tempt and pity on the memory of the person who possessed it, and recal to our mind the inimitable sentiment of the great and good Dr. Young, in his Complaint : When I behold a genius bright and base, Of tow'ring talents, and terrestrial aims; "We would, however, rather wish to take this character with some degree of abatement, and allowing that Mr. Marlowe might be inclinable to free-thinking, yet that he could not run to the unhappy lengths he is reported to have done, especially as the time he lived in was a period of bigotry; and that, even in these calmer times of controversy, we find a great aptness in persons, who differ in opinion with regard to the speculative points of religion, either wilfully or from the mistaking of terms, to tax each other with deism, heresy, and even atheism, on even the most trivial tenets, which have the least appearance of being unorthodox." And I may add, that from the Apology of Chettle, who edited Green's work, before mentioned, Mr. Malone supposes Marlowe to have taken offence at that publication. Marlowe may be said to have attached himself entirely to tragedy; The Maiden's Holiday being the only exception. If, as a dramatic poet, he will not bear comparison with some of the writers, whose works have lately been submitted to the public, it should be remembered that he preceded the new era which Shakspeare's productions may be supposed to have produced; yet, if justice be fairly dealt out to him, and a comparison made between himself and the writers of his own time, I am confident he will be found to claim a very proud superiority. Of his Edward the Second Mr. Lamb observes, "the reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty in Edward furnished hints which Shakspeare 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 acquainted. He translated Colothus's Rape of Helen*, and The Elegies of Ovid; the latter, printed at Middleburgh without date, "was ordered to be burnt at Stationers' Hall, in 1599, by command of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London.” At his death the poem of Hero and Leander was found incomplete. It was afterwards finished, says Wood, by Chapman, and published in 1606+: but a continuation of it, a mere translation from the Italian, dedicated to Sir H. Guildford, had appeared as early as 1598, by Henry Petowe. Perhaps, the generality of persons are not aware, that the celebrated and still popular poem of The passionate Shepherd to his Love, beginning, Come live with me, and be my love, is the production of this author ‡. In compliance with the received opinion, Tamberlaine the Great is introduced into the following list of Marlowe's dramatic works; indeed, if internal evidence be refused, we have not any sufficiently strong to warrant its rejection; although a very, inferior production, unworthy the genius to whom it is ascribed: but it should be mentioned that Langbaine thinks it questionable; and Mr. Oldys § observes," it has been suspected that the great character given the author by his contemporaries, drew impositions of works upon him that he never wrote." Impossible as such a thing may now appear, it was by no means uncommon in those days, and sometimes practised during the author's life-time. I should hardly be justified if I did not mention that Mr. Malone, perhaps the first authority on these occa Dr. Warton, from Coxeter's MSS. "I learn from Mr. Malone that Marlowe finished only the two first sestiads, and about one hundred lines of the third." Warton's History of Poetry. It has been attributed to Shakspeare; but erroneously, as it is printed in England's Helicon, 1600, with Marlowe's name. § MS. notes on Langbaine. Phillips has attributed it to Thomas Newton. sions, and other eminent critics, have supposed the first Part of The Contention of the Two famous Houses of York and Lancaster, and The true Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, which form, with trifling variation, two Parts of King Henry the Sixth, published as Shakspeare's, and Titus Andronicus, to have been written by Marlowe. The latter, like his Edward the Second, was performed by the Earl of Pembroke's servants, (who are not known, says Mr. Malóne, to have performed any one of Shakspeare's undoubted dramas); like Faustus, it abounds in scraps of Latin, and classical allusions; and, like The Jew of Malta, in blood and murder. I should be gratified on finding these conjectures established for though these plays have been rejected, as unworthy the transcendent genius of Shakspeare, they would shed a lustre round any other name. 1. Tamberlaine the Great, T. two parts, 1st 4to. 1590; 4to. 1605. 2nd 4to. 1590*; 4to. 1606. 2. Edward the Second, T. 4to. 1598; 4to.' 1612; 4to. 1622, D. C. 3. The Massacre of Paris, T. 8vo. N. D. Mr. Malone supposes this and The Tragedy of Guyes, mentioned in a MS. of Henslowe's †, as acted on January 30, 1592, to be the same play. ⠀⠀ 4. The Rich Jew of Malta, T. 4to. 1633, D.C. Though not published till so long after the decease of the author, it had been acted as early as February 26, 1591 f. 5. Lust's Dominion; or, the Lascivious Queen, T. 12mo. 1657; 12mo. 1661. * 1593, says the Biographia Dramatica; but Egerton says 1590, and he is supported by the Roxburgh Catalogue. † P. Henslowe was proprietor of the Rose theatre, near the Bankside, Southwark: and the MS. here referred to, is an account-book of his, sometime since discovered at Dulwich College. But on this, and all other occasions where it is mentioned, I beg to be understood, as referring to the copy in Mr. Malone's History of the Stage. ↑ Henslowe, ut supra. Marlowe also joined with Nash in 6. Dido, Queen of Carthage, 4to. 1594 *. And with Day, in 7. The Maiden's Holiday, Com. N.P+. 8. The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, 4to. 1604; 4to. 1616; 4to. 1624; 4to. 1631; 4to. 1663. The first editions of this play are in black letter, and not divided into acts. It is extremely questionable, in my opinion, if in any of these it is given in a genuine uncorrupt state; for it is certain, from the following extract from Henslowe's MS., that it was altered previous. to the date of its first publication: "Lent unto the company, 22 Nov. 1602, to pay unto Wm. Bride and Samuel Rowley, for their adycions in Doctor Fostes, the sum of £4." The last edition is intolerably corrupt; the whole scene at Rome is left out, and one at Constantinople substituted, merely giving an account of the means by which the Turks gained possession of Malta, and copied from The Rich Jew of Malta by this author; another scene has considerable additions; in brief, it is not worth referring to. The play itself has been since variously altered, and presented to the public. The scene at Rhodes and Wittenberg, and a great deal of the plot, is from Camerarius, Wierus, and other writers on magic; and I must not omit to mention, that Edward Alleyn, the celebrated founder of Dulwich College, used to play the principal character in it, as appears from the following passage, in Rowland's Knave of Clubbs, 1611. "The gull gets on a surplice, With a crosse upon his breast; In that manner was he drest." This singular evidence of "the credulous ignorance" which then prevailed, is by no means a favourable speci * "The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage, was completed and published by his friend Thomas Nash, in 1594," says Dr. Warton. It is a very scarce play: at Dr. Wright's sale it brought sixteen, and at the Roxburgh seventeen guineas. + It was one of those destroyed by Mr. Warburton's servant. men of the plays to be submitted to the public in this work; but it was the first in chronological order, and of too much consequence to be passed over altogether. Whoever shall attempt to judge of it by dramatic rule, will find himself baffled in every attempt, and, according to his humour, laugh or censure: but this would be trying a man by an ex post facto law, one that he could not have foreseen, and if he had, would probably never have acknowledged. The unity of time and place are set at all defiance; four and twenty years pass in its representation; and the scene changes with as much facility from Wittenberg to Rome, as the board itself was changed which notified it to the audience*: but for this violation of an arbitrary law, the rich vein of poetry that runs throughout it will amply compensate. Faustus is drawn with the hand of a master; he is a personification of the weakness and worst passions of our nature: ambitious of power, he regards neither the means of possessing it, nor the subject of his authority: a seeker of knowledge beyond the narrow limits of our understanding, he becomes lost in an intellectual chaos. Mephostophilis, and the other characters, are inferior beings. * A board, with the name of the place where the scene was laid, was suspended in front of the old theatres. |