1595. I do not suppose there were any touches by Shakespeare in the "First Part of the Contention "—at least three years old when printed in 1594. But the "True Tragedie was, I think, printed in 1595 with passages at the close which Shakespeare had made inseparable from it, and which were designed by him as preparation for his treatment of the history of Richard III. Upon that sequel of civil war he then went on to shape, himself alone, a fourth and last play for the completion of the series. When the play of "Richard III." was in existence-as it was in 1595—the "True Tragedy" would be acted or read with the passages indicating the dramatic motive of the next and best play of the set. These passages I can ascribe only to Shakespeare, though they do occur in the old play. CHAPTER III. EXEUNT LODGE, PEELE, AND GREENE. Lodge's lynde." DURING his voyage with Captain Clarke to the 'Canary Islands, Thomas Lodge * wrote for his own pastime the tale of "Rosalynde," first published in 1590, upon which Shakespeare founded afterwards his play "Rosaof "As You Like It." Lodge's tale had for its full title, "Rosalynde; Euphues Golden Legacie found after his Death in his Cell at Silexedra. Bequeathed to Philautus Sonnes, noursed up with their father in England." The style follows the fashion of the Euphuists, and draws aid from antithesis, alliteration, similes, and all ingenious subtleties that then were in favour. Even the story is, as its title shows, directly associated with Lyly's book, by being set forth as a bequest of the moralising Euphues to the sons of his friend Philautus. But that fashionable daintiness of speech was not without its grace on the lips of a poet. Lodge was a true poet, though his path was on the lower slopes of Parnassus, and his "Rosalynde" has much natural beauty that is in some sense heightened by the artifices of its style. So the extravagances of Elizabethan dress do, in some sense, make a pleasant part of our impression of the vigorous men and women who did strenuous work the better for not turning their imaginations out of doors. Of Lodge's "Rosalynde" more will be said when we speak of the play * "E. W." ix. 233-238. Shakespeare founded upon it, with two characteristic changes in the action of the story. In the year before "Rosalynde," Lodge had published "Scillaes Metamorphosis: enterlaced with the Unfortunate Love of Glaucus, whereunto is annexed the 'Delectable Discourse of the discontented Satyre, with sundrie other most absolute Poems and Sonnets."" In the year after "Rosalynde" appeared Lodge's "Catharos, Diogenes in his singularities." The Last Voyage of Thomas Cavendish. Lodge had then gone to sea with Thomas Cavendish in his last voyage. Cavendish-the second Englishman who had sailed round the globe--set out from Plymouth on the twenty-sixth of August, 1591, with two barks and three tall ships, one of them his own old ship The Desire, now commanded by John Davis, the explorer of the Arctic seas. They were bound for the South Seas, the Philippines, and the coast of China. After many sufferings, parted from Davis, Cavendish died at sea on the voyage home of his ship, The Leicester. Davis, having spent time in endeavours to find Cavendish, reached the coast of Ireland, at Bearhaven, on the eleventh of June, 1593, with only fifteen survivors of the seventy-six who sailed from England with him, and they so weak that they could not heave or take in a sail. Other Writings of Lodge. Lodge's friend, Robert Greene, published for him, in 1592, “Euphues Shadow; the Battle of the Senses." Lodge himself, after his return, published, in 1593, "Phillis, honoured with Pastoral sonnets, elegies, and amorous delights," and in the same year, "The Life and death of William Longbeard, the most famous and witty English traitor, born in the City of London. Accompanied with many other the most pleasant and prettie Histories." He had already produced a "Life of Robert, Duke of Normandy, surnamed Robin the Devil." His two plays-one wholly his own, the other written in collaboration with Robert Greene-will presently be described. Produced earlier, they were first printed in 1594, two years after the death of Greene. In 1595, with its "Letter to the Reader" dated on the sixth of May that year, followed Lodge's popular book, "A Fig for Momus; Containing Pleasant Varietie in Satyres, Eclogues, and Epistles. By for Momus." T. L. of Lincolnes Inn, Gent." It had an "A Fig Italian motto signifying that whatever the sheep does, the wolf eats him. Sheep stood here for writer, wolf for critic. The book was dedicated to William Stanley, Earl of Derby, who had succeeded to the earldom only a year before, by the death of his brother Ferdinando, formerly Lord Strange. Thomas Lodge dedicates to the new earl as "the true Mæcenas of the Muses." He tells his gentlemen readers that by his title, "A Fig for Momus,” he means not contempt of the learned, nor disdain of the well-minded, "but in despight of the detractor, who hauing no learning to judge, wanteth no liberty to reproue." Lodge's first satire in "A Fig for Momus" is on the world's dissembling with the world This satire was addressed "To Master E. DIG."-Everard Digby. There were in Elizabeth's reign two persons of that name, little related to each other. One Everard Digby, born about 1550, a Cambridge Everard divine, who became Senior Fellow of St. John's in 1585, was deprived of his fellowship by the Master of the College in 1587 for various irregularities and for taking "a popish position" by preaching voluntary poverty at Saint Mary's. This Everard Digby published in 1579, dedicated to Sir Christopher Hatton, a "Theoria Analytica," in which he sought to classify the sciences, and he continued his philosophical speculation. upon science in the next year, 1580, with two books, “De Duplici Methodo," against the teaching of Pierre Ramée.* Digby wrote also two books in Latin on the Art of Swimming, which were published in 1587, and of which a translation by Christopher Middleton appeared in 1595. In 1589 Digby published, with dedication to Sir Christopher Hatton, "Everard Digbie his Dissuasiue from taking away the Lyvings & Goods of the Church," to which was annexed a translation into English-of "Celsus of Verona his Dissuasive." But the "Master E. Dig." to whom Lodge inscribed a satire in his "Fig for Momus" could hardly have been this divine-who was, I believe, not living in 1595-but the young Everard Digby, tall and vigorous, who was of the same Rutlandshire family, and in 1595 was seventeen years old, with some small office at Court. In 1596 young Digby, at the age of eighteen, married an heiress. Two or three years later he became a close friend of John Gerard, the Jesuit. He was among the crowd of the be-knighted at the accession of James I., and on the thirtieth of January, 1606, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot. At some time in his life Lodge became Roman Catholic. In those unquiet days of feud about religion many crossed from one camp to the other, who in Replied to at once, with a defence of Ramus, by William Temple of King's College, to which Digby published a rejoinder in 1581. |