﻿PLAGIAEISX AAIOXG ELIZABETHAX PA^ilPHLETEEES 



151 



with muck-raking verse, siiceeeded to the degTee that his second 

 verse tract (his first was religious ^ was forbidden and burned, first 

 ill public and then in the kitchen of the Stationers' Company/^ 

 Why then not succeed with niuc-k-raking prose ? If this cause could 

 be helped by conjuring up the ghost of poor Rolici't ( ireeiic. what 

 hann in that? All in all. Rowlands' tith^-page is a piece of cateh- 

 j>enny claptrap, and in tlie liulit of the contents of his pamphlet 

 anything but unpretentious: although it must he remembered that 

 no Elizabethan pamphlet was e^'er over modest in its title promises. 



■"The Epistle Dedicatorie. * " which seems to be largely Row- 

 lands' own. has the following address: '*'To All Gentlemen. Mer- 

 chants. Apprentises. Farmers, and plaiiie eountrimeu. health. 

 It is in this letter that Rowlands tells us that he has "as one in- 

 forced (amore pafriaf ^ taken in hand to publish this little pam- 

 phlet (which by a very friend came by a chance to my hands. . . " 

 Ordinarily such a statement as this in a pamphlet would amoiuit 

 to very little and Halliwell-Pliillipps was entirely justified in giv- 

 ing it little credence. And yet it cannot be ignored : it was put in 

 originally for a purpose. The statement was doubtless designed to 

 protect Rowlands against a charge of plagiarism, by dropping the 

 suggestion that at least a portion of the work was by Greene — 

 which is true indirectly — thereby arousing an added interest in the 

 tract. That a pamphlet aetually came to S. R. through a friend 

 and that he simply edited and added to it. may with the best of 

 reason be denied. 



The remainder of the letter. A\-hich in spots borrows from 

 Greene, is a serioiLs but commonplace indictment of the conny- 

 catching abuses, and ends much as does that in " The Second Part 

 of Conny-catching. ' " with the prayer: "God either convert or 

 confound such base companions. "^-^ This letter is signed S. R. 



With the pamphlet proper. ci'ilibinL:' liegins in earnest. After a 

 frank reference to "two merrie and pithie Pamphlets of the arte 



- ArTjers Tran^rripf, II. pp. S32-33. 

 This form of address is not usual bur Greene's A Xotahle Discoverij of Coos- 

 n(ff/e has ••To the Yong CTentlemen. ^larchants. Approntises. Farmers, and plain Coun- 

 treymen Health." 



The S€<;ou<I part of Coiiiiu-cafchi,tf/ and A hisinitnth,:) hcfirrpue a JIcc Conuu- 

 cotcher and a Slice Connu-catchcr havr- v.-ry similar funii-. 



1^ Seemingly less charita'de hut pr^rhaiis (,nly Ir-v imieal. CJreene has: "God 

 ether confound, or convert such l>ase minded CiMist-uers." In his General Introduc- 

 tion to Greene's plays (pg. 10. n. 1 1 I'rofessrir Churton Collins misquotes (accord- 

 ing to the Grosart text to which ho refers i a strikiuily illogical wording in The 

 Bepentancc, which is : ••in thii' Cittie of Norwitch. wher.' I was Irred and borne." 

 At various places in this introduction Professor Collins must have been quoting 

 from memory. 



