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question. During the year 1598, which was otherwise so important for the poem, there appeared another attempt at completing the torso. This continuation, which is of no poetic value, was the work of a feeble young poet, Henry Petowe, and was licensed April 14, 1598, by Andrew Harris, the publisher of the only edition. A ballad of Hero and Leander was entered on the Stationers' Register by John White on July 2, 1614.

Though Hero and Leander has often been called, and partly purports to be, a translation of the short Greek poem of the pseudo-Musaeus', it is almost entirely original throughout, except as regards the bare outline of the story. Chapman's completion of the poem seems, as has been said, to have been more or less authorized, and his supplementary cantos have been printed in every edition except the first. There is, however, very little cohesion as regards the plot between Marlowe's fragment and Chapman's, while in tone there is no resemblance whatever. The continuation has all the rhetorical stateliness of Chapman's best verse, and in places-notably in the tale of Teras 1-it possesses real poetic feeling and grace, but in general Chapman's part of the poem is confused, obscure, and dull. The eight hundred lines written by Marlowe show a lucidity and an artistic mastery of detail, both in structure and in expression, which no other narrative poem in English literature perhaps can equal. We here see Marlowe's genius at its very best-certainly in its most complete and rounded development. It is doubtful whether the English heroic couplet through all its varied and honourable history from the time of Chaucer to that of John Keats, has ever been used with more perfect melody or more wonderful understanding of its peculiar capabilities than in the first two sestiads of Hero and Leander. The verses have all the polish of Pope, and they have in addition a richness in sound and sense which finds its closest parallel in a work of the poet otherwise perhaps most nearly akin to Marlowe, the Endymion of Keats.

1 Cf. pp. 534-42.

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LEANDER: 7

Begun by Christopher Marloe; and finished by George Chapman.

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At London Printed by Felix Kingston, for Paule Linley,and are to be folde in Paules Church-yard, at the figne of the Blacke-beare.

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Blount's quarto edition of that year, containing only
Marlowe's part.

Linley's quarto edition of that year (Brit. Mus. C. 40.
e. 68).

Quarto edition of that year.

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1617

1622

1616 Edition of that year.

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1629

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Select English Poets, ed. S. W. Singer, No. VIII, 1821.
Robinson's edition of Marlowe, 1826.

Dyce's first edition of Marlowe, 1850.

Dyce's revised edition of Marlowe, 1858, etc.
Cunningham's edition of Marlowe, 1870, etc.
Bullen's edition of Marlowe, 1885.

The present editor.

Conjectures of J. B. in copy of Rob. (Brit. Mus.
11771 d).

Quotations from Hero and Leander in England's
Parnassus, 1600.

To the Right Worshipfull, Sir Tho

mas Walsingham, Knight.

Sir, wee thinke not our selues discharged of the dutie wee owe to our friend, when wee haue brought the breathlesse bodie to the earth for albeit the eye there taketh his euer farwell of that beloued obiect, yet the impression of the man, that hath beene deare vnto vs, liuing an after life in our memory, there 5 putteth vs in mind of farther obsequies due vnto the deceased. And namely of the performance of whatsoeuer we may judge shal make to his liuing credit, and to the effecting of his determinations preuented by the stroke of death. By these meditations (as by an intellectuall will) I suppose my selfe executor to 10 the unhappily deceased author of this Poem, vpon whom knowing that in his life time you bestowed many kind fauors, entertaining the parts of reckoning and woorth which you found in him, with good countenance and liberall affection: I cannot but see so far into the will of him dead, that what- 15 soeuer issue of his brain should chance to come abroad, that the first breath it should take might be the gentle aire of your liking: for since his selfe had ben accustomed thervnto, it would prooue more agreeable and thriuing to his right children, than any other foster countenance whatsoeuer. At this time 20 seeing that this vnfinished Tragedy happens vnder my hands to be imprinted; of a double duty, the one to your selfe, the other to the deceased, I present the same to your most fauourable allowance, offring my vtmost selfe

now and euer to bee readie, At your
Worships disposing :

Edward Blunt.

I not om. 1629, 1637 3 euer om. 1637 6 farther] vnhappily 15981, 2, 1600: vnhappie 1606-37 18 thervnto] thereto 1613-37 22 a om.

(Ep. Ded.) other 1629, 1637 12 that om. 1629, 1637 1637 adouble 1629 15982 etc.

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Signature Edward Blunt 15981: E. B.

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