Persian effeminacy is so piquantly contrasted with the hardihood of Greece." Before leaving Tamburlaine a word must be said about Marlowe's introduction of blank verse. Unrhymed verse of ten syllables had been employed both for epic and dramatic purposes before Marlowe's time. The Earl of Surrey, in his translation of Books ii. and iv. of Virgil's Æneid, had been the first to transplant the metre from Italy. Surrey was a charming sonneteer and graceful lyrist; but it would be absurd to claim that his translations from Virgil afford the slightest hint of the capabilities of blank verse. It is impossible to select six consecutive lines that satisfy the ear. Without freedom or swing the procession of languid lines limps feebly forward. When we come to Gorboduc, the first dramatic piece in which rhyme was discarded, the case is no better. Little advance, or rather none at all, has been made in rendering the verse more flexible. Misled by classical usage, all writers before Marlowe aimed at composing blank verse on the model of Greek iambics. Confusing accent with quantity, they regarded accentuated and unaccentuated syllables as respectively long and short. Hence the aim was to end each line with a strongly accentuated syllable, immediately preceded by one that was unaccentuated; in the rest of the line unaccentuated and accentuated syllables occurred alternately. Then, to complete the monotony, at the end of each verse came a pause, which effectually excluded all freedom of movement. This state of things Marlowe abolished. At a touch of the master's hand the heavy gaited verses took symmetry and shape. That the blank verse of Tamburlaine left much to be desired in the way of variety is, of course, undeniable. Its sonorous music is fitted rather for epic than dramatic purposes. The swelling rotundity of the italicised lines in the following passage recalls the magnificent rhythm of Milton: "The galleys and those pilling brigandines That yearly sail to the Venetian Gulf, And hover in the Straits for Christians' wreck, Shall lie at anchor in the Isle Asant Until the Persian fleet and men-of-war, Sailing along the oriental sea, Have fetched about the Indian continent Even from Persepolis to Mexico." Later, Marlowe learned to breathe sweetness and softness into his "mighty line,"—to make the measure that had thundered the threats of Tamburlaine falter the sobs of a broken heart. On the authority of a memorandum in Coxeter's MSS., Warton stated that in the year 1587, the date to which Tamburlaine is usually assigned, Marlowe translated Coluthus' Rape of Helen into English rhyme. This translation, if it ever existed, has not come down. The version of the Amores must belong to a somewhat earlier date. Dyce conjectures that it was written as a college exercise (surely not at the direction of the college authorities). It is a spirited translation, though the inaccuracies are manifold; in licentiousness, I am compelled to add, it is a match for the original. Its popularity was great, and-printed in company with Sir John Davies' Epigrams -it passed through several editions, which are all undated, and bear the imprint " Middleborugh" or "Middlebourgh" (in Holland). In June 1599, by order of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Marlowe's translation (together with Marston's Pygmalion, Hall's Satires, and Cutwode's Caltha Foetarum) was committed to the flames; but it continued to be published abroad, and some editions, with the imprint Middleborough on the title-page, were surreptitiously printed at London.1 The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus was probably composed soon after Tamburlaine. In February 1588–9 a "ballad of the life and death of Doctor Faustus the great Cungerer' was entered in the Stationers' Registers. It is probable that this ballad (which is perhaps identical with the Ballad of Faustus2 preserved in the Roxburghe Collection) was founded on the play. No mention of the play occurs in Henslowe's Diary earlier than September 30, 1594, although the entries go back to February 1591-2. As the profits from the performance were unusually high 3 on that occasion, we may conjecture that the play had been revived after a considerable interval. A German critic, Dr. J. H. Albers, suggests that the reference to the Prince of Parma as 1 For full bibliograpical particulars, see Vol. III. p. 104. iij xijs." (Henslowe's Diary, ed. J. P. Collier, p. 42.) Between September 1594 and October 1597 the Diary contains notices of twenty-three performances of Faustus. At the last performance, interest in the play having evaporated, the receipts were nil. persecutor of the Netherlands, points to events that took place before 1590; for in that year the Prince, who died in December 1592, was chiefly occupied with the affairs of France. When he seeks in the lines (i. 80-83), "I'll have them fly to India for gold," &c. an allusion to the banquet given to the Queen on board ship by Cavendish after his return in the autumn of 1588 from a voyage round the world, Dr. Albers' argument seems somewhat strained. But internal evidence amply warrants us in assigning a later date to Faustus than to Tamburlaine. There is more of passion in Faustus, and less of declamation; the early exuberance has been pruned; the pathos is more searching and subtle; the versification, too, is freer,-more dramatic. Faustus was entered in the Stationers' Books on January 7th, 1600-1, but the earliest extant edition is the quarto of 1604, which was republished with very slight alterations in 1609.1 An edition with very numerous additions and alterations appeared in 1616. Even the first edition gives us the play in an interpolated state; for no sane critic would maintain that the comic scenes belong entirely to Marlowe. One instance of a certain interpolation was pointed out by Dyce. In scene xi. there is an allusion to Dr. Lopez "Mass, Dr. Lopus was never such a doctor." Now 1 Hazlitt mentions an edition of 1611. Mr. Frederick Locker has an unique edition of 1619. (I owe my knowledge of these editions to the exhaustive "Bibliography of Marlowe's Faustus," by Mr. Heinemann in the Bibliographer.) the doctor was hanged for treasonable practices in June 1594. He did not come into notoriety until after Marlowe's death, and any allusion to him before 1594 would have been unintelligible to the audience. From this one passage it is plain that the first quarto does not represent the play exactly as it came from Marlowe's hand. But on the strength of internal evidence we might go further, and say that the comic scenes are in no instance by Marlowe. As far as possible, it is well to avoid theorising, but I must state my conviction that Marlowe never attempted to write a comic scene. The Muses had dowered him with many rare qualities— nobility and tenderness and pity-but the gift of humour, the most grateful of all gifts, was withheld. To excite "tears and laughter for all time" was given to Shakespeare alone; but all the Elizabethan dramatists, if we except Ford and Cyril Tourneur, combined to some extent humour with tragic power. The Elizabethan stage rarely tolerated any tragedy that was unrelieved by scenes of mirth. It was in vain to plead the example of classical usage, to point out that the Attic tragedians never jested. Fortunately the "understanding" pittites were not learned in the classical tongues; they applauded when they were satisfied, and they "mewed" when the play dragged. As the populace in Horace's time clamoured "media inter carmina," for a bear or a boxer, so an Elizabethan audience, when it felt bored or scared, insisted on being enlivened by a fool or a clown. After a little fuming and fretting the poets accepted the conditions; they soon found that the demand of the audience |