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his townſman, perhaps his relation, and Michael Drayton was likewiſe born in Warwickſhire; the latter was nearly of his own age, and both were in ſome degree of reputation ſoon after the year 1590. If I were to indulge a conjecture, I ſhould name the middle of the year 1591, as the era when our author commenced a writer for the ſtage; at which time he was ſomewhat more than twenty-ſeven years old. The reaſons that induce me to fix on that period are theſe. In Webbe's Diſcourſe of Engliſh Poetry, publiſhed in 1586, we meet with the names of moſt of the celebrated poets of that time; particularly thoſe of George Whetſtone[1] and Antony Munday[2], who were dramatick writers; but we
- ↑ The author of Promos and Caſſandra, a play which furniſhed Shakſpeare with the fable of Meaſure for Meaſure.
- ↑ This poet is mentioned by Meres, in his Wits Treaſury, as an eminent comick writer, and the beſt plotter of his time. He ſeems to have been introduced under the name of Don Antonio Balladino, in a comedy that has been attributed to Ben Jonſon, called The Caſe is Altered, and from the following paſſages in that piece appears to have been city-poet; whoſe buſineſs it was to compoſe an annual panegyrick on the Lord Mayor, and to write verſes for the pageants: an office which has been diſcontinued ſince the death of Elkanah Settle in 1722:
Onion. “ Shall I requeſt your name?
Ant. My name is Antonio Balladino.
Oni. Balladino! You are not pageant poet to the city of Milan, Sir, are you?
Ant. I ſupply the place, Sir, when a worſe cannot be had, Sir.—Did you ſee the laſt pageant I ſet forth?”
Afterwards Antonio, ſpeaking of the plays he had written, ſays,
“ Let me have good ground—no matter for the pen; the plot ſhall carry it.
Oni. Indeed that's right; you are in print, already, for the best plotter.
Ant. Ay; I might as well have been put in for a dumb-ſhew too.”
It is evident, that this poet is here intended to be ridiculed by Ben Jonſon: but he might, notwithſtanding, have been deſervedly
actor. There are ſome verſes of his prefixed to a collection of Drayton’s poems, publiſhed in the year 1613. He was perhaps a kinſman or Shakſpeare’s. In the regiſter of the pariſh of Stratford, Thomas Greene, alias Shakſpere, is ſaid to have been buried March 6, 1689. He might have been the actor’s father.
