A PLEASANT Conceyted Comedie of George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield,' bears upon the title-page that it was acted by the servants of the Earl of Sussex. The earliest edition known is that of 1599. In Henslowe's Diary we have an entry of George-aGreene' being played by the Earl of Sussex his men on the 28th of December, 1593. This play was formerly ascribed (amongst others by Winstanley) to John Heywood, the friend of Sir Thomas More. Such an opinion argues the most complete ignorance of the state of our language, and of dramatic poetry especially, at the time when John Heywood wrote. No English critic, we believe, ever thought of assigning the play to Shakspere; but the Germans, finding it reprinted in Dodsley's collection as the work of an unknown author, seize upon it as another production of the great English dramatist, rescued by them from the wallet of Time. Tieck translates it. He remarks-"It is traditionally said that the Pinner of Wakefield' is a play of Shakspere's. I must acknowledge for myself that any tradition would have more weight than the narrowminded criticisms of the English editors, which, proceeding wholly on false premises, naturally take little notice of such productions. If it is by Shakspere it must be an early work." We know not where the tradition is to be found, and indeed the play is now pretty confidently assigned to Robert Greene. It is included in Mr. Dyce's edition of his works, for a reason thus given : "It has been thought right to include in the present collection 'George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield,' 1599, in consequence of the following MS. notes having been found on the title-page of a copy of that piece, which was formerly in the library of Mr. Rhodes: 'Written by. a minister who acted the piners pt in it himself. Teste, W. Shakespeare. 'Ed. Juby* saith it was made by Ro. Greene.' These two memoranda are by different persons, and in handwriting of about the time when the play was printed. The probability of Greene's having been 'a minister' we have noticed before." This evidence is not absolutely decisive as to the authorship of the play, but, conjoined with the internal evidence, we have no doubt that Mr. Dyce exercised a sound discretion in printing it in his collection of Greene's dramatic works. Tieck, having translated the play in his "Alt Englisches Theater, oder Supplemente zum Shakspere,' as one of "those dramas which Shakspere produced in his youth, and which Englishmen, through a misjudging criticism and a tenderness for his fame. (as they thought), have refused to recognise," is of course decided in his opinion as to the merits of this performance. He says, "It seems to me a model of a popular comedy (Volks-comödie-people's comedy); the cheerful joyousness, that never overflows but keeps within the bounds of moderation, and does us good; the merry clown; the agreeable character of the principal person, whose official zeal and heroic courage are so nicely softened down with a few milder features; and the genius which plays through the whole; everything is such that Shakspere himself would have no cause to be ashamed of this, though we cannot show any other piece of his worked out in a similar style." The criticism of Horn is more temperate. George-a-Greene, the hero of the play, "equals, in his invincibility, waggery, and love of jesting, our Siegfried in the 'Niebelungen.' He acknowledges, however, that there is not a trace of humour in the performance, and that there is a great want of dramatic art in the construction. To say nothing of the feebleness of the blank verse, we believe that the entire absence of wit or humour in the comic parts, and the inartificial management of the incidents, decide at once that the play could not belong to Shakspere at any period of his life. There is a rude activity in the working out of the plot, but no real creative power. That any high poetical power was not in the writer does not require, we think, a very laboured proof. One example of this deficiency of the higher quality may suffice. There is an incident in the play founded on the fine old ballad of The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield,' which undoubtedly was in existence before 1593, and, compared with that ballad, the tameness of the dramatic version of it appears to us very striking. We will give a passage from cach: BALLAD OF THE JOLLY PINDER. "In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder, In Wakefield all on a green, In Wakefield all on a green : There is neither knight nor squire, said the pinder, Nor baron that is so bold, Nor baron that is so bold, We be three tall yeomen, and thou art but one. An actor who wrote a play in conjunction with Rowley. |
