e began to give into the chamber, Parismus taking Laurana in his
armes, drawing sweete breath from her lippes, told her that now, to his
greefe, he must leave her to be courted by his enemie."

Without any very great grief on our side we shall leave them to follow
from this point a series of adventures very different from Romeo's.
Parismus becomes a chief of outlaws, and acquires great fame under the
name of the Black Knight; he wages war against Sicanus, he encounters
young Violetta, and their meetings read like a tale from Boccaccio
rather than like a play of Shakespeare; at last he marries Laurana
"with admirable pompe" in the "temple of Diana." We shall leave them in
this holy place, though many more adventures are in store for them. We
shall only state that Ford, encouraged by the great success of this
first attempt, wrote several other novels exactly in the same style,
containing the same improbable monsters and wonders, and the same
licentious adventures. In spite, however, of the condemnation he
suffered at the hands of wise people on account of the undeniable
immorality of several of his episodes, his reputation went on increasing
for years and long survived him.[151]

Another follower of Greene was Nicholas Breton,[152] eighteen years his
senior; but he did not begin novel-writing until after the death of his
model, when this kind of literature had taken a firm hold of the public.
Very little euphuism remains in Breton; we do not find in him those
clusters of similes with which Lyly and Greene were fond of adorning
their novels, and alliteration is there only to remind us that through
Greene, Breton may be considered a secondary legatee of Lyly. The
subjects and the form of his writings, much better than his style, prove
him a pupil of Greene. He imitated his dialogues, publishing in
succession his conference "betwixt a scholler and an angler," his
discussion between "wit and will"; his disputation of a scholar and a
soldier, "the one defending learning, the other martiall discipline,"
and several others on travels, on court and country, &c. He imitated
Greene's tales of low life, anticipating in his turn Defoe's novels,
with his "Miseries of Mavillia;" he remained, however, far below the
level not only of Defoe, but of Greene, whose personal knowledge of the
misfortunes he was describing enabled him to give in his writings of
this kind pictures of reality that contrasted strangely with the
fanciful incidents