The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume I.Cibber, Theophilus
General
The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume I.
Cibber, Theophilus
Poets, English -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Poets, Irish -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
3. Jew of Malta, a Tragedy played before the King and Queen at
Whitehall, 1633. This play was in much esteem in those days; the Jew's
part being performed by Mr. Edward Alleyn, the greatest player of his
time, and a man of real piety and goodness; he founded and endowed
Dulwich hospital in Surry; he was so great an actor, that Betterton,
the Roscius of the British nation, used to acknowledge that he owed to
him those great attainments of which he was master.
4. Lust's Dominion; or the Lascivious Queen, published by Mr. Kirkman,
8vo. London, 1661. This play was altered by Mrs. Behn, and acted
under, the title of the Moor's Revenge.
5. Massacre of Paris, with the death of the Duke of Guise, a Tragedy,
played by the Right Honourable the Lord Admiral's servants. This play
is divided into acts; it begins with the fatal marriage between the
King of Navarre, and Margurete de Valois, sister to King Charles IX;
the occasion of the massacre, and ends with the death of Henry III of
France.
6. Tamerlain the Great; or the Scythian Shepherd, a Tragedy in two
parts, printed in an old black letter, 8vo. 1593. This is said to be
the worst of his productions.
* * * * *
ROBERT GREEN
Received his education at the university of Cambridge, and was, as
Winstanley says, a great friend to the printers by the many books he
writ. He was a merry droll in those times, and a man so addicted to
pleasure, that as Winstanley observes, he drank much deeper draughts
of sack, than of the Heliconian stream; he was amongst the first of
our poets who writ for bread, and in order the better to support
himself, tho' he lived in an age far from being dissolute, viz. in
that of the renowned Queen Elizabeth; yet he had recourse to the mean
expedient of writing obscenity, and favouring the cause of vice, by
which he no doubt recommended himself to the rakes about town, who, as
they are generally no true judges of wit, to estimate the merit of
a piece, as it happens to suit their appetite, or encourage them in
every irregular indulgence. No man of honour who sees a poet endowed
with a large share of natural understanding, prostituting his pen to
the vilest purpose of debauchery and lewdness, can think of him but
with contempt; and his wit, however brilliant, ought not to screen him
from the just indignation of the sober part of mankind. When wit is
prostituted to vice, 'tis wit no more; that is, it ceases to be true
wit; and I have often thought there should be some public mark of
infamy fixed on those who hurt society by loose writings. But Mr.
Green must be freed from the imputation of hypocrisy, for we find him
practicing the very doctrines he taught. Winstanley relates that he
was married to a very fine and deserving lady, whom he basely forsook,
with a child she had by him, for the company of some harlots, to whom
he applied the wages of iniquity, while his wife starved. After some
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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