s much more likely that these old members of Leicester's
company, who in Tarleton's time would have been juniors in the company,
would recall and boast of their old connection, than that his late
associates in the Queen's company would do so within a year or two of
his death.]

[Footnote 22: Bentley was a Queen's player in 1584, and probably came
from Sussex's company to the Queen's upon the organisation of that
company in 1583.]

[Footnote 23: This letter and the verses are printed in _Henslowe's
Papers_, p. 32, W.W. Greg, 1907, and in the works of several earlier
editors.]

[Footnote 24: "The two more" here indicated by Greene are, I believe,
Lodge and Matthew Roydon, both of whom are mentioned by Nashe in his
address "To the Gentlemen of the two Universities" prefixed to Greene's
_Menaphon_. I have elsewhere shown that Roydon was a prolific ballad
writer who invariably wrote anonymously, or under pen names, and have
made evident his authorship of _Willobie his Avisa_, as well as its
anti-Shakespearean intention. Roydon also wrote plays as well as
ballads, and was possibly one of the "theological poets" referred to by
Greene in the introduction to his _Farewell to Folly_, who, he
intimates, were averse "for their calling and gravity" to have their
names appear as the authors of ballads or plays, and so secured "some
other batillus to set their names to their verses." Roydon's affected
anonymity is referred to by several other contemporary writers. Robert
Arnim writes of him as "a light that shines not in the world as it is
wished, but yet the worth of his lustre is known." Roydon was a curate
of the Established Church. Shakespeare's lack of respect for Church of
England curates, which is several times exhibited in his plays, was, no
doubt, due in some degree to his dislike of Roydon.]

[Footnote 25: Since the publication of _Mistress Davenant, the Dark Lady
of Shakespeare's Sonnets_, in 1913, I have learned that John Davenant
was married twice. Roydon's _Willobie his Avisa_ refers to his first
wife, who was Anne Birde, daughter of Mayor William Birde of Bristol,
whom he married before July 1592. I have also found that his second wife
was Jane Shepherd of Durham. This matter will be fully elucidated in a
forthcoming publication.]

[Footnote 26: _Shakespeare and the Rival Poet_, 1902.]

[Footnote 27: A probable allusion to his _Lucrece_ dedication.]

[Footnote 28: _Shakespeare and the Rival Poet_, John Lane, Lon