In opening the preceding chapter I spoke of that dainty John Lyly, who first set a fashion in letters, and whose daintiness hid much of the strength and cleverness that were in him: I spoke of the wonderful twin development of the Lord Chancellor Bacon--selfish and ignoble as a man, serene and exalted as a philosopher; and I tried to fasten in the reader’s mind the locality of his tomb and home at the old town of St. Alban’s--a short coach-ride away from London, down in “pleasant Hertfordshire:” I spoke of Hobbes (somewhat before his turn) whose free-thinking--of great influence in its day, and the sharply succeeding days--is supplemented by more acute and subtle, if not more far-reaching, free-thinking now. I quoted the Homer of Chapman, under whose long and staggering lines there burned always true Homeric fire. I cited Marlowe, because his youth and power promised so much, and the promise so soon ended in an early and inglorious death. Then came Lodge, Nashe, and Greene, mates of Marlowe, all well-bred, all having an itch for penwork, and some of them for the stage; all making rendezvous--what time they were in London--at some tavern of Bankside, or at the Mermaid, where we caught a quick glimpse of Ben Jonson, and another of the Stratford player. _George Peele._ I might, however, have added to the lesser names that decorated the closing years of the sixteenth century that of George Peele,[107] of Devonshire birth, but, like so many of his fellows, a university man: he came to be a favorite in London; loved taverns and wine as unwisely as Greene; was said to have great tact for the ordering of showy pageants; did win upon Queen Elizabeth by his “Arraignment of Paris” (half masque and half play) represented by the children of the Chapel Royal--and carrying luscious flattery to the ready ears of Eliza, Queen of-- “An ancient seat of Kings, a second Troy, Y’compassed round with a commanding sea; Her people are y-clepéd _Angeli_. This paragon, this only, this is she In whom do meet so many gifts in one In honor of whose name the muses sing.” Yet even such praises did not keep poor Peele from hard fare and a stinging lack of money. “An Old Wives Tale,” which he wrote, has conjurers and dragons in it, with odd twists of language which remind one of the kindred and nonsensical jingle of “Patience” or “Pinafore:”-- “Phillida, Philleridos--pamphilida, florida, flortos; Dub--dub a-dub, bounce! quoth the guns With a sulpherous huff-snuff!” This play is further notable for having supplied much of the motive for the machinery and movement of Milton’s noble poem of _Comus_. It is worth one’s while to compare the two. Of course Peele will suffer--as those who make beginnings always do.