History of English Humour Volume I Part 12

_Slip._ A good word, thou hast won me; this word is like a warm caudle to a cold stomach.

_Sir B._ Sirrah, wilt thou for money and reward Convey me certain letters, out of hand, From out thy master's pocket?

_Slip._ Will I, Sir? Why were it to rob my father, hang my mother, or any such like trifles, I am at your commandment, Sir. What will you give me, Sir?

_Sir B._ A hundred pounds.

_Slip._ I am your man; give me earnest. I am dead at a pocket, Sir; why I am a lifter, master, by occupation.

_Sir B._ A lifter! what is that?

Slip. Why, Sir, I can lift a pot as well as any man, and pick a purse as soon as any thief in the country.

These humorous characters remind us a little of the slaves and parasites in Roman comedy, of whom, no doubt, Greene had read. His amusing fellows are free livers, and fond of wine like himself. In the "Looking-Gla.s.se"

above mentioned, Nineveh represents London, and a fast being proclaimed, we find Adam, a smith's journeyman, trying to evade it.

(_Enter Adam solus, with a bottle of beer in one slop (trouser) and a great piece of beef in the other._)

_Adam._ Well, goodman Jonas, I would you had never come from Jewry to this country; you have made me look like a lean rib of roast beef, or like the picture of Lent, painted upon a red-herring's cob. Alas! masters, we are commanded by the proclamation to fast and pray! By my troth, I could prettily so, so away with praying, but for fasting, why 'tis so contrary to my nature, that I had rather suffer a short hanging than a long fasting. Mark me, the words be these: thou shalt take no manner of food for so many days. I had as lief he should have said, thou shalt hang thyself for so many days. And yet, in faith, I need not find fault with the proclamation, for I have a b.u.t.tery and a pantry and a kitchen about me; for proof, _ecce signum_! This right slop is my pantry, behold a manchet; this place is my kitchen, for lo! a piece of beef. O!

let me repeat that sweet word again!--for lo! a piece of beef. This is my b.u.t.tery, for see, see, my friends, to my great joy a bottle of beer. Thus, alas! I make shift to wear out this fasting; I drive away the time. But there go searchers about to seek if any man breaks the king's command. O, here they be; in with your victuals, Adam.

(_Enter two Searchers._)

_1st Searcher._ How duly the men of Nineveh keep the proclamation!

how they are armed to repentance! We have searched through the whole city, and have not as yet found one that breaks the fast.

_2nd Sear._ The sign of the more grace; but stay, there sits one, methinks at his prayers; let us see who it is.

_1st Sear._ 'Tis Adam, the smith's man. How, now, Adam?

_Adam._ Trouble me not; thou shalt take no manner of food, but fast and pray.

_1st Sear._ How devoutly he sits at his orisons! But stay, methinks I feel a smell of some meat or bread about him.

_2nd Sear._ So thinks me too. You, Sirrah, what victuals have you about you?

_Adam._ Victuals! O horrible blasphemy! Hinder me not of my prayer, nor drive me not into a choler. Victuals? why heardest thou not the sentence, thou shalt take no food, but fast and pray?

_2nd Sear._ Troth, so it should be; but, methinks, I smell meat about thee.

_Adam._ About me, my friends? these words are actions in the case.

About me? no! no! hang those gluttons that cannot fast and pray.

_1st Sear._ Well, for all your words we must search you.

_Adam._ Search me? take heed what you do! my hose are my castles; 'tis burglary if you break ope a slop; no officer must lift up an iron hatch; take heed, my slops are iron.

_2nd Sear._ O, villain! See how he hath gotten victuals--bread, beef and beer, where the king commanded upon pain of death none should eat for so many days, not the sucking infant.

_Adam._ Alas! Sir, this is nothing but a _modic.u.m non nocet ut medicus daret_; why, Sir, a bit to comfort my stomach.

_1st Sear._ Villain! thou shalt be hanged for it.

_Adam._ These are your words, I shall be hanged for it; but first answer me this question, how many days have we to fast still?

_2nd Sear._ Five days.

_Adam._ Five days! a long time; then I must be hanged.

_1st Sear._ Ay, marry must thou.

_Adam._ I am your man, I am for you, Sir, for I had rather be hanged than abide so long a fast. What! five days! Come, I'll untruss. Is your halter, and the gallows, the ladder, and all such furniture in readiness.

_1st Sear._ I warrant thee thou shalt want none of these.

_Adam._ But hear you, must I be hanged?

_1st Sear._ Ay, marry.

_Adam._ And for eating of meat. Then, friends, know ye by these presents, I will eat up all my meat, and drink up all my drink, for it shall never be said, I was hanged with an empty stomach.

