century, and compares Marlowe, Shakespeare, Greene and Jonson, the sons of low life, with Beaumont, Fletcher, Chapman, Middleton and Marston, the sons of gentlemen. By the time the sons of gentlemen were ready to take to playwriting the path had been made ready for them by their predecessors. Society of the times in which Greene lived was not ready to treat either a playwright or an actor as a good citizen. And a son of a nobleman, entering the ranks of the pioneers, would have given his life as a sacrifice just as did Marlowe and Greene. Lodge was the son of a Lord Mayor, Peele's father was a man of some education, and Lyly had influential connections at court; yet the only man of the entire school of "university wits" who escaped a life of misery and a death of want was Lodge, and he in 1596 deserted literature for medicine. We cannot consider Greene's "memory a blot"[2] on a time that is truly represented as well by the tragical as the heroic outlines of his character and history. * * * * * The sources of our knowledge and deduction concerning Greene's life are of four classes--records, autobiographical pamphlets and allusions, contemporary references, legends. To the indubitable records belong the university registers, the stationers' registers, and the title pages to his printed books. From the first we learn that Greene was entered as a sizar at St John's College, Cambridge, 26th November 1575, that he was admitted to the degree of B.A. some time in 1578, that he proceeded to the degree of M.A., after residence at Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1583; from the second we learn that his first book was the first part of _Mamillia_, entered for publication 3rd October 1580, though not published until 1583, and other facts concerning the time of publication of his successive books and plays; from the signature to the _Maiden's Dream_, "R. Greene, _Nordericensis_," and to the address to Lodge's _Euphues Shadow_, "Robert Greene _Norfolciensis_," we learn that Greene was born in Norfolk. Of a lower order of certainty as to their application to Greene, yet still satisfying the closest scrutiny, is the record in the parish register of St Leonard's, Shoreditch, of the burial of Greene's illegitimate child, Fortunatus Greene, 12th August 1593; and the record in the register of St George, Tombland, uncovered and interpreted by Collins, indicating that the dramatist himself was the second child of Robert Greene, a saddler, and Jane his wife, and was baptised the 11th of July 1558.