Each of these was without {251}an author's name on the title-page, though each was dedicated to Southampton, in an address dedicatory, signed "William Shakespeare." This is all that the Harrison evidence amounts to, except that Dr. Ingleby says, "It is to me quite incredible that Harrison would have done this unless Shakespeare had written the dedications, or at least had been a party to them." * As to Meres, anybody can see by reading him that he wrote as a _critic_, and not as an historian. ** To subpoena Greene as a witness to Shakespeare's genius, is at least a bold stroke; for, as has been seen, Greene is very emphatic to the effect that William Shakespeare was a mere "Johannes Factotum," or Jack-of-all-trades, who trained in stolen plumage, and the Shakespeareans (Dr. Ingleby alone excepted) have universally exerted themselves to break the force of this testimony by proving Greene a drunkard, jealous, etc. *** Greene {252}was a graduate of Cambridge--a learned man--"one of the fathers," says Lamb, "of the English stage." * Ibid., p. 42. ** "Palladis Tamia, Wit's Commonwealth," 1598. *** That Robert Greene was much more than a drunkard and a pretender, but that, to the contrary, he had many admirers who were not unaware of the effrontery of his debtor, Shakespeare, a search among the old literature of the day would reveal. In a quarto tract, dated 1594, "Greene's Funeralls, by R. B., Gent.," is a copy of verses, the last stanza of which runs: "Greene is the pleasing object of an eye Greene pleased the eye of all that looked upon him; Greene is the ground of every painter's dye, Greene gave the ground to all that wrote upon him: Nay, more; the men that so eclipsed his fame, Purloined his plumes, can they deny that same?" Hallam believes that the last two lines are directed principally at William Shakespeare. ("Literature of Europe," Part II., ch. vi., p. 32, note.) A selection of his poems, edited by Lamb, is printed in Bohn's Standard Library. But by far the most careful account of Greene's career, as connected with "William Shakespeare, is to be found in "The School of Shakespeare," by Richard Simpson, London: Chatto & Windus, 1878, Vol. II., p. 339.