"Pd unto Thomas Dickers [Dekker], the 20 of Desembr 1597, for adycyons to Fostus twentie shellinges." "Lent unto the companye, the 22 of novmbr 1602, to paye unto Wm Birde and Samwell Rowley for ther adicyones in Docter Fostes, the some of . . . . iiijli".* .... Faustus was entered in the Stationers' Books 7th January 1600-1.* .** The earliest edition yet discovered is the quarto of 1604; which never having been examined either by Marlowe's editors or (what is more remarkable) by the excellent historian of the stage, Mr. Collier, they all remained ignorant how very materially it differs from the later editions. The next quarto, that of 1616 (reprinted in 1624 and in 1631), besides a text altered more or less from the commencement to the end, contains some characters and scenes which are entirely new: but, as the present work includes both the edition of 1604 and that of 1616, a more particular account of their variations is unnecessary here. We have seen that “additions" were made to Faustus in 1597, and again in 1602, at the first of which dates Marlowe had been several years deceased; and a question arises, is the quarto of 1604 wholly from our author's pen, or is it,—as the quarto of 1616 indisputably is,- -an alteration of the tragedy by other hands? Malone believed that the quarto of 1604 was "Marlowe's original play;" + but a passage in a speech of * Id. pp. 71, 228.-Among the stage-properties of the Lord Admiral's men (Id. p. 273) we find "j dragon in fostes." ** I make this statement on the authority of the MS. notes by Malone in his copies of 4tos 1604 and 1631 (now in the Bodleian Library). + MS. Note in his copy of 4to 1604.-In his copy of 4to 1631 he has written; "The reason why Rowley and Bird's additions did not appear in the edition of 1604, was, that they were retained for the use of the theatre." (Malone, it would seem, was not then aware that Dekker had made additions to Faustus in 1597.)-Mr. Collier says, "We may conclude that the additions last made [to Faustus by Bird and Rowley] were very considerable; and with them probably the piece was с the Horse-courser proves him to have been mistaken. The words are these; "Mass, Doctor Lopus was never such a doctor :"* now, Marlowe died in 1593; and the said Doctor Lopez did not start into notoriety till the following year, during which he suffered death at Tyburn for his treasonable practices. † I at first entertained no doubt that the (somewhat mutilated and corrupted) quarto of 1604 presented Faustus with those comparatively unimportant "additions" for which Dekker was paid twenty shillings in 1597; and that the quarto of 1616 exhibited that alteration of the play which was made by the combined ingenuity of Bird and Rowley in 1602. But I have recently felt less confident on this subject, having found that the anonymous comedy The Taming of a Shrew, which was entered in the Stationers' Books and printed in 1594, contains a seeming imitation of a line in Faustus,-a line which occurs only in the quarto of 1616 (reprinted in 1624 and 1631), and which belongs to a scene that, as the merest novice in criticism will at once perceive, was not the composition of Marlowe. If the line in question was really imitated by the author of The Taming of a Shrew, we must conclude that, earlier than 1597, Faustus had received" additions" concerning which the an printed in 1604." Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet. 111. 126: but when Mr. Collier made this remark, he was unacquainted with the quarto of 1604, as is proved by his quoting, throughout his valuable work, the text of the later Faustus. * Vol. ii. 64. † He was executed in June 1594: see Stowe's Annales, p. 768, ed. 1615. It is, "Or hew'd this flesh and bones as small as sand." The probable imitation of it is, Vol. II. 135. "And hew'd thee smaller than the Libian sandes." The resemblance between these two lines might have been considered as purely accidental, did not the Taming of a Shrew contain several passages almost transcribed from Tamburlaine and Faustus: see much more on this subject towards the conclusion of the present essay. -A nals of the stage are silent; nor must we attempt to assign to their respective writers those two rifacimenti of the tragedy which are preserved in the quartos of 1604 and 1616. fifth quarto of Faustus was printed in 1663, With New Additions, as it is now Acted. With several New Scenes, together with the Actors Names [i. e. the names of the Dram. Pers.]," the new matter occupying much less space than the title-page would lead us to imagine, and evidently supplied by some poetaster of the lowest grade.The repeated alterations and editions of this tragedy seem to justify the assertion of Phillips, that " of all that Marlowe hath written to the stage, his Dr. Faustus hath made the greatest noise, with its devils and such like tragical sport."