not but be struck with the high reputation which he acquired in the age in which he lived. He is the greatest name on the theatrical roll before Shakspeare. He rose above all his predecessors and contemporaries in vigor of imagination and originality of conception, and the meed of praise was bestowed upon him unsparingly. There was no other standard with which he could be compared, than the productions which had appeared before him; and the result could not, with those who had the faculty of discrimination, be otherwise than unqualified eulogium. If we put in an exception in favour of Peele, he was the first dramatic writer who sounded the depths of the human heart, and discovered the rocks and quicksands of passion beneath the surface; and in searching the great deep, he brought up a profusion of the pearls and precious gems of poetry which are found therein. He seems to have belonged to a different race, as if the giants of old were renewed upon the earth. The stars which twinkled before his rising "hid their diminished heads" as soon as he appeared above the horizon. But he was reckless on what he spent his strength, and sometimes condescended to fight with phantoms, or buffet the air. Even in these extravagancies, he displays his superior prowess. His chief characters are all rife with the busy stirring spirit of intellect. They command our respect, notwithstanding their crimes," magnificent though in ruins." There is little of the romantic cast in them-little of what is gallant, and generous, and gay-few of those flowers of better feeling, which spring sometimes out of the darkest thickets of human passion, and shew the seeds of excellence sprinkled in our nature. With the exception of Maria in Lust's Dominion, we have none of the engaging pictures of the gentler sex with which the dramas of Shakspeare abound. Marlowe chose rather to pourtray the sterner passions of man; to mark out the more rugged projections of his character. Edward the Second, however, does not belong to this class. The weak and despicable character of that monarch is merged in the pity and terror excited by the scenes of his abdication and his death, which leave an impression on the mind not easily to be erased.

Edward's grief is altogether selfish. He was not, like Richard the Second, "doubly divorc'd" by his enemies; he had himself been the cause of one divorce-from his wife. We have therefore nothing of the tender interest which is diffused over the parting scene of Richard and his queen, about to return to France;

"From whence, set forth in pomp, She came adorned hither like sweet May, Sent back like Hallowmas."

The spirit of Edward is entirely broken-his heart is worn threadbare by his sufferings-he has not the power to resist his murderers, and, if he had, he seems as if he would want the courage to do it. Richard, on the contrary, defends himself royally, and dies bravely. In the closing scene of Edward the Second, however, there is more heart-rending pathos than in that of Richard. If we have less respect for Edward, we have more compassion. If we feel a want of the chaster writing of Shakspeare, we must allow that Marlowe in this scene bears a noble comparison with him; and that alone speaks a volume of praise.

Marlowe, at the same time that he went beyond all preceding authors in the representation of genuine passion, carried "the full and heightened style" which distinguished the dramatists of the day to its highest pitch of extravagance. His Tamburlaine, which was probably his earliest production, is the ne plus ultra of this style of writing. We cannot conceive, that any thing could possibly go beyond it; and yet the printer tells us, that he has "purposelie omitted and left out some fond and frivolous jestures, digressing, and in his opinion, farre unmeete for the matter." With great deference to the printer, we do not know how this could well be. It is proper, however, to mention, that doubts have been entertained of its having been written by Marlowe. It is attributed to him on the authority of Thomas Heywood; and Langbaine remarks, that if it were not for such authority, he should not believe it to be his, "it being true what an ingenious author said, that whoever was the author, he might e'en keep it to himself secure from plagiary." Independent of the sanction of Heywood, we are of opinion, that the play affords intrinsic evidence of being written by the same hand as the Jew of Malta, the Massacre of Paris, and Lust's Dominion, whose genuineness have not been questioned. There is the same over-richness of imagery, the same amplitude and pomp of expression, the same fullness and stateliness of versification. It is exceeded, however, (as indeed all his plays are) in numerous harmony, by Lust's Dominion.

The mighty Tamburlaine, whose conquests and butcheries form the subject of the two parts of this drama, is a mighty tragical fellow—a right royal robber and most kingly murderer, as ever elevated himself in a red buskin above mere men. He is a sort of demi-god, whose mouth enounces thunder, whose right hand wields the destructive lightning, and on whose brow, death sits in ambush to destroy. He is one

"Who holds the fates bound fast in iron chains,

And with his hand turns fortune's wheels about."

