_Ida._ Yes, they that virtue deem an honest dower. Madam, by right this world I may compare Unto my work, wherein with heedful care The heavenly workman plants with curious hand, As I with needle draw each thing on land, Even as he list: some men like to the rose Are fashion'd fresh; some in their stalks do close, And, born, do sudden die; some are but weeds, And yet from them a secret good proceeds: I with my needle, if I please, may blot The fairest rose within my cambric plot; God with a beck can change each worldly thing, The poor to rich, the beggar to the king. What, then, hath man wherein he well may boast, Since by a beck he lives, a lour is lost? _Countess._ Peace, Ida, here are strangers near at hand. When Greene surrendered the attractions of sanguinary warfare and the panoplied splendour of conquerors to treat of the pursuit of love in peace he descended from the exclusive ranks of high-born lords and ladies to the company of simple working folk, presenting a farmer's daughter, winsome, loving and virtuous, and worthy to become the wife of an earl. This aspect of the Fressingfield romance must have had a special appeal for those of his audiences who stood outside the pale of wealth and aristocracy. An earlier bid for their applause has been seen in the figure of the blacksmith, Adam, whose sturdy defence of his trade was referred to when we discussed _A Looking-Glass for London and England_. If Greene wrote _George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield_, and there is a strong probability that he did, he carried forward the glorification of the lower classes, in this play, to its furthest point.