'" {53b}
But this is almost to abandon Mr. Greenwood's case. Will appears to
me to be now perilously near acceptance as Greene's "Shake-scene,"
who was a formidable rival to Greene's three professional
playwrights: and quite as near to Ben's Poet-Ape "that would be
thought our chief," who began by re-making old plays; then won "some
little wealth and credit on the scene," who had his "works" printed
(for Ben expects them to reach posterity), and whom Ben accused of
plagiarism from himself and his contemporaries. But this Shake-
scene, this Poet-Ape, is merely our Will Shakespeare as described by
bitterly jealous and envious rivals. Where are now the "works" of
"Poet-Ape" if they are not the works of Shakespeare which Ben so
nobly applauded later, if they are not in the blank verse of Greene's
Shake-scene? "Shakespeare's plays" we call them.
WHEN was it "necessary" for the "Stratford rustic" to "bumbast out a
blank verse"? Where are the blank verses which he bumbasted out?
For what purposes were they bumbasted? By 1592 "Shake-scene" was
ambitious, and thought his blank verse as good as the best that
Greene's friends, including Marlowe, could write. He had plenty of
time to practise before the date when, as Ben wrote, "he would be
thought our chief." He would not cease to do that in which he
conceived himself to excel; to write for the stage.
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