back like a lute, and his face like Thersites', his eyes broad and
tawny, his hair harsh and curled like a horse-mane, his lips were of the
largest size in folio.... The only good part that he had to grace his
visage was his nose, and that was conqueror-like, as beaked as an
eagle.... Into his great head (Nature) put little wit, that he knew
rather his sheep by the number, for he was never no good arithmetician,
and yet he was a proper scholar, and well seen in ditties."

When we discount the caricature and spiteful animus of this description
it closely matches the presentments of Shakespeare given by the most
authoritative portraits which have come down to us. His parents, as we
know, were undoubtedly poor, otherwise he would not have been in London
as a servitor to Burbage. His eyes are invariably shown as hazel in
colour and widely set apart; his hair heavy, curled, and falling to his
shoulders; his lips very full, his nose large and "beaked," and his
brow, or "great head," of unusual height and breadth. It is apparent,
then, that this is a spiteful and distorted, but recognisable,
description of Shakespeare, who, I infer from many indications in his
opponents' plays, wore his hair in a peculiar manner, was not very tall,
and was also somewhat thin-legged. The Chandos portrait which shows his
shoulders, suggests that they were slightly sloping and somewhat round
rather than square. On the whole, a physical type not calculated to
inspire fear in a bully. Greene, on the other hand, is described by
Chettle as a handsome-faced and well-proportioned man, and we may judge
of a rather swash-buckling deportment.

Robert Greene died in September 1592. Shortly afterwards Henry Chettle
published Greene's _Groatsworth of Wit_, which was his last literary
effort, and appended a farewell letter of Greene's addressed "To those
gentlemen, his quandam acquaintances, that spend their time in making
plays, R.G. wisheth a better exercise and wisdom to prevent his
extremities." In this epistle, addressing Marlowe, Nashe, and Peele, as
well as two others at whose identity we can only guess, he says:

"If wofull experience may move you, gentlemen, to beware, or
unheard-of wretchedness intreat you to take heed, I doubt not but you
will look backe with sorrow on your time past, and endevour with
repentance to spend that which is to come. Wonder not (for with thee
will I first beginne), thou famous gracer of tragedians, that G