Shakespeare's Lost Years in London by Arthur Acheson (audio ebook reader .txt) 📕

literary evidence upon which Mr. Fleay associates Robert Wilson with Strange's company in 1589-91.[21]

Robert Wilson must have been passe as an actor in 1589, if indeed he was then living, while Strange's company was composed of younger and rising men, all recently selected for their histrionic abilities from several companies, amongst which, it appears evident, the Queen's company was not then included, though it is likely that in 1591 some Queen's men joined Strange's company. That Robert Wilson was not the Roscius referred to by Greene and Nashe in 1589 and 1590 a further examination of the evidence will fully verify.

The person indicated as Roscius by Nashe in his Address to Greene's _Menaphon_ in 1589, and in Greene's _Never Too Late_ in 1590, was the leading actor of a new company that was then gaining great reputation, which, however, was largely due--according to Nashe--to the pre-eminent excellence of this Roscius' acting. The pride and conceit of this actor had risen to such a pitch, Nashe informs us in his _Anatomy of Absurdity_ (1589), that he had the "temerity to encounter with those on whose shoulders all arts do lean." This last is a plain reference to George Peele, whom he had recently described in his _Menaphon_ "Address" as "The Atlas of Poetry." In the following year Greene refers to the same encounter in the first part of his _Never Too Late_. Pretending to describe theatrical conditions in Rome, he again attacks the London players and brings in Roscius--_who without doubt was Edward Alleyn_--as contending with Tully, who is Peele. "Among whom," he writes, "in the days of Tully, one Roscius grew to be of such exquisite perfection in his faculty that _he offered to contend with the orators of that time in gesture as they did in eloquence, boasting that he would express a passion in as many sundry actions as Tully could discourse it in a variety of phrases_. Yet so proud he grew by the daily applause of the people that he looked for honour or reverence to be done him in the streets, which conceit when Tully entered into with a piercing insight, he quipped it in this manner:

"It chanced that Roscius and he met at dinner both guests unto Archias, the poet, when the proud comedian dared to make comparison with Tully. Why Roscius art thou proud with AEsop's crow, being prankt with the glory of others' feathers? Of thyself thou canst say nothing and if the cobbler hath taught thee to say _Ave Caesar_ disdain not thy tutor because thou pratest in a King's chamber. What sentence thou utterest on the stage flows from the censure of our wits, and what sentence or conceit the people applaud for excellence, that comes from the secrets of our knowledge. I grant your acting, though it be a kind of mechanical labour, yet well done, 'tis worthy of praise, but you worthless if for so small a toy you wax proud."

Here again Tully is Peele, and Greene is merely describing more fully the alleged encounter between Alleyn and Peele, mentioned by Nashe the year before in _The Anatomy of Absurdity_.

Though it has never been noticed before, in this connection, we possess in Edward Alleyn's own papers preserved at Dulwich College a remarkable confirmation of this emulation, which, however, Greene and Nashe distort to the prejudice of Alleyn, who, as shall be shown, was innocent in the affair. The whole thing arose from admirers of Alleyn's among the theatre-frequenting gentry offering wagers to friends who championed Peele in order to provide after-dinner entertainment for themselves, by putting the poet and the player on their mettle in "expressing a passion"--the one in action and the other in phrases. Alleyn refused the contest "for fear of hurting Peele's credit," but gossip of the proposed wager got abroad and was distorted by the scholars, who affected to be insulted by the idea of one of their ilk contending with a player. Failing to bring about this match, Alleyn's backers, not to be beaten, and in order, willy-nilly, to make a wager on their champion, evidently tried to get Alleyn to display his powers before friends who professed to admire Bentley and Knell[22]--actors of a slightly earlier date, who were now either retired from the stage or dead. The following letter and poem were evidently written in 1589, as Nashe's reference to the "encounter," which is the first notice of it, was published in this year:

"Your answer the other nighte, so well pleased the Gentlemen, as I
was satisfied therewith, though to the hazarde of ye wager; and yet
my meaninge was not to prejudice Peele's credit; neither wolde it,
though it pleased you so to excuse it, but beinge now growen farther
into question, the partie affected to Bentley (scornynge to wynne the
wager by your deniall), hath now given you libertie to make choice of
any one playe, that either Bentley or Knell plaide, and least this
advantage, agree not with your minde, he is contented, both the
plaie, and the time, shall be referred to the gentlemen here present.
I see not, how you canne any waie hurte your credit by this action;
for if you excell them, you will then be famous, if equall them; you
wynne both the wager and credit, if short of them; we must and will
saie Ned Allen still.--Your frend to his power,

W.P.

