then conversant with notable braggarts, boon companions, and ordinary spendthrifts, that practised sundry superficial studies, I became as a scion grafted into the same stock, whereby I did absolutely participate of their nature and qualities. At my return into England, I ruffled out in my silks, in the habit of Malcontent, and seemed so discontent that no place would please me to abide in, nor no vocation cause me to stay myself in; but after I had by degrees proceeded master of arts (1583), I left the university, and away to London where -after I had continued some short time, and driven myself out of credit with sundry of my friends - I became an author of plays and a penner of love-pamphlets, so that I soon grew famous in that quality, that who, for that trade, known so ordinary about London as Robin Greene? Young yet in years, though old in wickedness, I began to resolve that there was nothing bad that was profitable; whereupon I grew so rooted in all mischief, that I had as great a delight in wickedness as sundry have in godliness, and as much felicity I took in villainy as others had in honesty.-Robert Greene's Repentance.

GREENE'S FAREWELL TO HIS ASSOCIATES.

But now return I again to you three, knowing my misery is to you no news; and let me heartily entreat you to be warned by my harms. Delight not, as I have done, in irreligious oaths; despise drunkenness, fly lust, abhor those epicures whose loose life hath made religion loathsome to your ears; and when they soothe you with terms of mastership, remember Robert Greene, whom they have often flattered - perishes for want of comfort. Remember, gentlemen, your lives are like so many lighttapers that are with care delivered to all of you to maintain; these, with wind-puffed wrath may be extinguished, with drunkenness put out, with negligence let fall. The fire of my light is now at the last snuff. My hand is tired, and I forced to leave where I would begin; desirous that you should live though himself be dying.

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The last extract is taken from Greene's Groat's Worth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance, which includes also some of his best poetry, written in the same regretful strain. This work also contains more or less wholesome advice to some of his fellowplaywrights and roysterers. To Marlowe he says: "Thou famous grace of tragedians, why should thy excellent wit, His gift, be so blinded that thou shouldst give no glory to the giver?" Lodge is thus admonished: Young Juvenal, that biting satirist that lastly with me together writ a comedy; sweet boy, might I advise thee, be advised, and get not many enemies by bitter words; inveigh against vain menno man better, no man so well." Peele, a dramatist "no less deserving than the other two, who had been driven to extreme shifts," is counselled not to depend on so mean a stay as the stage. Somehow Greene had no friendly feeling toward Shakespeare, who is thus characterized: "There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse with the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Fac-totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." The italicized phrase is taken from Shakespeare's Henry VI., only the word "player's" is substituted for "woman's."

A DEATH-BED LAMENT.

Deceiving world, that with alluring toys

Hast made my life the subject of thy scorn, And scornest now to lend thy fading joys,

To out-length my life, whom friends have left for

lorn;

How well are they that die ere they be born,

And never see thy slights which few men shun,

Till unawares they helpless are undone!

Oh, that a year were granted me to live,
And for that year my former wits restored!
What rules of life, what council I would give.
How should my sin with sorrow be deplored!
But I must die of every man abhorred:

Time loosely spent will not again be won;
My time is loosely spent, and I undone.

A Groat's Worth of Wit.

Several of Greene's best works are short tales in prose, with poetry interspersed. Among these is Pandosto, the Triumph of Time, or the History of Dorastus and Faunia, from which Shakespeare appears to have borrowed the plot of his Winter's Tale. In Pandosto occurs the following graceful sonnet:

THE FAIR ONE.

Ah, were she as pitiful as she is fair,
Or but as mild as she is seeming so,

Then were my hopes greater than my despair;
Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe.

Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand

That seems to melt e'en with the mildest touch, Then knew I where to seat me in a land Under the wide heavens, but not such. So as she shews, she seems the budding rose Yet sweeter far than is in earthly bower: Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows, Compassed she is with thorns and cankered flower, Yet were she willing to be plucked and worn, She would be gathered though she grew on thorn

THE SHEPHERD'S HAPPY LOT.

Ah! what is love! It is a pretty thing,
As sweet unto a shepherd as a king,
And sweeter too:

For kings have cares that wait upon a crown;
And cares can make the sweetest cares to frown:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

His flocks are folded; he comes home at night
As merry as a king in his delight,

And merrier too:

For kings bethink them what the state require,
Where shepherds, careless, carol by the fire:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

Upon his couch of straw he sleeps as sound
As doth the king upon his beds of down,
And sounder too:

For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to spill,
Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill,
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

Thus with his wife he spends the year as blithe
As doth the king at every tide or syth,

And blither too:

For kings have wars and broils to take in hand;
When shepherds laugh, and love upon the land:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

A MIND CONTENT.

Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content;
The quiet mind is richer than a crown.
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent;
The poor estate scorns Fortune's angry frown.
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss,

Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss,

The homely house that harbors quiet rest, The cottage that affords no pride nor care,

The mean, that 'grees with country music best, The sweet consort of mirth's and music's fare Obscured life sets down a type of bliss:

A mind content both crown and kingdom is.

REENE, SARAH PRATT MCLEAN, an American novelist and poet; born at Simsbury, Conn., July 6, 1856. She was educated at South Hadley Seminary, and for several years taught school at Plymouth, Mass. In 1887 she was married to F. L. Greene. Her published works include Cape Cod Folks (1881); Towhead, the Story of a Girl ́(1884); Lastchance Junction (1889); Leon Pontifex (1897); The Moral Imbeciles (1898); Vesty of the Basins (1900); Flood-Tide (1902), and Deacon Lysander (1904). Her novels deal largely with rural life and character in New England.

DE SHEEPFOL'.

De massa ob de sheepfol',

Dat guards de sheepfol' bin,

Look out in der gloomerin' meadows,
Wha'r de long night rain begin ·

So he call to de hirelin' shepa'd,

Is my sheep, is dey all come in?"

Oh den, says de hirelin' shepa'd:
"Dey's some, dey's black and thin,
And some, dey's po' ol' wedda's;
But de res' dey's all brung in.
But de res' dey's all brung in."