hands on; noted carefully everything he saw; cultivated the acquaintance of the nobler sort, and observed the coarser kind of people without becoming one of them; became the companion of gentlemen, men of rank, talent and character, wherever he found them; acquired wealth and reputation in his profession; relieved his father and family from debt; bought the best house in his native town; and lived altogether in a higher and nobler sphere than that of Greene, Marlowe, Peele, and the rest. Oh, no, poor Greene; he was not one of your sort; and you could not possibly like him.

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Upstart crow!" What a world of meaning there is in that phrase! It contains a whole volume of evidence that Shakespeare was what he has ever been represented to be, one who rapidly worked himself up from a low station to one of the highest. 'Tis true, O Greene,