Deny me not sweete Nedd, the wager's downe,
and twice as muche, commande of me and myne:
And if you wynne I sweare the half is thyne;
and for an overplus, an English Crowne.
Appoint the tyme, and stint it as you pleas,
Your labor's gaine; and that will prove it ease."

(addressed) "To Edward Allen."

This letter to Edward Alleyn from his friend "W.P." is finely written in an English, and the verses in an Italian, hand. The words, "Ned Allen," "sweete Nedd," and "English Crowne" are in gilt letters.[23] The occasion and its instigation must have been of interest to Alleyn for him to have preserved the letter for so many years; his reason for doing so evidently being to enable him to refute Greene's published and widely circulated misconstruction of it. It is evident that both the letter and poem were written while Alleyn was still young, when he already had ardent admirers, and his reputation was growing but not generally admitted, and at about the time that Peele had commenced to write for his company. Alleyn was twenty-four years old in 1589, and already regarded by many as the best actor in London. George Peele, who had written for the Queen's company in the past, at about, or shortly after, this date, began to write for Strange's company. His _Edward I._, which was published in 1593, was undoubtedly written between 1589-91, when Shakespeare was still connected with Strange's men.

The "cobbler" who taught Roscius to say "Ave Caesar" was Christopher Marlowe, whose father was a shoemaker. Marlowe was the principal writer for Burbage at this period, and continued so until his death in 1593. "Ave Caesar" and "a King's chamber" are references to the play of _Edward III._, which I shall demonstrate later was written by Marlowe, though revised by Shakespeare after Marlowe's death. It is the only known play of this period in which the expression "Ave Caesar" occurs.

In many of Greene's romances the central figure has been recognised as a more or less fanciful autobiographical sketch. In his last work, _A Groatsworth of Wit_, in the introduction to which he makes his well-known attack upon Shakespeare, the adventures of Roberto, the protagonist of the story, tally approximately with known circumstances of Greene's life. In the opening of the story, Roberto's marriage, his desertion of his wife, his attachment to another woman who deserts him when he falls into poverty, all coincide with the facts in his own career. From this we may infer that what follows has also a substratum of truth regarding a temporary connection of Greene with Alleyn's company as playwright, though it is evident that he describes Alleyn's theatrical conditions as they were between 1589 and 1592 and after Alleyn had acquired the theatrical properties of the old Admiral's company from Richard Jones, Robert Browne, and his brother, John Alleyn, in 1589. Greene's account of Roscius' own attempts at dramatic composition need not be taken very seriously, though it is not at all improbable that Alleyn, who was very ambitious, at some time tentatively essayed dramatic composition or revision. It was certainly a very inexperienced playwright, yet one who had some idea of the style of phrase that caught the ear of the masses, who interpolated the tame and prosy lines of the old _Taming of a Shrew_ so freely with selections from Marlowe's most inflated grandiloquence, and one, also, who had access to Marlowe's manuscripts. The plays from which these selections were taken were all Burbage properties in 1588-89, as was also _The Taming of a Shrew_. It was this kind of dramatic stage-carpenter work that left an opening for Nashe's strictures in 1589 in his _Menaphon_ "Address." Several of the later covert references to Alleyn as Roscius, by Greene and Nashe, indicate that he had tried his hand upon the composition and revision of dramatic work, in which he had the assistance of a "theological poet." While they undoubtedly refer to Shakespeare as one of the "idiot art-masters" they use the plural and include others in authority in Burbage's company.

Greene, representing himself as Roberto after his mistress had deserted him, describes himself as sitting under a hedge as an outcast and bemoaning his fate.

"On the other side of the hedge sat one that heard his sorrow, who,
getting over, came ... and saluted Roberto.... 'If you vouchsafe such
simple comfort as my ability will yield, assure yourself that I will
endeavour to do the best that ... may procure your profit ... the
rather, for that I suppose you are a scholar; and pity it is men of
learning should live in lack.' Roberto ... uttered his present grief,
beseeching his advice how he might be employed. 'Why, easily,' quoth
he, 'and greatly to your benefit; for men of my profession get by
scholars their whole living.' 'What is your profession?' said
Roberto. 'Truly, sir,' said he, 'I am a player.' 'A player!' quoth
Roberto; 'I took you rather for a gentleman of great living; for if
by outward habit men should be censured, I tell you you would be
taken for a substantial man.' 'So am I, where I dwell,' quoth the
player, 'reputed able at my proper cost to build a windmill. What
though the world once went hard with me, when I was fain to carry my
fardel a foot-back? _Tempora mutantur_--I know you know the meaning
of it better than I, but I thus