Greene's skill in the treatment of character grew out of his knowledge of life, and is involved in his most significant and enduring contribution to the stage. This is the introduction of realism onto a stage that was essentially romantic, and it arises from the application of dramatic art to the experiences of everyday life. Greene's low life is not artificial pastoral, nor is it the boorish clownage of the interludes. It is the characteristic life of England that we see in Harrison's _Description_, refined and beautified by a mature and chastened art. Only in such art can come the homely ideal of "beauty tempered with ... huswifery." By the time of _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ Greene's art has come home. Now in a series of domestic thumb sketches he shows us Margaret:
"And there amongst the cream bowls she did shine As Pallas 'mongst her princely huswifery,"
"Spitting the meat 'gainst supper for my guess,"
and the hay, and butter, and cheese displays of Harleston fair. "He was of singular pleasaunce, the very supporter, and, to no man's disgrace be this intended, the only comedian, of a vulgar writer, in this country," writes Chettle in _A Kind Hart's Dream_, summing up in striking phrase the true contemporary judgment of Greene's greatest distinction. But there is another aspect of his genius. He loved the active life of out-of-doors, and he indulged a vigorous spirit of participation in the life around him. But he saw behind things into the spirit, and his treatment of events is dignified with a rich philosophy drawn from his manifold contact with the most lavish era in England's history. To him a drama is more than an isolated and a meaningless show. In _Francesco's Fortunes_ he outlines the kind of play that he himself wrote: "Therein they painted out in the persons the course of the world, how either it was graced with honour, or discredited with vices." He leaves the hollow-sounding verbiage of his early plays to comment with the lawyer on "the manners and the fashions of this age." His _James IV._ is a play of contemplation. Bohan is an early "malcontent," and Andrew, noting the downfall of his prince, exclaims, "Was never such a world, I think, before." With the heart of a democrat Greene understands alike the problems of kings and yeomen. The counsel of the King of England to Dorothea on the obligations and dangers of sovereignty is sage and rational, and Ida's comments on the "greatest good"--that it lies not "in delights, or pomp, or majesty"--are rich with the best philosophy. In _A Quip for an Upstart Courtier_ Clothbreeches asks, "Doth true virtue consist in riches, or humanity in wealth? is ancient honour tied to outward bravery? or not rather true nobility, a mind excellently qualified with rare virtues?" So often is this note struck in Greene's plays that we might call it a personal one were it not that it is beginning to appear commonly in the literature of the time.