to, all are offended; none being blamed, no man is injured. Stop shallow water, still running, it will rage; tread on a worme, and it will turne: then blame not schollers who are vexed with sharpe and bitter lines, if they reproove thy too much liberty of reproofe.

Is

"And thou [Geo. Peele] no lesse deserving than the other two in some things rarer, in nothing inferiour; driven (as myselfe) to extreme shifts, a little have to say to three: and were it not an idolatrous oath, I would swear by sweet St. George, thou art unworthy better hap, sith thou dependest on so meane a stay. Base-minded men, all three of you, if by my misery yee bee not warned: for unto none of you (like me) sought those burs to cleave; those puppets (I mean) that speak from our mouths; those anticks, garnisht in our colours. it not strange that I, to whom they all have been beholding; is it not like that you, to whom they all have been beholding, shall (were ye in that case that I am now) be both of them at once forsaken? Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tyger's heart, wrapt in a player's hyde, supposes he is as wel able to bombast out a blank verse, as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a country.

"But now returne I againe to you three, knowing my misery is to you no newes: and let me heartily

*Shakspeare, says Tyrwhitt. See Malone's Chronological Order of his Plays, and Chalmers' Supplemental Apology for the Believers of the Shakspeare MSS.

intreat you to be warned by my harmes. Delight not (as I have done) in, irreligious oaths, despise drunkeness, flie lust, abhor those epicures, whose loose life hath made religion loathsome to your eares; and when they sooth you with termes of mastership, remember Robert Greene (whom they have often flattered) perishes now for want of comfort. Remember Gentlemen, your lives are like so many light tapers, that are with care delivered to all of you to maintaine: these, with wind-puft wrath . may be extinguished, with drunkennesse put out, with negligence let fall. The fire of my light is now at the last snuffe. My hand is tyred, and I am forc't to leave where I would begin. Desirous that you should live, though himselfe be dying. ROBERT GREENE."

ART. DCCCLXXXVI. Gabriel Harvey's Character of Dr. Perne, Master of Peter-house, Cambridge, and Dean of Ely.*

[FROM PIERCE'S SUPEREROGATION, 1593.]

HARVEY stiles this D. D. the "Apollo Doctour," whose epitaph none can display accordingly, but some sprite of the air or the fire. For his zeal to God and the church, was an air triplicity; and his devotion to his prince and the state, a fiery trigon; and surely he was well advised, that comprised a large history in

*This Dr. Perne, who is reported (in Fox's Acts and Monuments) to have been a mutable man in his religion, and of a facetious nature, yet a great Mecanas of learning, died at Lambeth in Surrey, April 26, 1589. Vid. Fasti Oxon. I. 80.

one epithet, and honoured him with the title of the thrice learned Dean. He was an old soaker indeed, and had more wit in his hoary head, than 600 of flourishing green-heads and lusty-curled pates. No man could bear a heavy injury more lightly, or forbear a learned adversary more cunningly, or laud a wilful friend more drily, or circumvent a dangerous foe more covertly, or lullaby the circumspectest Argus more sweetly, or transform himselfe into all shapes more deftly, or play any part more kindly. He had such a patience as might soften the hardest heart, such a sober mood as might ripen the greenest wit, such a sly dexterity as might quicken the dullest spirit, such a scrupulous manner of proceeding in doubtful cases, as might put a deep consideration into the shallowest fantasy, such a suspicious jealousy as might smell out the secretest complot, and defeat any practice; such an inextricable sophistry, as might teach an Agathocles to hypocrise profoundly, or a Hieron to tyrannize learnedly. Whereas others carried their hearts in their tongues, and their heads in their pens, he liked no such simplicity; but after a smug and fleering guise, carried his tongue in his heart, his pen in his hand, his dagger in his sleeve, his love in his bosom, his spite in his pocket: nothing but the fact discovered his drift; not the beginning, but the end, was the interpreter of his meaning. Some of us, by way of experiment, assayed to feel his pulse, with tickling and glosing as handsomely as we could; but the bottom of his mind was a gulf of the main, and nothing could sound him deeply, but the issue. He could speak by contraries, as quaintly as Socrates; and do by contraries, as shrewd

ly as Tiberius. Lewis, the French King, might have borrowed the Fox's satchel of him: Sir Stephen Gardener's fox or Machiavel's fox, are two young cubs, to compare with him, that would seem any thing rather than a fox, and be a fox rather than any thing else. He that worshipped Solem in Leone, after some few lectures in his astronomy, would have honoured Solem in Vulpe. Legendaries may record wonderments, but even Gargantua himself might have been his pupil, albeit his gown was furred with 2,500 fox-skinnes. He once kept a cub for his pleasure in Peter-House in Cambridge (as some keep birds, some squirrels, &c.) and ministered notable matter to St. Mary's pulpit, with stories of the cub and the Foxe, whose Acts and Monuments are notorious; but had the young one been as cunning an artist for his part, as the old one was for his, I believe all the colleges in both universities, or in the great university of Christendom, could not have patterned the young man with such another batchelor of sophistry, or the old master with such another doctour of hypocrisy. He was gentle without familiarity (for he doubled contempt); swore without rigour, (for he feared odiousness), pleasant without levity, (for he regarded his estimation); grave without solemnity, (for he curried popular favour); not rash, but quick; not hasty, but speedy; not hot, but warm; not eager in shew, but earnest in deed; no barker at any, but a biter of some; round and sound. No politician in England so great a temporiser as he, whom every alteration found a new man, even as new as the new moon. What an ambi-dexterity, or rather omni-dexterity, had the man, that at one and

the same meeting, had a pleasing tongue for a protestant, a flattering eye for a papist, and a familiar nod for a good fellow; and had yawned to be an archbishop or bishop, in the one or other church, in four alterations of kings and queens. I have seen vipers and serpents in sugar work, but to this day, never saw such a standing dish of sugar-work, as that sweet-tongued Doctour; who spake pleasantly, whatsoever he thought, and was otherwhiles a faire prognostication of foul weather. For his smug and canonical countenance, he might have been S. Boniface himself; for his fair and formal speech, S. Benedict or S. Eulaly; for his merry conceits, S. Hilary; for his good husbandry, S. Servatius; for his invincible sufferance, S. Vincent the Martyr; for his recanting, S. Augustine; for his preaching to geese, S. Frauncis, or S. Fox; for his not seeing all things, S. Bernard; for his praying, a S. Pharisee ; for his fasting, a S. Publican; for his chastity, a Sol in Virgine; for his pastoral devotion, a Shepherd's Calendar; for his fame, an Almanac of Saints. But if ever any were patience incorporate, it was he; and if any were hypocrisy incarnate, it was he; unto whom I promised to dedicate an eternal memorial of his immortal virtues, and have payed some little part of my vows: O felix Perni! tua solus ars vivendi.” T. P.

ART. DCCCLXXXVII.

Milton's Cypher, and

Harleian Library.

OLDYS in his MSS. says, "Milton's cypher for secret communication with others used by the