Sec. Sch. O help us heavens! see here are Faustus' vengeance on his enemies, he is overmatched himself, he thus limbs All torn asunder by the hand of death. Third Sch. The devil whom Faustus serv'd hath torn him thus: For 'twixt the hours of twelve and one, methought I heard him shriek and call aloud for help; Sec. Sch. Well, gentlemen, though Faustus' end be As every Christian heart laments to think on; For wondrous knowledge in our German schools, Chorus. Cut is the branch that might have grown And burned is Apollo's laurel bough confesses his crimes, and closes his career :-] Then Barabas, breathe forth thy latest fate, Know, Governor, 'tis I that slew thy son; I fram'd the challenge that did make them meet. I would have brought confusion on you all, Die life, fly soul, tongue curse thy fill, and die. [Dies. 'Edward the Second' is considered as superior to the two plays mentioned in connexion with it: it is a noble drama, with ably-drawn characters and splendid scenes. Another tragedy, Lust's Dominion, was That sometime grew within this learned man: published long after Marlow's death, with his name Faustus is gone! Regard his hellish fall, as author on the title page. Mr Collier has shown Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise that this play, as it was then printed, was a much Only to wonder at unlawful things: later production, and was probably written by DekWhose deepness doth entice such forward wits ker and others. It contains passages and characTo practise more than heavenly power permits. ters, however, which have the impress of Marlow's The classical taste of Marlow is evinced in the fine genius, and we think he must have written the oriapostrophe to Helen of Greece, whom the spirit Me-ginal outline. Great uncertainty hangs over many phostophilis conjures up between two Cupids,' to gratify the sensual gaze of Faustus: Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships [Passages from the Jew of Malta.] [In one of the early scenes, Barabas the Jew is deprived of his wealth by the governor of Malta. While being comforted in his distress by two Jewish friends, he thus denounces his oppressors :---] The plagues of Egypt, and the curse of heaven, And henceforth wish for an eternal night, [But when his comforters are gone, he throws off the mask of sorrow to show his real feelings, which suggest to him schemes of the subtlest vengeance. With the fulfilment of these, the rest of the play is occupied, and when, having taken terrible of the old dramas, from the common practice of His lust was lawless as his life, He groan'd, and word spoke never moe, *First published in 1834 by Mr Collier, in his New Particulars regarding the Works of Shakspeare.' Thus, condemned by the serious and puritanical, and stained with follies, while his genius was rapidly maturing and developing its magnificent resources, Marlow fell a victim to an obscure and disgraceful brawl. The last words of Greene's address to him a year or two before are somewhat ominous :-Refuse not (with me) till this last point of extremity; for little knowest thou how in the end thou shalt be visited.' The warning was Like the sad presaging raven, that tolls The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, Marlow's fatal conflict is supposed to have taken place at Deptford, as he was buried there on the 1st of June 1593. The finest compliment paid to the genius of this unfortunate poet was by his contemporary and fellow-dramatist, Michael Drayton: Next Marlow, bathed in the Thespian springs, Had in him those brave translunary things That the first poets had: his raptures were All air and fire, which made his verses clear; For that fine madness still he did retain, Which rightly should possess a poet's brain. We subjoin part of the death- scene of Edward II. in his historical drama, a scene which Charles Lamb says, 'moves pity and terror beyond any scene, ancient or modern.' It may challenge comparison with Shakspeare's death of Richard II.; but Marlow could not interest us in his hero as the great dramatist does in the gentle Richard: Edw. Who's there? what light is that? wherefore com'st thou ? Light. To comfort you, and bring you joyful news. Edw. Small comfort finds poor Edward in thy looks. Villain, I know thou com'st to murder me. Light. To murder you, my most gracious lord! Edw. Weep'st thou already? list a while to me, Edw. And there, in mire and puddle have I stood This ten days' space; and lest that I should sleep, One plays continually upon a drum. They give me bread and water, being a king; Edw. These looks of thine can harbour nought but death: I see my tragedy written in thy brows. Edw. What mean'st thou to dissemble with me thus? Light. These hands were never stain'd with innocent blood, Nor shall they now be tainted with a king's. Edw. Forgive my thought, for having such a thought. One jewel have I left, receive thou this. Still fear I, and I know not what's the cause, But every joint shakes as I give it thee. Oh, if thou harbour'st murder in thy heart, Let the gift change thy mind, and save thy soul. Know that I am a king: Oh, at that name I feel a hell of grief. Where is my crown? Gone, gone; and do I still remain alive? Light. You're overwatch'd my lord; lie down and rest. Edw. But