, in
particular scenes, in such staging as the gruesome canopy, and above all
in the incessant bombast. Euphuism also is more pronounced than in his
other plays: Venus recites the prologues to the acts. All the male
characters are drawn on the same pattern, in differing degrees according
to their condition, and the two women, Iphigena and her mother, Fausta,
are without attractive qualities. Marlowe, as we know, rarely expended
any care on his female characters; Greene, however, proved capable in
his later, independent plays, of very different work. Utter disregard of
normal conceptions of time and distance produces occasional confusion in
the reader's mind as to his supposed imaginary whereabouts. From almost
every point of view, then, the play is a poor production. A redeeming
trait is the occasional vigour of the verse. For an illustrative passage
one may turn to the meeting of Alphonsus and Amurack:

_Amurack._ Why, proud Alphonsus, think'st thou Amurack,
Whose mighty force doth terrify the gods,
Can e'er be found to turn his heels and fly
Away for fear from such a boy as thou?
No, no! Although that Mars this mickle while
Hath fortified thy weak and feeble arm,
And Fortune oft hath view'd with friendly face
Thy armies marching victors from the field,
Yet at the presence of high Amurack
Fortune shall change, and Mars, that god of might,
Shall succour me, and leave Alphonsus quite.

_Alphonsus._ Pagan, I say, thou greatly art deceiv'd.
I clap up Fortune in a cage of gold,
To make her turn her wheel as I think best;
And as for Mars, whom you do say will change,
He moping sits behind the kitchen door,
Prest[54] at command of every scullion's mouth,
Who dares not stir, nor once to move a whit,
For fear Alphonsus then should stomach[55] it.

_A Looking-Glass for London and England_ shows less bondage to
_Tamburlaine_, but falls into a worse error by a recurrence to the
deliberate didacticism of the old Moralities. The lessons for London,
drawn from the sins of Nineveh, are formally and piously announced by
the prophets Oseas and Jonas after the exposure of each offence. Devoid
of any proper plot, the play merely brings together various incidents to
exhibit such social evils as usury, legal corruption, filial
ingratitude, friction between master and servant. Intermingled, with
only the slightest connexion, are the widely different storie