He is both heathen and Christian," the scourge of God," and

the minion of Jupiter, whose protecting arm he sometimes acknowledges; whom he occasionally condescends to imitate, and now and then dares to threaten. He marches on from battle to battle, from conquest to conquest, like the God of War or "thundering Jupiter;" from Scythia to Persia, from Persia to Turkey, and from Turkey to Egypt,-all in the first part. We find him in the second part subduing Natolia, Trebizon, Jerusalem, Syria; encaging the Emperor of the Turks; bridling and driving in his chariot the pampered jades of Asia,-to wit, the Kings of Trebizon and Syria; stabbing his son, because he is not so bloody-minded as his father; sacking towns; slaughtering men, women, and children, by thousands; until, at length, he is attacked by disease, the vanguard of the supreme conqueror, Death, at whose approach he becomes desperately enraged,-threatens to

"march against the powers of Heaven,

And set black streamers in the firmament,
To signify the slaughter of the Gods;"

and bids a messenger

"haste to the Court of Jove,

Will him to send Apollo hither straight

To cure me; or I'll fetch him down myself."

But all in vain; for after vaunting and scolding until he is exhausted, Great Tamburlaine," the scourge of God and terror of the world," dies.

His followers and enemies all talk in the same elevated strain. Some of them, indeed, in due season,

"Will batter turrets with their manly fists,
And make whole cities caper in the air."

The offspring of the wit, it would appear, like its parent, is subject to disease; and after examining, with a little attention, the pathognomic symptoms which characterise the dramas of Tamburlaine, it may be pronounced, with certainty, that they are afflicted with mania or furious madness. Furious madness, for instance, is distinguished by a peculiar wildness of the countenance, rolling and glistening of the eyes, grinding of the teeth, loud roarings, violent exertions of strength, incoherent discourses, unaccountable malice to certain persons-all which will be found to correspond in a remarkable manner with the symptoms manifested in this offspring of Marlowe's brain. We could produce examples answering this description; but as they would extend this article beyond its proposed limits, those of

our readers, who have not read the play, must be content with the specimens quoted, and take our word for the rest.

This, bad as it is, is preferable to the melancholic madness of tragedy, with its ahs! and ohs! and all the interminable train of puling interjections which distinguish some more modern productions, or the hallucinatio maniacalis, or rabies asinina, caused by an imaginary or mistaken idea of the unfortunate victim being possessed of poetical genius;-an idea which demonstrates the opinion of medical writers, that persons of weak intellects are not subject to madness, to be erroneous. Tamburlaine, however, though a madman, is no fool; the distinction between which is well drawn by Locke, who says, "the difference between a madman and a fool is, that the former reasons justly from false data; and the latter erroneously from just data."

We shall now proceed with our extracts, premising that we have selected such as are uttered at comparatively lucid intervals, or, at least, when the disorder is not at its access.

The person of the hero is thus pourtrayed:

"Of stature tall, and straightly fashioned,
Like his desire lift upward and divine,
So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit,
Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear
Old Atlas' burthen;-twixt his manly brows,
A pearl more worth than all the world is plac'd,
Wherein by curious sovereignty of art
Are fix'd his piercing instruments of sight,
Whose fiery circles bear encompass'd

A heaven of heavenly bodies in their spheres,
That guides his steps and'actions to the throne,
Where honour sits invested royally:

Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion,
Thirsting with sovereignty and love of arms,
His lofty brows in folds do figure death,
And in their smoothness amity and life;
About them hangs a knot of amber hair,
Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles' was,
On which the breath of Heaven delights to play,
Making it dance with wanton majesty.—
His arms and fingers, long, and snowy-white,
Betokening valour and excess of strength ;-
In ev'ry part proportion'd like the man
Should make the world subdued to Tamburlaine."

We are constrained to add his own description of the

daughter of the Soldan of Egypt, divine Zenocrate, whom he first captures, and then marries.

"Zenocrate, the loveliest maid alive,

Fairer than rocks of pearl and precious stone,
The only paragon of Tamburlaine,

Whose eyes are brighter than the lamps of heaven,
And speech more pleasant than sweet harmony;
That with thy looks canst clear the darken'd sky,
And calm the rage of thund'ring Jupiter,

Sit down by her, adorned with my crown,

As if thou wert the empress of the world."

Tamburlaine's speech, wherein he assigns his reasons for aspiring to the throne of Persia, is written with some degree of force.

"The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown,
That caus'd the eldest son of heav'nly Ops
To thrust his doting father from his chair,
And place himself in the imperial heaven,
Mov'd me to manage arms against thy state.
What better precedent than mighty Jove?
Nature that form'd us of four elements,
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds ;-
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wond'rous architecture of the world,
And measure ev'ry wand'ring planet's course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest,
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,

The sweet fruition of an earthly crown."

To this may be added, the intercession of the Egyptian virgins for the devoted city of Damascus, besieged by mighty Tamburlaine; which, though tainted with the common infirmity of the dramatis personæ, has yet a touch of feeling in it, and the only one that has, unless we except the succeeding quotation.

"Most happy king and emp'ror of the earth,
Image of honour and nobility,

For whom the pow'rs divine have made the world,
And on whose throne the holy graces sit;