Produced “A Doleful Ditty, or Sorrowful Sonet, of the Lord Darly” (1567); “Kinde Harts Dreame” (1593); “Piers Plainnes, Seven Yeres Prentiship” (1595); “The Pope’s Pittiful Lamentation for the Death of his Deere Darling, Don Joan of Austria: and Death’s Answer to the Same;” “England’s Mourning Garment, worn here by Plain Shepherds in Memory of Elizabeth” (1603); and “The Tragedy of Hoffman: or, a revenge for a Father” (1631). He is said to have been concerned, with others, in the production of over two hundred dramatic pieces.
| This is the Jew, alyed uery near | |
| Vnto the broker, for they both do beare | |
| Vndoubted testimonies of their kinne; | |
| A brace of rascals in a league of sinne: | |
| Two filthy curres, that will on no man fawne, | |
| Before they taste the sweetnesse of the pawne. | |
| And then the slaues will be as kind forsooth, | |
| Not as Kind-heart, in drawing out a tooth; | |
| For he doth ease the patient of his paine, | |
| Bnt they disease the borrower of his gaine. |
In comes Chettle sweating and blowing, by reason of his fatnes; to welcome whom, because hee was of olde acquaintance, all rose vp, and fell presentlie on their knees, to drinck a health to all the louers of Hellicon.
Was very much superior to Munday. He seems to have been originally a printer or stationer (he subscribes himself “stationer” in a note of acknowledgment to Henslowe in 1598), and probably took to writing plays about the same time as Marlowe…. Chettle, like so many other of the Elizabethan poets, no matter how inflated he is in expressing vehement passions of rage, hatred, and revenge, displays considerable felicity in the expression of the tender feelings.
| … Chettle, in whose fresh funereal verse | |
| Weeps Marian yet on Robin’s wildwood hearse. |
