﻿PLAGIAEIS^^I A^iIOXG ELIZABETHAN T AM L'HLETEEES 



147 



lislier rather than the writer, is not exactly eoniplimentary to the 

 Elizabethan reading publie. But ]i;;ti'\ ri' tlieir moral code, nothing 

 can justify Samuel Ko^Ylands" methods. It must be admitted that 

 the author of '"Greenes Ghost" is a small man. that the interest in 

 liim is mainly of an antiquarian or historical nature, that his chief 

 claim to remembrance is that he lived and ^vrote when the Eliza- 

 bethan drama was in flower, that his prose is only fair and his 

 verse for the most part doggerel, even if there are some lines "which 

 Pope would not have disdained to use. " and lastly, that he is one 

 of the most arrant pilfering book-makers among Elizabethan men- 

 of-letters.^ It is principally with this last accusation that we have 

 here to deal. That it is not a false one. ^dll be manifest if we be- 

 gin at the beginning of "Greenes Ghost."" and point out the bor- 

 rowings as we go along. 



This paper will attempt not only to record the results of the 

 writer's study of Rowlands, but also to acknowledge and to register, 

 wherever feasible, the work of others hearing on the particular piec-e 

 of writing now under consideration. The hope is that this study 

 will have interest not only for the student of Rowlands but for the 

 students of Lodge, Xashe. Dekker. and especially Greene. How- 

 ever, that it may have meaning for readers who are not strictly 

 students of these pamphleteers but who have more than a casual 

 interest in Elizabethan literary matters, the important borrow- 

 ings together with the original passages will be given entire. AYlien 

 the verbal likenesses between the two are not striking, merely the 

 references will be designated. In this essay will be recorded all the 

 borrowings in ''Greenes Ghost" that have, so far as is known, been 

 noticed by those who have written about Rowlands, in addition to 

 what the present vT-iter has discovered. 



In 1860. J. 0. Halliwell-Phillipps reprinted the 1626 (second) 

 edition of the pamphlet. His reprint had the following preface : 



•'Tiiis tract has been attributed. l)iit apparently on uncertain grounds, 

 to .Samuel Rowlands. It was tirst printed in 1602. and Lo\^^ldes also re- 

 cords an edition of tlie date 1606. but I can find no other notice of tlie 

 lafter. The edition of 1602 is of singular rarity, and has not been accessible 

 to me. If we may believe the cdiTdr. S. R.. 'this little pamphlet came by 

 chance to my hands, adding somewhat of mine OAvne knowledge, and upon 

 very credible information" : but statements of this kind are received with 

 hesitation by those acquainted with the literature of the period. That any 



* Rowlands" rigiit to be called, with more or less reservation, a man-of -letters 

 is quite clear. WliiU- he may not have made his entire way with his pen. he was. 

 at least, a free lance. There is a certain independence in him that would have 

 graced many of his abler fellows. 