It has been supposed that Greene was very indelicate in his language, as well as reckless in his life. But we cannot find in his plays anything very offensive, considering the date at which he wrote, and in the tract called "Greene's Funeralls," we read:--

His gadding Muse, although it ran of love, Yet did he sweetly morralize his song; Ne ever gaue the looser cause to laugh Ne men of judgement for to be offended.

Greene died in "most woefull and rascall estate" at the house of a poor shoemaker near Dowgate. He had previously written his "Groat's-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance;" in which he warns his former companions and "gentlemen who spend their wits in making playes," to take warning by his fate. He could get none of his friends to visit him at the last but Mistress Appleby, and the mother of "his base sonne Infortunatus Greene." He gave the following note for his wife--whom he had not seen for six years--to the shoemaker:

"Doll, I charge thee by the love of our youth, and by my soule's rest, that thow wilte see this man paide; for if hee and his wife had not succoured me, I had died in the streetes.

"ROBERT GREENE."

Gabriel Harvey writes, "My next businesse was to inquire after the famous author who was reported to lye dangerously sicke in a shop neere Dowgate, not of plague, but of a surfett of pickle herringe and rennish wine."

Thomas Nash was one of Greene's jolly companions at this fatal banquet.

After Greene's death Harvey replied to some reflections made upon him by Greene, and called him in accordance with the amenities of the times, "a wilde head, ful of mad braine and a thousand crotchets; a scholler, a discourser, a courtier, a ruffian, a gamester, a lover, a souldier, a trauailer, a merchant, a broker, an artificer, a botcher, a pettifogger, a player, a coosener, a rayler, a beggar, an omnium-gatherum, a gay-nothing, a stoare-house of bald and baggage stuffe, unworth the answering or reading, a triuall and triobular autor for knaves and fooles," &c., &c.

Nash, although he seems to have forsaken Greene in his last distress, became the defender of his character after his death, and answered this vituperation by still coa.r.s.er abuse and invective, saying, "Had hee lived, Gabriel, and thou shouldest vnartifically and odiously libel against him as thou hast done, he would have made thee an example of ignominy to all ages that are to come, and driven thee to eate thy owne booke b.u.t.tered, as I saw him make an Appariter once in a tavern eate his Citation, waxe and all, very handsomely served 'twixt two dishes.'"

From this he proceeds to caricature Gabriel's person. "That word complexion is dropt forth in good time, for to describe to you his complexion and composition entred I with this tale by the way. It is of an adust swarth chollericke dye, like restie bacon, or a dried scate-fish; so leane and so meagre, that you wold thinke (with the Turks) he observed 4 Lents in a yere, or take him for a gentleman's man in the courtier, who was so thin-cheeked, and gaunt, and starv'd, that as he was blowing the fire with his mouth the smoke took him up like a light strawe, and carried him to the top or funnell of the chimney, wher he had flowne out G.o.d knowes whither if there had not been crosse barres overthwart that stayde him; his skin riddled and crumpled like a piece of burnt parchment; and more channels and creases he hath in his face than there be fairie circles on Salsburie Plaine, and wrinckles and frets of old age, than characters on Christ's sepulcher in Mount Calvarie, on which euerie one that comes sc.r.a.pes his name, and sets his marke to shewe that hee hath been there; so that whosoever shall behold him

"Esse putet Boreae triste furentis opus,"

will sweare on a book I have brought him lowe, and shrowdly broken him; which more to confirme, look on his head, and you shall find a gray haire for euery line I have writ against him; and you shall have all his beard white too, by that time he hath read over this booke. For his stature, he is such another pretie Jacke-a-Lent as boyes throw at in the streete, and lookes in his blacke sute of veluet, like one of these jet-droppes which divers weare at their eares instead of a iewell. A smudge peice of a handsome fellow it hath been in his dayes, but now he is olde and past his best, and fit for nothing but to be a n.o.bleman's porter, or a knight of Windsor."

Nash was so full of invective and personal abuse that he scarcely deserved the name of a satirist, and so great was the animosity with which the quarrel between him and Gabriel Harvey was conducted, that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London issued an order in 1599 that all such books "be taken wheresoever they be found, and that none of the said books be ever printed hereafter."

His humour was remarkable, as it largely consisted of coining long and almost unintelligible words. This he laid great store by, and he speaks wrathfully of one who translated his "Piers Penniless," into what he calls "maccaronical language." In his "Lenten Stuffe or Praise of the Red Herring," _i.e._, of Great Yarmouth, he calls those who despised Homer in his life-time "dull-pated pennifathers," and says that "those grey-beard huddle-duddles and crusty c.u.m-tw.a.n.gs were strooke with stinging remorse of their miserable euchonisme and sundgery."