But aside from any such considerations as these, there are certain general principles having to do with the customs of literary composition of the time, and particularly of the group in which Greene moved, that make it quite improbable that Greene should have waited until 1590 before beginning to write plays. Nothing is clearer than that the movements of these pre-Shakespearean groups were not movements of the individual but of the mass. There is in the work of this era the utmost possible play and interplay of influence. Marlowe was the only strikingly originative writer of the times, yet the facets of his contact with the literary life of England and the Continent have by no means as yet been numbered. Any new style of composition immediately assumed the dignity of a school. Lyly's style became so popular that Euphuism became a convention. So the appearance of the _Arcadia_, of _Tamburlaine_, of a romance by Greene, was followed by a flood of imitative works. Greene's _Tully's Love_ is used in _Every Woman in Her Humour_, a comedy of humours after the model of Jonson; the author of _Sir John Oldcastle_ borrows from _The Pinner of Wakefield_ the swallowing of the seals; Harvey accuses Nash of being "the ape of Greene," and Greene of being the "ape of Euphues"; _Tamburlaine_ is imitated again and again, sometimes in whole, as in _Alphonsus of Arragon, Selimus,_ and _The Battle of Alcazar_, but more often through the unconscious influence of its affected language and dramatic types. As much can be said of the imitation of Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_. Traces of the same source-book appear in Greene's _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ and Marlowe's _Dr Faustus_, and identical lines appear in Greene's _Orlando Furioso_ and Peele's _Old Wives' Tale_. The same comedy appears in _A Looking-Glass for London and England_, _Locrine_ and _Selimus_, and _The Taming of a Shrew_ contains lines from _Tamburlaine_ and _Dr Faustus_. Shakespeare borrows from Greene, Oberon for _A Midsummer Night's Dream_; features of the story of Euphues, his Censure to _Philautus_ for _Troilus and Cressida_; features of _Farewell to Folly_ for _Much Ado About Nothing_; characters from the _Mourning Garment_ for Polonius and Laertes, and innumerable reminiscent lines. Sometimes the influence is more complicate still. Greene in _Pandosto_ borrows from Lyly's _Campaspe_, and Shakespeare, borrowing from Greene for his _Winter's Tale_, approximates Lyly's form; and Greene, ridiculing Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_, makes some allusions that indicate that he as well as Marlowe must have been acquainted with Primaudaye. Cases of this kind are so frequent that they seem to have no individual bearing, but to refer to the general conditions of art composition of the day. In such a system of community of ideas Greene was entirely at home. Of this we have abundant evidence in his often displayed ability to feel the popular pulse, and to make himself a part of every growing movement. His first works were written under the influence of the Italian school. In these early works there is a strong strain of Euphuism, which is made explicit in his _Euphues, his Censure to Philautus_ (1587). Two years later a new style had arisen through the composition of Sidney's _Arcadia_ (published in 1590), and Greene aligns himself with the new pastoral movement in his _Menaphon_. Not content with the tacit desertion of the conceits of Lyly he gives his new work the sub-title _Camilla's Alarum to Slumbering Euphues_, and attacks his old models for artificiality. So also Greene is quick to utilise contemporary events to add to the popular appeal of his writings. From the publication of the _Spanish Masquerado_ (1589), celebrating the victory over the _Spanish Armada_, there is every reason to believe Greene received his warmest recognition at court; and sincere as were his conny-catching pamphlets we may be sure that their value was not lessened in Greene's eyes by their popular appeal. Greene was neither more nor less of an imitator than his fellows; his ideals and methods of composition were, no doubt, those of his time, and if we cannot claim for him that he consistently broke ground in new domains of expression, we may at any rate be certain that he did not fall far behind in the progressive motion of the art of his era.