The Love of King David and Fair Bethseba is commonly regarded as Peele’s masterpiece.  And here, again, we breathe the genuine air of nature and simplicity.  The piece is all in blank-verse, which, though wanting in variety, is replete with melody; and it has passages of tenderness and pathos such as to invest it with an almost sacred charm.  There is perhaps a somewhat too literal adherence to the Scripture narrative, and very little art used in the ordering and disposing of the materials, for Peele was neither strong nor happy in the gift of invention; but the characters generally are seized in their most peculiar traits, and presented with a good degree of vigour and discrimination; while at the same time their more prominent features are not worked into disproportion with the other parts.

Peele’s contributions to the Drama were mainly in the single article of poetry:  here his example was so marked, that it was bound to be respected and emulated by all who undertook to work in the same field.  In the development of character, and in the high art of dramatic composition and organization, he added very little; his genius being far unequal to this high task, and his judgment still more so.  And his efforts were probably rendered fitful and unsteady by vicious habits; which may explain why it was that he who could do so well sometimes did so meanly.  Often, no doubt, when reduced to extreme shifts, he patched up his matter loosely and trundled it off in haste, to replenish his wasted means, and start him on a fresh course of riot and debauchery.

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GREENE, inferior to Peele as a whole, surpassed him however in fertility and aptness of invention, in quickness and luxuriousness of fancy, and in the right seizing and placing of character, especially for comic effect.  In his day he was vastly notorious both as a writer and a man;—­a cheap counterfeit of fame which he achieved with remarkable ease, and seems not to have coveted any thing better.  He took his first degree at Cambridge in 1578, proceeded Master of Arts in 1583, and was incorporated at Oxford in 1588; after which he was rather fond of styling himself “Master of Arts in both Universities.”  Soon after 1585, if not before, he betook himself to London, where he speedily sank into the worst type of a literary adventurer.  Thenceforth his life seems to have been one continual spasm, plunging hither and thither in transports of wild profligacy and repentance.  He died in 1592, eaten up with diseases purchased by sin.

Much of Greene’s notoriety during his lifetime grew from his prose writings, which, in the form of tracts, were rapidly thrown off, and were well adapted both in matter and style to catch a loud but transient popularity.  One of them had the honour of being laid under contribution for The Winter’s Tale.  In these pieces, generally, the most striking features are a constant affecting of the euphuistic