Note 989 — George Peele THE OLD WIVES' TALE

"To the Gentlemen Students of both Universities," prefixed to Greene's Menaphon, a well-known passage. Little, if anything, can be made of Meres when (Haslewood, II., 153) he couples Peele now with Ariosto, now, as tragical poet, with Apollodorus Tarsensis. He does not name Peele among the writers of comedy. Later, in Have with You to Saffron Walden (Grosart, III. 196), Nashe, with no mention of Peele, concedes to Greene mastery, above all the craft, in "plotting of plaies." This dramatic art of words, by the way, must not be confused with Euphuistic feats. Greene, Nashe, even Harvey, turned with Sidney against mere "playing with words and idle similies," and Peele is anything but a follower of Guevara.