1898.] on the Early Life and Work of Shakespeare. 745 



warned that they were in like case with Greene, they also would be 

 forsaken by these " Puppets that speak from our mouths, those Antics 

 garnished in our colours." " Yes, trust them not," he adds, " for there 

 is an upstart Crow beautified with our feathers, that with his Tyger'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 owne conceit the only Shake-scene in a countrie." 

 The line thus parodied, " O Tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide," 

 occurs in the Third Part of Henry VI., and this circumstance, taken 

 with the obvious play on his name, identifies Shakespeare as the object 

 of Greene's invective. 



Had this curious pamphlet been given to the world on the authority 

 of Greene, it might be disregarded as the raving of a disordered brain. 

 But it was revised and published in December 1592, about two months 

 after Greene's death, by Henry Chettle, himself a dramatist of note, 

 to whose pen it appears to have been attributed. For in the preface 

 to his ' Kind Hart's Dream,' Chettle is at pains to disown the author- 

 ship and to make such amends as he could to two of the playwrights 

 addressed by Greene. " A letter," he says, " written to divers play- 

 makers is offensively by one or two of them taken." There was one 

 of those, he tells us, " whose learning I reverence, and at the perusing 

 of Greene's book stroke out what there in conscience I thought he in 

 some displeasure writ." No such reverence for either the learning or 

 the art of Shakespeare led Chettle to tone down the only really offen- 

 sive part of the whole passage. 



Of another of those who took offence he writes, that he did not 

 so much spare him as since he wished, for which he is as sorry 

 as if Greene's fault had been his own, " because myselfe have scene 

 his demeanour no less civill than he excellent in the qualities he 

 possesses. Besides, divers of worship have reported his ui^rightness 

 of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in 

 writing, that approves his Art." 



There is no reason for applying to Shakespeare these words of 

 Chettle, save only a sense of their appropriateness. For it was by 

 one or two of the play-makers addressed by Greene that offence was 

 taken, and Shakespeare was not of the number. I am not, however, 

 careful to discuss the sufficiency of this reason, for the real signifi- 

 cance of Chettle's preface consists in the evidence which it affords of 

 the state of his mind when he edited and revised Greene's pamphlet. 

 When he saw no reason to tone down the only really scurrilous 

 passage in the ' Groatsworth of Wit " — the denunciation of Shake- 

 speare as an impudent plagiarist — it is impossible to avoid the 

 conclusion that either Shakespeare was unknown to him, or that he 

 saw no reason to quarrel with Greene's estimate of character and 

 literary ability. 



Strange as Greene's words now sound in our ears, there is no 

 reason why they should have startled Chettle. Without accepting 

 the literal truth of any of the traditions, we cannot doubt that Rowe, 