that grief keeps me waking, I should sleep; For not these ten days have these eyelids closed. Now as I speak they fall, and yet with fear Open again. O wherefore sitt'st thou here? Light. If you mistrust me, I'll be gone, my lord. Edw. No, no; for if thou mean'st to murder me, Thou wilt return again; and therefore stay. Light. He sleeps. Edw. O let me not die; yet stay, O stay a while. And tells me if I sleep I never wake; This fear is that which makes me tremble thus. The taste of the public for the romantic drama, in preference to the classical, seems now to have been confirmed. An attempt was made towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, to revive the forms of the classic stage, by DANIEL the poet, who wrote two plays, Cleopatra and Philotas, which are smoothly versified, but undramatic in their character. LADY PEMBROKE CO-operated in a tragedy called Antony, written in 1590; and SAMUEL BRANDON produced. in 1598, a tame and feeble Roman play, Virtuous Octavia. ANTHONY MUNDAY-HENRY CHETTLE. In the throng of dramatic authors, the names of ANTHONY MUNDAY and HENRY CHETTLE frequently occur. Munday was an author as early as 1579, and he was concerned in fourteen plays. Francis Meres, in 1598, calls him the best plotter' among the writers for the stage. One of his dramas, Sir John Oldcastle, was written in conjunction with Michael Drayton and others, and was printed in 1600, with the name of Shakspeare on the titlepage! The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington, printed in 1601, was a popular play by Munday, assisted by Chettle. The pranks of Robin Hood and Maid Marian in merry Sherwood are thus gaily set forth : Light. O speak no more, my lord! this breaks my Wind once more, jolly huntsmen, all your horns, heart. Lie on this bed, and rest yourself a while. 1 His keepers. Whose shrill sound, with the echoing woods' assist, Give me thy hand: now God's curse on me light, Laugh grief to scorn, and so make sorrow small. * For thy steel glass, wherein thou wont'st to look, Chettle was engaged in no less than thirty-eight plays between the years 1597 and 1603, four of which have been printed. Mr Collier thinks he had written for the stage before 1592, when he published Greene's posthumous work, 'A Groat's Worth of Wit.' Among his plays, the names of which have descended to us, is one on the subject of Cardinal Wolsey, which probably was the original of Shakspeare's Henry VIII. The best drama of this prolific author which we now possess, is a comedy called Patient Grissell, taken from Boccaccio. The humble charms of the heroine are thus finely described :-- See where my Grissell and her father is, The names of Haughton, Antony Brewer, Porter, Smith, Hathaway (probably some relation of Shakspeare's wife), Wilson, &c., also occur as dramatic writers. From the diary of Henslowe, it appears that, between 1591 and 1597, upwards of a hundred different plays were performed by four of the ten or eleven theatrical companies which then existed. Henslowe was originally a pawnbroker, who advanced money and dresses to the players, and he ultimately possessed a large share of the wardrobe and properties of the playhouses with which he was concerned. The name of Shakspeare does not once occur in his diary. Several good dramas of this golden age have descended to us, the authors of which are unknown. A few of these possess merit enough to have been considered first sketches of Shakspeare, but this opinion has been gradually abandoned by all but one or two German critics. Most of them have been published in Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays. The best are, the Merry Devil of Edmonton,' the London Prodigal,' the Yorkshire Tragedy,' Lord Cromwell,' the Birth of Merlin,' the Collier of Croydon,' Mucedorus,' Locrine,'' Arden of Feversham,' the 'Misfortunes of Arthur,' 'Edward III.,' &c. The most correct and regular of these anonymous dramas is * Arden of Feversham,' a domestic tragedy. founded on a murder which took place in 1551. Alice, the wife of Arden, proves unfaithful, and joins with her paramour Mosbie, and some assassins, in murdering her husband. Tieck has translated this play into German, as a genuine production of Shakspeare, but Mos. How now, Alice? What! sad and passionate? Make me partaker of thy pensiveness; Fire divided burns with lesser force. Al. But I will dam that fire in my breast, Till by the force thereof my part consume. Ah, Mosbie! Mos. Such deep pathaires, like to a cannon's burst, Al. It is not love that loves to murder love. Al. Thou know'st how dearly Arden loved me. Al. And then-conceal the rest, for 'tis too bad, Al. Ay, to my former happy life again; Ha, Mosbie ! 