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. - A 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 "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 hardly 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: "I 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, "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?" great force of expression. That Shakespeare was well acquainted with this tragedy cannot be doubted; but that he caught from it more than a few trifling hints for The Merchant of Venice will be allowed by no one who has carefully compared the character of Barabas with that of Shylock.*. An alteration of The Jew of Malta was produced at Drurylane Theatre in 1818, when Kean was in the zenith of his fame, and, owing to his exertions in Barabas, it was very favourably received. Warton incidentally mentions that Marlowe's Edward the Second was "written in the year 1590;"† and, for all we know, he may have made the assertion on sufficient grounds, though he has neglected to specify them. Mr. Collier, who regards it (and, no doubt, rightly) as one of our author's latest pieces, has not attempted to fix its date. It was entered in the Stationers' Books 6th July 1593, and first printed in 1598. From that heaviness, which prevails more or less in all "chronicle histories" anterior to those of Shakespeare, this tragedy is not wholly free; its crowded incidents do not always follow each other without confusion; and it has few of those "raptures," for which Marlowe is eulogized by one of his contemporaries. But, taken as a whole, it is the most perfect of his plays; there is no overdoing of character, no turgidity of language. On the two scenes which give the chief interest to this drama Lamb remarks; "the reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty in Edward furnished hints which Shakespeare scarce improved in his Richard the Second; and the death-scene of Marlowe's king moves pity and terror beyond any scene ancient or modern with which I am ac See a considerable number of what have been called the parallel passages" of these two plays in the Appendix to Waldron's edition, and very ingenious continuation, of Jonson's Sad Shepherd, p. 209. + Hist. of Engl. Poet. iii. 438, ed. 4to. See the lines by Drayton afterwards quoted. quainted." The excellence of both scenes is indisputable; but a more fastidious critic than Lamb might perhaps justly object to such an exhibition of physical suffering as the latter scene affords. The Massacre at Paris was, we are sure, composed after August 2nd, 1589, when Henry the Third, with whose death it terminates, expired in consequence of the wound he had received from Jaques Clément the preceding day.t On the following entry in Henslowe's Diary," Rd at the tragedey of the guyes [Guise] 30 [January, 15931]. . . . . iijs . . . . iiijs,” — Mr. Collier observes, “In all probability Marlowe's Massacre at Paris. This entry is valuable, supposing it to apply to Marlowe's tragedy, because it ascertains the day it was first acted, Henslowe having placed ne [i. e. new] in the margin. It was perhaps Marlowe's last play, as he was killed about six months afterwards." Henslowe has several later entries concerning the performance of the same piece (which he also designates The Massacre); but probably, when he notices" the Guise" under the year 1598,§ he refers to a revival of the tragedy with additions Spec. of Engl. Dram. Poets, p. 28, ed. 1808. "The Jew of Malta contains, in its original prologue, spoken by Machiavel, an allusion to The Massacre at Paris, which had preceded it." Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 135. But when Mr. Collier made this remark, he had not yet seen Henslowe's MSS. and as to the words in question, "now the Guise is dead,' they only shew that The Jew of Multa was written after the death of the Duke of Guise. : It is quite manifest, both from what precedes and what follows in the Diary, that Henslowe (who was an egregious blunderer) ought to have written here "1592," i. e. 1592-3 (see Diary, p. 30, ed. Shake. Soc.); and with that date the entry has been given by Malone, Shakespeare, by Boswell, iii. 299, as well as by Mr. Collier, Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 132. "Lent Wm Birde, alias Borne, the 27 of novembr [1598], to bye a payer of sylke stockens, to playe the Gwisse in }xxx'." "Lent unto Wm Borne, the 19 of novembr, 1598, upon a longe |