12 MR COLLIERS INTRODUCTION.
both ; but this is all they have in common, and Shakespeare may be said to have scarcely adopted a single hint for his descriptions, or a line for his dialogue ;l while in point of passion and sentiment Greene is cold, formal, and artificial: the very opposite of everything in Shakespeare.
It is fair to observe, however, that Greene ceased to write not long after Shakespeare had commenced his career, Greene died in September 1592, and the plausible conjecture seems to be, that by this date Shakespeare had not composed any of his great works, and had probably not written anything original for the stage prior to the year 1588 or 1589. All the known facts regarding the life of Greene may be found in the preliminary matter to the Rev. Mr Dyce's excellent edition of Greene's Poetical Works. He was certainly an author in 1584, and perhaps before that date. It is a point not hitherto touched, that there was, perhaps, an earlier impression of " Pan-dosto" than any yet discovered; but it depends not upon obvious facts or inferences, but upon minute circumstances not worth detailing, and upon a close
1 Some verbal resemblances and trifling obligations have been incidentally pointed out by the commentators in their notes to " The Winter's Tale." One of the principal instances occurs in Act iv. sc. 3, where Florizel says—
"The gods themselves,
Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter
Became a "bull and bellow'd ; the green Neptune
A ram and bleated ; and the fire-rob'd god,
Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
As I seem now. Their transformations
Were never for a piece of beauty rare.
Nor in a way so chaste."
" This (says Malone) is taken almost literally from the novel," when, in fact, the resemblance merely consists in the adoption by Shakespeare of part of the mythological knowledge supplied by Greene. "The Gods above disdame not to love women beneath. Phoebus liked Sibilla ; Jupiter, lo ; and why not I then Fawnia? " The resemblance is anything but literal.