'tis thou hast rifled me of that, I was bewitcht; woe-worth the hapless hour And if you stand so nicely at your fame, Al. Ay, now I see, and too soon find it true, Which often hath been told me by my friends, And hold no other sect but such devotion. Wilt thou not look? is all thy love o'erwhelm'd? Why speak'st thou not? what silence ties thy tongue? And heard as quickly as the fearful hare, When I have bid thee hear, or see, or speak : Weigh all thy good turns with this little fault, Mos. Ah, how you women can insinuate, 'Arden of Feversham' was first printed in 1592. The Yorkshire Tragedy,' another play of the same kind, but apparently more hastily written, was performed in 1604, and four years afterwards printed with Shakspeare's name. Both Dyce and Collier, able dramatic antiquaries and students, are inclined to the opinion, that this drama contains passages which only Shakspeare could have written. But in lines like the following-though smooth and natural, and quoted as the most Shakspearian in the play -we miss the music of the great dramatist's thoughts and numbers. It is, however, a forcible picture of a luckless, reckless gambler : What will become of us? All will away! He sits and sullenly locks up his arms, Mlliam Shakspeare [Copy of the Bust at Stratford.] with more variety of character and action, with deep passion, and true poetry. The latter, indeed, was tinged with incoherence and extravagance, but the sterling ore of genius was, in Marlow at least, abundant. Above all, they had familiarised the public ear to the use of blank verse. The last improvement was the greatest; for even the genius of Shakspeare would have been cramped and confined, if it had been condemned to move only in the fetters of rhyme. The quick interchange of dialogue, and the various nice shades and alternations of character and feeling, could not have been evolved in dramatic action, except in that admirable form of verse which unites rhythmical harmony with the utmost freedom, grace, and flexibility. When Shakspeare, therefore, appeared conspicuously on the horizon, the scene may be said to have been prepared for his reception. The Genius of the Drama had accumulated materials for the use of the great poet, who was to extend her empire over limits not yet recognised, and invest it with a splendour which the world had never seen before. The few incidents in Shakspeare's life are surrounded with doubt and fable. The fond idolatry with which he is now regarded, was only turned to his personal history at a late period, when little could Forgetting heaven, looks downward, which makes him be gathered even by the most enthusiastic collector. Appear so dreadful, that he frights my heart: Walks heavily, as if his soul were earth; Not penitent for those his sins are past, Our best facts are derived from legal documents. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE was born at Stratford-onAvon, in the county of Warwick, in April 1564. There George, the tutelar saint of England; but all we know with certainty is, that he was baptised on the 26th. His father, John Shakspeare, was a woolcomber or glover, who had elevated his social position by marriage with a rustic heiress, Mary Arden, possessed of an estate worth about £70 per annum of our present money. The poet's father rose to be high bailiff and chief alderman of Stratford; but in 1578, he is found mortgaging his wife's inheritance, and, from entries in the town-books, is supposed to have fallen into comparative poverty. William was the eldest of six surviving children, and after some education at the grammar-school, he is said to have been brought home to assist at his father's business. There is a blank in his history for some years; but doubtless he was engaged, whatever might be his circumstances or employment, in treasuring up materials for his future poetry. The study of man and of nature, facts in natural history, the country, the fields, and the woods, would be gleaned by familiar intercourse and observation among his fellow-townsmen, and in rambling over the beautiful valley of the Avon. It has been conjectured that he was some time in a lawyer's office, as his works abound in technical legal phrases and illustrations. This has always seemed to us highly probable. The London players were also then in the habit of visiting Stratford: Thomas Green, an actor, was a native of the town; and Burbage, the greatest performer of his day (the future Richard, Hamlet, and Othello), was originally from Warwickshire. Who can doubt, then, that the high bailiff's son, from the years of twelve to twenty, was a frequent and welcome visitant behind the scenes?-that he there imbibed the tastes and feelings which coloured all his future life-and that he there felt the first stirrings of his immortal dramatic genius? We are persuaded that he had begun to write long before he left Stratford, and had most probably sketched, if not completed, his Venus * Mr Washington Irving, in his Sketch-Book,' thus adverts to Charlecote, and the deer-stealing affair : 'I had a desire to see the old family seat of the Lucys at Charlecote, and to ramble through the park where Shakspeare, in company with some of the roysters of Stratford, committed his youthful offence of deer-stealing. In this hair-brained exploit, we are told that he was taken prisoner, and carried to the keeper's lodge, where he remained all night in doleful captivity. When brought into the presence of Sir Thomas Lucy, his treatment must have been galling and humiliating; for it which was affixed to the park-gate at Charlecote. so wrought upon his spirit, as to produce a rough pasquinade, This flagitious attack upon the dignity of the knight so incensed him, that he applied to a lawyer at Warwick to put the severity of the laws in force against the rhyming deer-stalker. 12 |