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The sense of the rottenness of the country whence they were obtaining their intellectual nourishment, haunted with a sort of sickening fascination the imaginative and psychological minds of the late sixteenth century, of the men who had had time to outgrow the first cynical plunge of the rebellious immature intellects of the contemporaries of Greene, Peele, and Marlowe into that dissolved civilization.
The references to the imprisonment of Nash for writing the Isle of Dogs, to the unhappy deaths of Peele, Greene, and Marlowe, and to the high personal character of Drayton are of great interest.
His plays are slovenly and careless in construction, and he puts classical allusions into the mouths of milkmaids and serving boys, with the grotesque pedantry and want of keeping common among the playwrights of the early stage. He has, notwithstanding, in his comedy parts, more natural lightness and grace than either Marlowe or Peele.
Lee concludes his most interesting note by suggesting that the present play may be the one to which Peele alludes; but he will at once perceive from my extracts that the date 1589 is much too early. Here is a passage that might have been written by Cyril Tourneur: The concentrated bitterness of those lines is surpassed by nothing in the Revenger's Tragedy.
Parting company with classical legend in the incident which gives its title to the play, Peele further adds a fifth act, in which he contrives to make the world-famous history subserve the courtly ends of the masque. When the rival claimants have solemnly sworn to abide by the decision of their compeer, Diana begins: The rest may be easily imagined.
In Juno's promise to Paris, Peele shows how the possibilities of the New World affected his imagination: "Xanthus shall run liquid gold for thee to wash thy hands; And if thou like to tend thy flock and not from them to fly, Their fleeces shall be curlèd gold to please their master's eye."
Professor Arber's anthologies are full of rare pieces, and comprise admirable specimens of the verse of Samuel Daniel, Giles Fletcher, Countess of Pembroke, James I., George Peele, Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Sackville, Sir Philip Sidney, Drummond of Hawthornden, Thomas Heywood, George Wither, Sir Henry Wotton, Sir William Davenant, Thomas Randolph, Frances Quarles, James Shirley, and other greater and lesser poets.
The best proof of its vitality is the crowd of writers which suddenly broke into this field; Kyd, Marlow, Greene, Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele, Ford, Massinger, Beaumont, and Fletcher. The secure possession, by the stage, of the public mind, is of the first importance to the poet who works for it. He loses no time in idle experiments.
I love Ned Alleyn, and like to think that Shakespeare got the Arcadia from him. For a moment let us turn from Shakespeare at this crisis in his life. Alleyn has left him and is paying the score. Marlowe remains where he fell. Nash has forgotten where he lodges, and so sets off with Peele to an ale-house in Pye Corner, where George is only too well known. Kempe and Cowley are sent home in baskets.
We'll do it. But Lord love you, we won't hold back the organisation for that. Just leave these things to me. I've got a programme arranged here that will suit you, I think. First thing is to take you around and let you see that document in the recorder's office, I believe you said you wanted to read the Bruce Peele will, then you can come out and have dinner with Sally and me.
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