There are but two existing dramatic productions on the title-pages of which the name of Lodge is found:[97] the one he wrote alone, and the other in partnership with Robert Greene:-- (1.) The Wounds of Civill War. Lively set forth in the true Tragedies of Marius and Scilla, &c. Written by Thomas Lodge, Gent. 1594, 4to. (2.) A Looking Glasse for London and Englande. Made by Thomas Lodge, Gentleman, and Robert Greene, _in Artibus Magister_. 1594, 1598, 1602, 1617, all in 4to.[98] The most remarkable [of his works], and that which has been most often reprinted, is his "Rosalynde" which, as is well known, Shakespeare closely followed in "As You Like It."[99] Anterior to the date of any of his other pieces must have been Lodge's defence of stage-plays, because Stephen Gosson replied to it about 1582. It was long thought, on the authority of Prynne, that Lodge's tract was called "The Play of Plays," but Mr Malone ascertained that to be a different production. The only copy of Lodge's pamphlet seen by Mr Malone was without a title, and it was probably the same that was sold among the books of Topham Beauclerc in 1781. It is spoken of in "The French Academy" [1589] as having "lately passed the press;" but Lodge himself, in his "Alarum against Usurers," very clearly accounts for its extreme rarity: he says, "by reason of the slenderness of the subject (because it was in defence of plaies and play-makers) the godly and reverent that had to deal in the cause, misliking it, forbad the publishing;" and he charges Gosson with "comming by a private unperfect coppye," on which he framed his answer, entitled, "Plays confuted in Five Actions." Mr Malone ("Shakespeare," by Boswell, ii. 250) contends that Spenser alludes to Lodge, in his "Tears of the Muses," under the name of Alcon, in the following lines:-- "And there is pleasing Alcon, could he raise His tunes from lays to matters of more skill;" and he adds that Spenser calls Lodge Alcon, from one of the characters in "A Looking Glasse for London and Englande;" but this argument would apply just as much to Lodge's coadjutor Greene. Mr Malone further argues that Lodge, roused by this applause (which he repaid in his "Phillis"), produced not long afterwards a "matter of more skill," in "The Wounds of Civil War." THE MOST LAMENTABLE AND TRUE TRAGEDIES OF MARIUS AND SYLLA.[100] _Enter on the Capitol_ SULPITIUS, _Tribune_, CAIUS MARIUS, Q. POMPEY, _Consul_, JUNIUS BRUTUS, LUCRETIUS, CAIUS GRANIUS, LECTORIUS, LUCIUS MERULA, _Jupiter's Priest, and_ CINNA; _whom placed, and their Lictors before them with their rods and axes_, SULPITIUS _beginneth_.