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The Dramatic Works of Robert Greene,; To Which Are Added His Poems
The Dramatic Works of Robert Greene To Which Are Added His Poems Author:Robert Greene General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1831 Original Publisher: William Pickering. Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you ... more »can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: 215 The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon on which Greene founded his drama has been already noticed in the Prefatory Essay to this work, and a specimen of it is now subjoined : " How Fryer Bacon made a Brasen Head to speake, by the which hee would have walled England about with Brasse. Fryer Bacon reading one day of the many conquests of England, bethought himselfe how he might keepe it hereafter from the like conquests, and so make himselfe famous hereafter to all posterities. This (after great study) hee found could be no way so well done as one; which was to make a head of brasse, and if he could make this head to speake (and heare it when it speakes) then might hee be able to wall all England about with brasse. To this purpose hee got one Fryer Bungey to assist him, who was a great scholler and a magician, (but not to bee compared to Fryer Bacon) these two with great study and paines so framed a head of brasse, that in the inward parts thereof there was all things like as in a naturall mans head: this being done, they were as farre from perfection of the worke as they were before, for they knew not how to give those parts that they had made motion, without which it was impossible that it should speake : many bookes they read, but yet could not finde out anyhope of what they sought, that at the last they concluded to raise a spirit, and to know of him that which they could not attaine to by their owne studies. To do this they prepared all things ready and went one evening to a wood thereby, and after many ceremonies used, they spake the words of coniuration, w...« less