hearts of many yoong Gentlemen and others with his poysonfull platforms of loue, and diuellish discourses of fancies fittes: so that their mindes were no lesse possessed with the toyes of his irreligious braine, then their chambers and studies were pestered with his lewde and wanton bookes. And if the rest of his crew may be permitted so easily as hee did without controlment to instill their venimous inuentions into the minds of our English youth by meanes of printing, what other thing can wee looke for, but that the whole land should speedily be ouerflowen with the deadly waters of all impieties, when as the floodgates of Atheism are thus set wide open." Now all that you will allow is exceedingly curious, supposing we cannot, with the utmost precision, ascertain that it was applicable to Robt. Greene, though I confess myself, from all that is said, I have no doubt that he is meant. The greater part of it is unquestionably a gross libel, and I bring it forward to show the manner in which the puritans, for their own purposes, slandered those obnoxious to them.

ELLIOT. All that you have read is very interest

ing; but I have not seen any thing that relates to Lodge, and his defence of theatrical performances. BOURNE. It follows almost immediately, commencing with a general allusion to satirists, and the authors of apologues, who under the figures of beasts, &c. struck at the great.

MORTON. In his "Lenten Stuffe," 1599, Nash has a very apposite passage, which seems to have re

ference almost to this

very accusation.

"Talk I of a bear (says he) Oh: it is such a man emblazons him in his arms; or of a wolf, a fox; or a camelion, any lording whom they do not affect, it is meaned by."

ELLIOT. Very true; but let us hear T. B. regarding Lodge, from whose tract on usury we have already made a very long digression,

BOURNE. The epistle is now almost terminated. T. B. continues in these words: "Are they not already growen to this boldnes, that they dare to gird at the greatest personages of all estates, and callings, vnder the fables of sauage beasts, not sparing the very dead that lie in their graues? that the holy Apostles, the blessed virgin Mary, the glorious kingdome of heauen it selfe must be brought in as it were vpon a stage to play their seuerall parts, according as the humor of euery irreligious head shal dispose of them? And wheras godly learned men, and some that haue spoken of their owne experience, haue in their bookes that are allowed by authority, termed Stage-playes and Theaters, The schoole of abuse, the schoole of bawdery, the nest of the deuil and sinke of all sinne, the chaire of pestilence, the pompe of the deuil, the soueraigne place of Satan, yet this commendation of them hath lately passed the Presse, that they are rare exercises of vertue. It were too long to set downe the Catalogue of those lewde and lasciuious bookes, which haue mustered theselues of late yeeres in Pauls Churchyard, as chosen souldiers ready to

fight vnder the deuils banner: of which it may be truely said, that they preuaile no lesse (if not more) to the vpholding of Atheisme in this light of the Gospel, then the Legend of lies, Huon of Burdeaux, King Arthur, with the rest of that rabble, were of force to mainteine Popery in the dayes of ignorance." He concludes, therefore, with a request to those in authority, that all such books may be collected in the centre of St. Paul's Churchyard and publicly burnt, as a sweete smelling sacrifice vnto the Lord."

MORTON. The "commendation of them" (stageplays) that "hath lately passed the press," you suppose to be Lodge's " Play of Plays."

BOURNE. I do not know any other tract of that date to which it can very well apply; the reference in what I just read to Gosson, Lodge's antagonist, is even more distinct. We may now return to the "Alarum against Usurers," and I much fear that the best part of it would fall under the burning sentence of T. B.: the main subject of it is love, and the puritan would, no doubt, have included it among those "lewd and lascivious books" tending to the support of atheism, although religion is neither directly nor indirectly touched upon in it.

ELLIOT. How do you mean that the main subject of it is love? what connexion have love and usury, unless that love and its consequences often bring men to want, and so compel them to resort to all kinds of expedients for raising the wind.

BOURNE. Not exactly so: I have already told you, that the first forty pages are employed upon usury; the next thirty-two pages are occupied by a novel, mentioned on the title-page, called "the delectable Historie of Forbonius and Prisceria," consisting of prose, interspersed with a good deal of poetry: the last seven pages are filled with "Trvths complaint ouer England," a poem in twenty-nine seven-line stanzas. The first of these two is a novel or history, in much the same style as Greene's or Rich's productions of a similar kind.

ELLIOT. AS Shakespeare made use of " Rosalind" by the same author, do you find any traces of his having seen Lodge's "Forbonius and Prisceria?"

BOURNE. I do not; yet, when first I began to read it, I fancied that it was another of the several early versions of Romeo and Juliet, under different names: Forbonius and Prisceria are the offspring of families that were at enmity with each other. The scene, however, lies principally at Memphis, and the other incidents, not indeed very complicated, have no relation whatever to the misfortunes of the lovers of Verona.

MORTON. This novel you call the best part of the small volume: in what does its goodness principally consist?

BOURNE. Not so much in the interest of the story as in the general grace with which it is told, and the beauty of some of the poetry inserted in its progress. Forbonius, "highly accounted of for his vnreprouable

prowesse, and among the best sort allowed of for his vnspekable vertues," falls in love with Prisceria, the beautiful daughter of Solduvius, viceroy of a province adjoining Memphis: the father discovers their mutual attachment, and removes Prisceria to his country residence. The lover follows her, and continues his wooing as a shepherd: in this character he sings to her a long eclogue, filling more than six pages, but which contains some of the best specimens of Lodge's talent for amorous poetry that I have seen. It opens with the subsequent flowing lines:

"Amidst these Mountaines on a time did dwell
A louely shepheard, who did beare the bell
For sweete reports and many louing layes:
Whom, while he fed his flocke in desart wayes,
A netheards daughter deckt with louely white
Behelde and loude; the lasse Corinna hight.
Him sought she oft with many a sweete regard,
With sundrie tokens she her sutes preferd;
Her care to keepe his feeding flocke from stray,
Whilst carelesse he amidst the lawnes did play.
Her sweete regards she spent vpon his face,
Her Countrie cates she sent to gaine his grace,
Her garlands gaie to decke his temples faire,
Her doubled sighs bestowd on gliding aire;”

but notwithstanding these advances on the part of the young lady, Corulus, for so he is called, treated her with disdain, and whenever she drew near he drove his flock in a different direction.