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to the very powers of heaven,* was for many years a highly attractive personage to the play-goers of the metropolis.

act of Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh's Jocasta introduced "a king with an imperiall crowne vpon hys head," &c. " sitting in a chariote very richly furnished, drawen in by iiii kings in their dublets and hosen, with crownes also vpon theyr heads, representing vnto vs ambition by the historie of Sesostres," &c.

* In defence of such passages Marlowe perhaps would have alleged the example of the Italian romanesque poets (who were more read in England during his time than they are at present). In Bojardo's Orlando Innamorato, when Marfisa finds that she cannot overcome Ranaldo,

"Chiama iniquo Macone e doloroso,
Cornuto e becco Trivigante appella;
Ribaldi, a lor dicea, per qual cagione,
Tenete il cavalier in su'l'arcione?

Venga un di voi, et lascisi vedere,
Et pigli a suo piacer questa difesa,
Ch'io farò sua persona rimanere
Quà giù riversa e nel prato distesa.
Voi non volete mia forza temere
Perchè là su non posso esser ascesa ;
Ma, s'io prendo il cammino, io ve n'avviso,
Tutti v'uccido, ed ardo il Paradiso."

Lib. i. C. XVIII. st. 9, ed. Pan.

In the same poem Agramante declares to his council that he is resolved to subdue, not only Carlo Mano, but the whole world; and, he concludes,

"Poi che battuto avrò tutta la terra,

Ancor nel Paradiso io vo' far guerra."
Lib. II. C. I. st. 64.

In Le Prime Imprese del Conte Orlando by Dolce, when Agolante hears that his son Almonte is slain,

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Numerous entries concerning the performance of both Parts of this tragedy occur in Henslowe's Diary, the earliest dated 28th August, 1594, the latest 13th Nov. 1595.* Taylor, the water-poet, makes Tom Coryat inform the Great Mogul, that Tamburlaine "perhaps is not altogether so famous in his own country of Tartaria as in England;"† and notices

There are touches of this kind even in Ariosto;

"Dal sagace Spagnuol, che con la guida
Di duo del sangue d'Avalo ardirìa
Farsi nel cielo e ne lo 'nferno via."

Orl. Fur. C. xxxIII. st. 51.

The same sort of extravagance is occasionally found in English dramatists later than Marlowe. For instance, in Heywood's Four Prentices of London (acted about 1599, and certainly intended for a serious play) the Soldan exclaims,

"Should Ioue himselfe in thunder answere I [i. e. ay], When we say no, wee'd pull him from the skie."

Sig. F 2, ed. 1615. Yet this early production of Heywood contains some fine things; e. g.,

"In Sion towres hangs his victorious flagge,
Blowing defiance this way; and it showes

Like a red meteor in the troubled aire,

Or like a blazing comet that fore-tels

The fall of princes."

Sig. G.

The line marked in Italics has been cited neither by the editors of Milton nor by those of Gray as parallel to the following passages;

"Th' imperial ensign; which, full high advanc'd,
Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind."

"Loose his beard, and hoary hair

Par. Lost. 1. 536.

Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air." The Bard.

Pp. 40-60, ed. Shake. Soc.-The play called Tambercame, which is mentioned in the same Diary, was doubtless a distinct piece from Marlowe's Tamburlaine.

↑ Oration to the Great Mogul, p. 85, Workes, ed. 1630.

of the play, which shew that it was still in some repute, might be cited from writers of a more recent period.* But before the close of the seventeenth century it had sunk into oblivion: a precocious young gentleman, a Mr. Charles Saunders, whose Tamerlane (after having been acted, with a Prologue by Dryden) was printed in 1681, writes thus in his Preface; "It hath been told me, there is a Cock-pit play going under the name of The Scythian Shepherd or Tamberlain the Great, which how good it is, any one may judge by its obscurity, being a thing, not a bookseller† in

* E. G. "Tut, leave your raging, sir; for though you should roar like Tamerlin at the Bull," &c. Cowley's Guardian, act iii, sc. 6, ed. 1650.

