Note 3 — THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF ROBERT GREENE

Nash repeatedly bears witness to Greene's popularity. "In a night and a day would he have yarkt up a pamphlet as well as in seven year, and glad was that printer that might be so blest to pay him dear for the very dregs of his wit" (Strange News). Harvey condemns him for "putting forth new, newer, and newest books of the maker" (Four Letters). Greene remained popular long after his death. In Sir Thomas Overbury's "Character" of A Chambermaid, he tells us "She reads Greene's works over and over"; and Anthony Wood informs us that since Greene's time his works "have been mostly sold on ballad-mongers' stalls." In the introduction to Rowland's 'Tis Merrie when Gossips meete (1602), (Hunterian Club Publications, vol. i.) there is a dialogue indicating that Greene's works are still in demand. Ben Jonson in Every Man out of his Humour (1599) alludes to Greene's works, whence one "may steal with more security," referring undoubtedly, as does Rowland, to the great mass of Greene's published work.