A History of English Literature by George Saintsbury (best novels in english TXT) 📖
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That erst in Eden sweeten'd Adam's love,
And stroke my bosom with thy silken fan:
This shade, sun-proof,[21] is yet no proof for thee;
Thy body, smoother than this waveless spring,
And purer than the substance of the same,
Can creep through that his lances cannot pierce:
Thou, and thy sister, soft and sacred Air,
Goddess of life, and governess of health,
Keep every fountain fresh and arbour sweet;
No brazen gate her passage can repulse,
Nor bushy thicket bar thy subtle breath:
Then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes,
And on thy wings bring delicate perfumes,
To play the wanton with us through the leaves."
[21] Cf. Milton's "elms star-proof" in the Arcades. Milton evidently knew Peele well.
Robert Greene, probably, if not certainly, the next in age of the group to Peele, was born in 1560, the son of apparently well-to-do parents at Norwich, and was educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, where he took his Master's degree in 1553. He was subsequently incorporated at Oxford, and being by no means ill-inclined to make the most of himself, sometimes took the style of a member "Utriusque Academiæ." After leaving the university he seems to have made a long tour on the Continent, not (according to his own account) at all to the advantage of his morals or means. He is said to have actually taken orders, and held a living for some short time, while he perhaps also studied if he did not practise medicine. He married a lady of virtue and some fortune, but soon despoiled and deserted her, and for the last six years of his life never saw her. At last in 1592, aged only two and thirty,—but after about ten years it would seem of reckless living and hasty literary production,—he died (of a disease caused or aggravated by a debauch on pickled herrings and Rhenish) so miserably poor that he had to trust to his injured wife's forgiveness for payment of the money to the extent of which a charitable landlord and landlady had trusted him. The facts of this lamentable end may have been spitefully distorted by Gabriel Harvey in his quarrel with Nash; but there is little reason to doubt that the received story is in the main correct. Of the remarkable prose pamphlets which form the bulk of Greene's work we speak elsewhere, as also of the pretty songs (considerably exceeding in poetical merit anything to be found in the body of his plays) with which both pamphlets and plays are diversified. His actual dramatic production is not inconsiderable: a working-up of the Orlando Furioso; A Looking Glass for London and England (Nineveh) with Lodge; James IV. (of Scotland), a wildly unhistorical romance; Alphonsus, King of Arragon; and perhaps The Pinner of Wakefield, which deals with his own part namesake George-a-Greene; not impossibly also the pseudo-Shakesperian Fair Em. His best play without doubt is The History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, in which, after a favourite fashion of the time, he mingles a certain amount of history, or, at least, a certain number of historical personages, with a plentiful dose of the supernatural and of horseplay, and with a very graceful and prettily-handled love story. With a few touches from the master's hand, Margaret, the fair maid of Fressingfield, might serve as handmaid to Shakespere's women, and is certainly by far the most human heroine produced by any of Greene's own group. There is less rant in Greene (though there is still plenty of it) than in any of his friends, and his fancy for soft female characters, loving, and yet virtuous, appears frequently. But his power is ill-sustained, as the following extract will show:—
Soundeth the measures of a lively faith,
The vain illusions of this flattering world
Seem odious to the thoughts of Margaret.
I lovèd once,—Lord Lacy was my love;
And now I hate myself for that I loved,
And doted more on him than on my God,—
For this I scourge myself with sharp repents.
But now the touch of such aspiring sins
Tells me all love is lust but love of heaven;
That beauty used for love is vanity:
The world contains naught but alluring baits,
Pride, flattery [ ], and inconstant thoughts.
To shun the pricks of death I leave the world,
And vow to meditate on heavenly bliss,
To live in Framlingham a holy nun,
Holy and pure in conscience and in deed;
And for to wish all maids to learn of me
To seek heaven's joy before earth's vanity."
We do not know anything of Thomas Kyd's, except The Spanish Tragedy, which is a second part of an extremely popular play (sometimes attributed to Kyd himself, but probably earlier) called Jeronimo, and the translation of Cornelia, though others are doubtfully attributed. The well-known epithet of Jonson, "sporting" Kyd, seems to have been either a mere play on the poet's name, or else a lucus a non lucendo; for both Jeronimo and its sequel are in the ghastliest and bloodiest vein of tragedy, and Cornelia is a model of stately dullness. The two "Jeronimo" or "Hieronimo" plays were, as has been said, extremely popular, and it is positively known that Jonson himself, and probably others, were employed from time to time to freshen them up; with the consequence that the exact authorship of particular passages is somewhat problematical. Both plays, however, display, nearly in perfection, the rant, not always quite ridiculous, but always extravagant, from which Shakespere rescued the stage; though, as the following extract will show, this rant is by no means always, or indeed often, smoke without fire:—
For other talk for us far fitter were.
But if you be importunate to know
The way to him, and where to find him out,
Then list to me, and I'll resolve your doubt.
There is a path upon your left hand side,
That leadeth from a guilty conscience
Unto a forest of distrust and fear—
A darksome place and dangerous to pass.
There shall you meet with melancholy thoughts
Whose baleful humours if you but uphold,
It will conduct you to despair and death.
Whose rocky cliffs when you have once beheld
Within a hugy dale of lasting night—
That, kindled with the world's iniquities,
Doth cast up filthy and detested fumes—
Not far from thence, where murderers have built
An habitation for their cursed souls,
There is a brazen cauldron fixed by Jove
In his fell wrath upon a sulphur flame.
Yourselves shall find Lorenzo bathing him
In boiling lead and blood of innocents."
But nothing, except citation of whole scenes and acts, could show the extraordinary jumble of ghosts, blood, thunder, treachery, and horrors of all sorts which these plays contain.
Now for a very different citation:—
Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts,
And every sweetness that inspir'd their hearts,
Their minds, and muses, on admired themes;
If all the heavenly quintessence they 'still
From their immortal flowers of poesy,
Wherein as in a mirror we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit;
If these had made one poem's period,
And all combined in beauty's worthiness,
Yet should there hover in their restless heads
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least
Which into words no virtue can digest."
It is no wonder that the whole school has been dwarfed in the general estimation, since its work was critically considered and isolated from other work, by the towering excellence of this author. Little as is known of all the band, that little becomes almost least in regard to their chief and leader. Born (1564) at Canterbury, the son of a shoemaker, he was educated at the Grammar School of that city, and at Benet (afterwards Corpus) College, Cambridge; he plunged into literary work and dissipation in London; and he outlived Greene only to fall a victim to debauchery in a still more tragical way. His death (1593) was the subject of much gossip, but the most probable account is that he was poniarded in self-defence by a certain Francis Archer, a serving-man (not by any means necessarily, as Charles Kingsley has it, a footman), while drinking at Deptford, and that the cause of the quarrel was a woman of light character. He has also been accused of gross vices not to be particularised, and of atheism. The accusation is certain; and Mr. Boas's researches as to Kyd, who was also concerned in the matter, have thrown some light on it; but much is still obscure. The most
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