+ Since those days, the old editions of Marlowe's pieces have, of course, become more and more difficult to procure. The following fragment of Memoranda, in the handwriting of (I believe) Dr. Ducarel, was obligingly forwarded to me by Mr. Bolton Corney, and may prove not uninteresting to some readers. "One fine summer's day, in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty four, going into an old book-shop kept by an old woman and her daughter, on the north side of MiddleRow, Holbourn, to look for any ancient books; not being there long, looking round the shop, before Dodd the comedian came in, to search, as he told me, for any one of Kit Marlow's plays. I asked the old woman if she had any more books besides those in the shop. She said she had; but they were in an inner room without any window-light; and that the last person that had been there was the noted book-worm Dr. Rawlinson,'who then had been sleeping with his fathers some few years. "Mr. Dodd ask'd if it was agreeable for him to accompany

me.

We had two candles lighted, and going into this dark recess, saw a great number of books laying on the ground, which took us some hours looking over. He brought out a book or two; but was not lucky enough to find Kit Marlow there. And, after turning over, for three or four hours, many dirty books, I only found worth buying," &c. Though Dodd failed in Middle-Row, he must have found "dark recesses " in other localities where a search after early dramas was not made in vain; for his collection of plays (sold by auction after his decease) was very curious and valuable.

London, or scarce the players themselves who acted it formerly, cow'd call to remembrance."

With very little discrimination of character, with much extravagance of incident, with no pathos where pathos was to be expected, and with a profusion of inflated language, Tamburlaine is nevertheless a very impressive drama, and undoubtedly superior to all the English tragedies which preceded it; superior to them in the effectiveness with which the events are brought out, in the poetic feeling which animates the whole, and in the nerve and variety of the versification. Marlowe was yet to shew that he could impart truthfulness to his scenes; but not a few passages might be gleaned from Tamburlaine, as grand in thought, as splendid in imagery, and as happy in expression, as any which his later works contain.

A memorandum that Marlowe "translated Coluthus's Rape of Helen into English rhyme in the year 1587," is cited from Coxeter's MSS. by Warton; who observes that "Coluthus's poem was probably brought into vogue, and suggested to Marlowe's notice, by being paraphrased in Latin verse the preceding year by Thomas Watson."*—The poet of Lycopolis so seldom rises above mediocrity, that the loss of Marlowe's version may be borne with perfect resignation.

It is to be presumed that Tamburlaine had not been long before the public, when Marlowe produced his Faustus. †

* Hist. of Engl. Poet. iii. 433, ed. 4to; where Warton also remarks, "I have never seen it [Marlowe's translation of Coluthus]... But there is entered to Jones, in 1595, A booke entituled Raptus Helena, Helen's Rape, by the Athenian duke Theseus'." Surely, Warton could not mean, that the book entered to Jones in 1595 was perhaps Marlowe's version of Coluthus; for Coluthus relates the rape of Helen by Paris, not by Theseus.

+ Mr. Collier observes that " Marlowe's Faustus, in all probability, was written very soon after his Tamburlaine the Great,

We know not the date of the first edition of the proseromance which supplied the materials for this play; but "A ballad of the life and death of Doctor Faustus the great cungerer" was licensed to be printed 28th February, 1588-9; and, as ballads were frequently founded on favourite dramas, it is most likely that the ditty just mentioned was derived from our author's play. A stanza in Rowlands's Knave of Clubs, not only informs us that Alleyn acted the chief part in this tragedy, but also describes his costume;

"The gull gets on a surplis,

With a crosse upon his brest,
Like Allen playing Faustus,

In that manner was he drest."*

The success of Faustus was complete. Henslowe has sundry entries + concerning it; none, however, earlier than 30th Sept. 1594, at which date Marlowe was dead, and the play, there is every reason to believe, had been several years on the prompter's list. Henslowe has also two important memoranda regarding the " additions" which were made to it, when, in consequence of having been repeatedly performed, it had somewhat palled upon the audience;

as in 1588 a ballad of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus' (which in the language of that time might mean either the play or a metrical composition founded upon its chief incidents) was licensed to be printed." Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 126. As we find that the play was entered in the Stationers' Books in 1601, the "ballad of Faustus" must mean the story of Faustus in verse, perhaps, that ballad which I have inserted in vol. ii. 157. When Mr. Collier stated that the old romance of Faustus was entered in the Stationers' Books in 1588 (note on Henslowe's Diary, p. 42), he meant, I apprehend, the old ballad.

* P. 22. ed. Percy Soc. (reprint of ed. 1611). An inventory of Alleyn's theatrical apparel includes "Faustus Jerkin, his cloke." Collier's Mem. of Alleyn, p. 20.

+ Diary, pp. 42-91, ed. Shake. Soc.

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