_Orion._ Yet in a jest (since thou rail'st so 'gainst dogs) I'll speak a word or two in their defence. That creature's best that comes most near to men; That dogs of all come nearest, thus I prove. First, they excell us in all outward sense, Which no one of experience will deny; They hear, they smell, they see better than we. To come to speech, they have it questionless, Although we understand them not so well: They bark as good old Saxon as may be, And that in more variety than we, For they have one voice when they are in chase, Another when they wrangle for their meat, Another when we beat them out of doors.... That dogs physicians are, thus I infer; They are ne'er sick but they know their disease And find out means to ease them of their grief. Special good surgeons to cure dangerous wounds: For, stricken with a stake into the flesh This policy they use to get it out; They trail one of their feet upon the ground, And gnaw the flesh about where the wound is, Till it be clean drawn out; and then, because Ulcers and sores kept foul are hardly cur'd, They lick and purify it with their tongue, And well observe Hippocrates' old rule, The only medicine for the foot is rest,-- For if they have the least hurt in their feet They bear them up and look they be not stirr'd. When humours rise, they eat a sovereign herb, Whereby what cloys their stomachs they cast up; And as some writers of experience tell, They were the first invented vomiting. Sham'st thou not, Autumn, unadvisedly To slander such rare creatures as they be? [Footnote 53: In _Damon and Pythias_, see p. 117 above.] [Footnote 54: ready.] [Footnote 55: resent.] [Footnote 56: See Flora's second speech, Act 1, Sc. 1.] [Footnote 57: _James the Fourth._] [Footnote 58: enjoy.] [Footnote 59: dwells.] [Footnote 60: is called.] [Footnote 61: bugbears.] [Footnote 62: Jehovah's.] CHAPTER VI TRAGEDY: LODGE, KYD, MARLOWE, _ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM_. Great as was the advance made by Lyly and Greene in Comedy, the advance made by Kyd and Marlowe in Tragedy was greater. Indeed it may almost be said that they created Tragedy as we know it. We have only to recall the dull speeches of _Gorboduc_, the severe formality of _The Misfortunes of Arthur_, to recognize the change that had to take place before the level of such a tragedy as _Romeo and Juliet_ could be reached. Yet between the two last-mentioned tragedies, if 1591 be accepted as the date of Shakespeare's play, there lies a period of but four years. The nature of the change was foreshadowed by the tragi-comedy, _Damon and Pythias_. In an earlier chapter we dealt with the divergence of that play from the English Senecan school of tragedy. This divergence, accepted as right, set Tragedy on its feet. Great things, however, still remained to be done.