Greene’s account of the repentance and reformation of a fallen woman, told in a way that discloses the poet’s kindness of heart and fullness of humanitarian spirit, reveals his better self. “He assured his readers, in the words of the woman herself, that her first false step gradually led her on to complete ruin, so heavy-burdened with grief and shame that death seemed to her a benefaction, and the grave the only place for perfect rest.” Not a few there may have been, who, on reading Greene’s account of the reformation and redemption of this unfortunate woman, were started on the path of regeneration, while the dim-eyed critic can see nothing but the blurred reputation of the poet. But who shall estimate Robert Greene’s influence on individual happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and better by a writer who held out a kind and friendly hand, and had a heart as true behind it? His statue would crown Trafalgar’s towering shaft more worthily than the statue of England’s greatest naval hero does; for there is more true honor and merit in the man who wrote purely to bring back from evil courses to a state of moral rectitude, than in a monument for the victory over many enemies. Greene’s non-dramatic works are the largest contribution left by any Elizabethan writer to the novel literature of the day. “He was at once the most versatile and the most laborious of literary men.” Famous, witty, and brilliant, he was one of the founders of English fiction, and is conceded to be the author of half a dozen plays for the theatre. In them we have the mere “flotsam and jetsam” of his prolific pen. What would we not give for all the plays of Robert Greene from whom his contemporaries and successors purloyned plumes! According to Ben Jonson, it was as safe to pillage from Greene in his day, as it is to persecute his reputation in ours. He was a graduate of both universities, was a man of genius, but did not live to do his talents full justice. A born story teller, like Sir Walter Scott, he could do good work easily and quickly.