Part III

. of Henry VI. If Greene (as many eminent critics have thought) had a hand in _The True Tragedie_, he must here have intended a charge of plagiarism against Shakespeare. But while it seems more probable that (as the late R. Simpson suggested) the upstart crow beautified with the feathers of the three dramatists is a sneering description of the actor who declaimed their verse, the _animus_ of the whole attack (as explained by Dr Ingleby) is revealed in its concluding phrases. This "shake-scene," i.e. this _actor_ had ventured to intrude upon the domain of the regular staff of playwrights--their monopoly was in danger!

Two other prose pamphlets of an autobiographical nature were issued posthumously. Of these, _The Repentance of Robert Greene, Master of Arts_ (1592), must originally have been written by him on his death-bed, under the influence, as he says, of Father Parsons's _Booke of Resolution_ (_The Christian Directorie, appertayning to Resolution_, 1582, republished in an enlarged form, which became very popular, in 1585); but it bears traces of having been improved from the original; while _Greene's Vision_ was certainly not, as the title-page avers, written during his last illness.

Altogether not less than thirty-five prose-tracts are ascribed to Greene's prolific pen. Nearly all of them are interspersed with verses; in their themes they range from the "misticall" wonders of the heavens to the familiar but "pernitious sleights" of the sharpers of London. But the most widely attractive of his prose publications were his "love-pamphlets," which brought upon him the outcry of Puritan censors. The earliest of his novels, as they may be called, _Mamillia_, was licensed in 1583. This interesting story may be said to have accompanied Greene through life; for even