amine certain old Treasurer's Accounts, which, I was told, were preserved in the Cathedral, and were likely to determine the point. With this request Mr. Finch complied; and informed me that Marlowe was mentioned in those Accounts, as one of the King's Scholars who had received the usual stipend, during such and such years. But there his civilities ended. It was in vain that I continued asking him, as a particular favour, either to permit me to make the necessary extracts from those Accounts, or to allow a clerk to make them for me;—in Mr. Finch's opinion, my solicitations were unreasonable. Several months after, a gentleman, whose influence is powerful at Canterbury, was induced (through the medium of a mutual friend) to exert himself in my behalf; and, in consequence of his kind interposition, the extracts from the Accounts were at last forwarded to me, accompanied with a special notice that "ten and sixpence" must be sent, in return, to Mr. Finch. The task of tracing Marlowe's course at Cambridge was voluntarily undertaken for me by the Rev. George Skinner, of Jesus College; and he performed it with a zeal for which I feel truly grateful. To the Rev. John Mitford, to W. J. Thoms, Esq., and to W. H. Black, Esq., I have to offer my thanks for various and not unimportant assistance. The first edition of Marlowe's Hero and Leander was lent to me by the late Mr. Miller of Craigentinny. ALEX. DYCE. The present edition of Marlowe's Works was just completed, when the following lines were sent to the Editor by Mr. Collier, who found them written, in an old hand, on the title-page of a copy of Alarvm for London, or The Siedge of Antwerpe. With the ventrous actes and valorous deeds of the lame Soldier. As it hath been playde by the right Honorable the Lord Charberlaine [sic] his Seruants, London, &c, 1602, 4to: "Our famous Marloe had in this a hand, As from his fellowes I doe vnderstand: The printed copie doth his Muse much wrong, The report of Marlowe's "fellowes " may be true: but certainly in the Alarum for London (as we now possess it) no traces of his genius are discoverable. SOME ACCOUNT OF MARLOWE AND HIS WRITINGS. WHEN the latest biographer of Marlowe set out with a declaration that "the time of this writer's birth cannot be ascertained," he rather hastily assumed the impossibility of discovering it. Christopher Marlowe, the son of John Marlowe, shoemaker,† was born at Canterbury in February 1563-4, and baptized in the Church of St. George the Martyr on the 26th of that month.‡ * Lives of English Dramatists, i. 49. (Lardner's Cyclop.) + "Marlowe a shooe makers sonne of Cant." MS. Note, in a very old hand, on the margin of a copy of Beard's Theatre of God's Judgments, 1598, which, when I saw it, belonged to the late Mr. B. H. Bright.—" His [Marlowe's] father was a shoemaker in Canterburie." MS. Note in a copy of Hero and Lean der, ed. 1629, now in the possession of Mr. J. P. Collier.See also the last stanza but four of the ballad called The Atheist's Tragedie, vol. iii. Appendix Iv. 1563-4, "The 26th day of ffebruary was christened Christofer the sonne of John Marlow." Register of St. George the Martyr, Canterbury. The following entries are found in the same Register; which, though very old, is only a transcript; and the scribe was unable to decypher the Christian names in the fourth, seventh, and eighth entries. 1548, "The 28th day of December was christened Marget the daughter of John Marlow." 1562, “The xx1st of May was christened Mary the daughter of John Marlowe." 1565, "The [date illegible] day of December was christened Margarit the daughter of John Marlowe." b |