+ The well-known fact, that our early dramatists usually borrowed their fables from novels or "histories," to which they often servilely adhered, has been thought no derogation from their merits. Yet the latest biographer of Marlowe dismisses Faustus as 66 unworthy of his reputation," chiefly because it "closely follows a popular romance of the same name." Certain it is that Marlowe has "closely followed." the prose History of Doctor Faustus; but it is equally certain that he was not indebted to that History for the poetry and the passion which he has infused into his play, for those thoughts of surpassing beauty and grandeur with which it * Mr. Collier makes a slight mistake when he states that in 4to 1663" a scene at Rome is transferred to Constantinople, and another interpolated from The Rich Jew of Malta." Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 126. There is no scene at Constantinople, nor any interpolation from the Jew of Malta; but there is a scene at Babylon, during which the Sultan questions one of his Bashaws concerning the taking of Malta, and is informed how they had won the town by means of the Jew.--Perhaps it is bardly worth mentioning that Marlowe's Faustus was " made into a Farce, with the Humours of Harlequin and Scaramouch," by the celebrated actor Mountfort, who was so basely assassinated in 1692. + Theat. Poet. (Modern Poets), p. 25, ed. 1675. Lives of English Dramatists, 1. 58 (Lardner's Cyclop.). abounds, and for that fearful display of mental agony at the close, compared to which all attempts of the kind by preceding English dramatists are "poor indeed." In the opinion of Hazlitt, "Faustus, though an imperfect and unequal performance, is Marlowe's greatest work."* Mr. Hallam remarks, "There is an awful melancholy about Marlowe's Mephistophiles, perhaps more impressive than the malignant mirth of that fiend in the renowned work of Goethe. But the fair form of Margaret is wanting."+ In the comic scenes of Faustus (which are nearly all derived from the prose History) we have buffoonery of the worst description; and it is difficult not to believe that Marlowe is answerable for at least a portion of them, when we recollect that he had inserted similar scenes in the original copy of his Tamburlaine. In what year Marlowe produced The Jew of Malta we are unable to determine. The words in the Prologue, now the Guise is dead," are evidence that it was composed after 23rd Dec. 1588; and Mr. Collier thinks that it was probably written about 1589 or 1590.‡ Barabas was originally performed by Alleyn; § and the aspect of the Jew was rendered as grotesque and hideous as possible by means of a false nose. In Rowley's Search for Money, 1609, a person is described as having "his visage (or vizard) like the artificiall Jewe of Maltae's nose;"|| and a speech in the play itself, "Oh, brave, master! I worship your nose for this,"¶ is a proof that Marlowe intended his hero to be distinguished for the magnitude of that feature. It would seem, indeed, that on our early stage Jews were always furnished with an extra quantity of nose: it was thought that a race so universally hated could hardly be made to appear too ugly. The great popularity of this tragedy is evinced by Hen * Lectures on Dram. Lit. p. 53, ed. 1840. + Introd. to the Lit. of Europe, ii. 171, ed. 1843. + Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 135. See vol. 1. 229, 231. P. 19, ed. Percy Soc. ¶ Vol. 1. 276. slowe's Diary, where we find numerous notices concerning it, the earliest dated 26th February 1591-2, the latest 21st June 1596; and again, a notice of its revival 19th May, 1601.* Though entered in the Stationers' Books 17th May 1594,† it remained in manuscript till 1633, when, after having been acted at court and the Cock-pit with prologues and epilogues by Heywood, it was published under the auspices of the same dramatist. The character of Barabas, upon which the interest of the tragedy entirely depends, is delineated with no ordinary power, and possesses a strong individuality. Unfortunately, however, it is a good deal overcharged; but I suspect, that in this instance at least, Marlowe violated the truth of nature, not so much from his love of exaggeration, as in consequence of having borrowed all the atrocities of the play from some now-unknown novel, whose author was willing to flatter the prejudices of his readers by attributing almost impossible wickedness to a son of Israel. "The first two acts of The Jew of Malta," observes Mr. Hallam," are more vigorously conceived, both as to character and circumstance, than any other Elizabethan play, except those of Shakespeare:" but the latter part is in every respect so inferior, that we rise from a perusal of the whole with a feeling akin to disappointment. If the dialogue has little poetry, it has often * Pp. 21-74, 187, ed. Shake. Soc. We also find (Id. p. 274) in an inventory of the stage-properties of the Lord Admiral's men, 66 j cauderm for the Jewe," i. e. the caldron into which Barabas falls. + On the preceding day was entered "a ballad" on the same subject, derived, we may presume, from the tragedy. — Sir John Harington has the following couplet in an epigram written perhaps as early as 1592; "Was ever Jew of Malta or of Millain Then [Than] this most damned Jew more Jewish villain?" |