Greene's dramas present a steady development in effectiveness of plot involution. The first plays are marked by a large amount of action and a great number of narrative fragments very crudely and inorganically clustered around the central character. _Alphonsus of Arragon_ is Greene's poorest work in this as in every other respect. Its first act is marked by hesitation and indirection; accident, coincidence and inconsistency are the rule throughout. The play is practically divided into two parts, in the first of which Alphonsus is the central figure, while Amurack serves as protagonist in the second. _Orlando Furioso_ is structurally an improvement on its predecessor, and in _A Looking-Glass for London and England_ an excellent unity of action has been attained. It is in _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ that Greene effected the most substantial advance in play technique made before Shakespeare. This is nothing less than the weaving of two distinct plots into the unity of a single dramatic narrative. On account of the crowding of the action and the sensations, the play is unbalanced and unorganised. _Friar Bacon's_ activities are divided into two distinct parts, his victory over Vandermast and his loss of the Brazen Head, and they are scattered through a half-dozen episodes. For perfect balance Prince Edward surrenders Margaret too early in the play and thus makes necessary the introduction of further retarding action based upon an unexplainable whim of Lacy. Yet granting the inchoate character of the play we must admit that in effecting the combination of the story of Friar Bacon with the story of Prince Edward, Lacy and the Fair Maid of Fressingfield, Greene accomplished an unusually significant innovation. In _James IV._ Greene's technique is at its best. Even in the faulty version that comes down to us we see traces of Greene's experimenting temper. In dumb shows he is reinstating a popular feature of older plays. His induction serves as a model for Shakespeare's _Taming of the Shrew_; and one of its characters, Oberon, is a rough draft for the fairy of that name in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, as Bohan is a prototype of Jaques in _As You Like It_. But Greene's induction is better integrated with his play than is Shakespeare's induction of Sly, the Lords and the Servants, for the two characters, Slipper and Nano, who appear first in the induction, are sent out into the play to serve as connecting links for all of its action. _James IV._ is the only one of Greene's plays that has unity of action. The plot is introduced with a masterly directness and economy. The fatal situation breaks on the reader at the beginning, and throughout the play the crux of the action remains the love of the King of Scots for another than his queen. Ateukin springs up at the psychological moment and at the dramatic crisis. The first act of the play, dramatically quite the best first act written outside of Shakespeare up to his time, provides