requires an actor of no mean powers; and as Burbadge is known to have
played the Prince, we may presume that "the Majesty of buried Denmark"
would not be cast upon very inferior hands. That the Poet was master
of the theory of acting, and could tell, none better, how the thing
ought to be done, is evident enough from Hamlet's instructions to the
players. But it nowise follows that he could perform his own
instructions.

Let us see now how matters stood some two years later. One of the most
popular and most profligate playwriters of that time was Robert
Greene, who, having been reduced to beggary, and forsaken by his
companions, died miserably at the house of a poor shoemaker, in
September, 1592. Shortly after he died, his _Gratsworth of Wit_ was
given to the public by Henry Chettle. Near the close of this tract,
Greene makes an address "to those gentlemen his _quondam_
acquaintance, who spend their wits in making plays," exhorting them to
desist from such pursuits. One of those "gentlemen" was Christopher
Marlowe, distinguished alike for poetry, profligacy, and profanity;
the others were Thomas Lodge and George Peele. Greene here vents a
deal of fury against the players, alleging that they have all been
beholden to him, yet have now forsaken him; and from thence inferring
that the three worthies whom he is exhorting will fare no better at
their hands. After which he goes on thus: "Yes, trust them not; for
there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with his
'tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide,' supposes he is as well able
to bombast out a blank-verse as the best of you; and, being an
absolute _Johannes Fac-totum_, is in his own conceit the only
Shake-scene in a country."

Here the spiteful fling at Shakespeare is unmistakable, and nobody