Curiously enough, as Mr Churton Collins has pointed out, Greene, except in the two pamphlets written just before his death, never refers to his having written plays; and before 1592 his contemporaries are equally silent as to his labours as a playwright. Only four plays remain to us of which he was indisputably the sole author. The earliest of these seems to have been the _Comicall History of Alphonsus, King of Arragon_, of which Henslowe's _Diary_ contains no trace. But it can hardly have been first acted long after the production of Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_, which had, in all probability, been brought on the stage in 1587. For this play, "comical" only in the negative sense of having a happy ending, was manifestly written in emulation as well as in direct imitation of Marlowe's tragedy. While Greene cannot have thought himself capable of surpassing Marlowe as a tragic poet, he very probably wished to outdo him in "business," and to equal him in the rant which was sure to bring down at least part of the house. _Alphonsus_ is a _history_ proper--a dramatized chronicle or narrative of warlike events. Its fame could never equal that of Marlowe's tragedy; but its composition showed that Greene could seek to rival the most popular drama of the day, without falling very far short of his model. In the _Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ (not known to have been acted before February, 1592, but probably written in 1589) Greene once more attempted to emulate Marlowe; and he succeeded in producing a masterpiece of his own. Marlowe's _Doctor Faustus_, which doubtless suggested the composition of Greene's comedy, reveals the mighty tragic genius of its author; but Greene resolved on an altogether distinct treatment of a cognate theme. Interweaving with the popular tale of Friar Bacon and his wondrous doings a charming idyl (so far as we know, of his own invention), the story of Prince Edward's love for the Fair Maid of Fressingfield, he produced a comedy brimful of amusing action and genial fun. _Friar Bacon_ remains a dramatic picture of English Elizabethan life with which _The Merry Wives_ alone can vie; and not even the ultra-classicism in the similes of its diction can destroy the naturalness which constitutes its perennial charm. _The History of Orlando Furioso, one of the Twelve Peeres of France_ has on unsatisfactory evidence been dated as before 1586, and is known to have been acted on the 21st of February 1592. It is a free dramatic adaptation of Ariosto, Harington's translation of whom appeared in 1591, and who in one passage is textually quoted; and it contains a large variety of characters and a superabundance oi action. Fairly lucid in arrangement and fluent in style, the treatment of the madness oi Orlando lacks tragic power. Very few dramatists from Sophocles to Shakespeare have succeeded in subordinating the grotesque effect of madness to the tragic; and Greene is not to be included in the list.