g with bad company, he
grew _a malo in pegus_, falling from one vice to another.... But
Roberto, now famoused for an arch-playmaking poet, his purse, like
the sea, sometime swelled, anon, like the same sea, fell to a low
ebb; yet seldom he wanted, his labours were so well esteemed. Marry
this rule he kept, whatever he fingered beforehand, was the certain
means to unbind a bargain; and being asked why he so slightly dealt
with them that did him good, 'It becomes me,' saith he, 'to be
contrary to the world. For commonly when vulgar men receive earnest,
they do perform. When I am paid anything aforehand, I break my
promise.'"

The player described here is the same person indicated by Nashe three
years before in his _Menaphon_ "Address." Both are represented as being
famous for their performance of _Delphrygus_ and _The King of the
Fairies_, but the events narrated connecting Greene with Alleyn, and the
opulent condition of the latter, refer to a more recent stage of
Greene's and Alleyn's affairs than Nashe's reference. Both Nashe's and
Greene's descriptions point to a company of players that between 1589-91
had won a leading place in London theatrical affairs; that performed at
the Theatre; that played _Hamlet_, _The Taming of a Shrew_, _Edward
III._, and _Fair Em_: the leader of which personally owned theatrical
properties valued at two hundred pounds, and who was regarded by them as
an actor of unusual ability. Seven years before 1592 this company
performed mostly in the provinces, carrying their "fardels on their
backs." It is very apparent then that it is Alleyn's old and new
companies, the Worcester-Admiral-Strange development, to which the
allusions refer.

While the "idiot art-masters" indicated by Nashe and Greene as those who
chose, purchased, and reconstructed the plays used by Strange's company,
included others beside Shakespeare in their satirical intention, this
phase of their attacks upon the Theatre and its leading figures became
centred upon Shakespeare as his importance in the conduct of its
business increased, and his dramatic ability developed.

It is now generally agreed by critics that Shakespeare cannot have left
Stratford for London before 1585, and probably not before 1586-87, and
the likelihood has been shown that he then entered the service of James
Burbage as a hired servant, or servitor, for a term of years. When
Henslowe, in 1598, bound Richard Alleyn as a hired