In whose sweet person is compriz'd the sum
Of nature's skill, and heavenly majesty ;
Pity our plights; O pity poor Damascus ;
Pity old
age, within whose silver hairs
Honour and rev'rence evermore have reign'd;
Pity the marriage bed, where many a lord,
In prime and glory of his loving joy,
Embraceth now, with tears of ruth and blood,
The jealous body of his fearful wife,

Whose cheeks and hearts so punish'd with conceit,
To think thy puissant, never-stayed arm,
Will part their bodies and prevent their souls
From heavens of comfort yet their age might bear,
Now wax all pale and wither'd to the death,
As well for grief our ruthless governor
Has thus refus'd the mercy of thy hand,
(Whose sceptre angels kiss and furies dread,)
As for their liberties, their loves, or lives;
Oh then for these, and such as we ourselves,
For us, for infants, and for all our bloods,
That never nourish'd thought against thy rule,
Pity, oh pity, sacred emperor,

The prostrate service of this wretched town."

The unrelenting Scythian, however, is not to be satisfied with other tears than those of blood; and the virgins are slaughtered by his high command, and hung upon the walls of Damascus.

Tamburlaine is besieging the father of Zenocrate, and attempts a slight expression of regret thereat.

66 Ah, fair Zenocrate!-divine Zenocrate !-
(Fair is too foul an epithet for thee,)
That in thy passion for thy country's love,
And fear to see thy kingly father's harm,
With hair dishevell'd wip'st thy wať'ry cheeks;
And, like to Flora in her morning pride,
Shaking her silver tresses in the air,

Rain'st on the earth resolved pearl in showers,
And sprinklest sapphires on thy shining face,
Where beauty, mother to the Muses, sits
And comments volumes, with her iv'ry pen,
Taking instructions from thy flowing eyes;
Eyes, when that Ebena steps to heaven
In silence, of thy solemn evening's walk,
Making the mantle of the richest night,

The moon, the planets, and the meteors, light;
These angels, in their chrystal armours fight
A doubtful battle with my tempted thoughts
For Egypt's freedom, and the Soldan's life;
His life that so consumes Zenocrate,
Whose sorrows lay more siege unto my soul,
Than all my army to Damascus' walls:
And neither Persia's sovereign, nor the Turk,
Troubled my senses with conceit of foil,
So much by much as doth Zenocrate.
What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then?
If all the pens that ever poets held

Had fed the feeling of their master's thoughts,
And ev'ry sweetness that inspir'd their hearts,
Their minds, and muses on admired themes;
If all the heavenly quintessence they 'still
From their immortal flowers of poesy,
Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit;
If these had made one poem's period,
And all combin'd in beauty's worthiness,

Yet should there hover in their restless heads

One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest."

We imagine, that this was not all pretence, as he deigns to give the Soldan his life.

The Massacre at Paris is, as one might expect, indeed a tragedy a succession of assassinations and murders, without plot, interest, or invention. It is short, and not divided into acts. There is one, and, in our judgment, but one passage worth extracting. It is part of a soliloquy of the Duke of Guise, and is written with considerable energy.

"Now, Guise, begin those deep-engender'd thoughts
To burst abroad, those never-dying flames,

Which cannot be extinguish'd but by blood.
Oft have I levell'd, and at last have learn'd
That peril is the chiefest way to happiness;
And resolution, honour's fairest aim.
What glory is there in a common good,
That hangs for ev'ry peasant to achieve?
That like I best, that flies beyond my reach,
Set me to scale the high Pyramides,
And thereon set the diadem of France;
I'll either rend it with my nails to nought,

Or mount the top with my aspiring wings,
Although my downfall be the deepest hell.
For this, I wake, when others think I sleep;
For this, I wait, that scorn attendance else;
For this, my quenchless thirst, whereon I build,
Hath often pleaded kindred to the king;

For this, this head, this heart, this hand, and sword,
'Contrives, imagines, and fully executes

Matters of import aimed at by many,

Yet understood by none.

For this, hath heaven engender'd me of earth;
For this, the earth sustains my body's weight;
And with this weight I'll counterpoise a crown,
Or with seditions weary all the world.
For this, from Spain the stately Catholic
Sends Indian gold to coin me French ecus;
For this, have I' a largess from the Pope,
A pension, and á dispensation too;
And by that privilege to work upon,
My policy hath framed religion.
Religion! O Diavolo! Fie!

I am asham'd, however that I seem,
To think a word of such a simple sound,

Of so great matter should be made the ground."

The play of the Rich Jew of Malta, which was published by Thomas Heywood in 1633, was formerly held in great esteem, and it has been more recently thought worth while to revive it on the stage. We have sought in vain for any intrinsic merit, which could induce Heywood, himself an excellent dramatist, to become the editor of it. He probably assumed this character out of respect to Marlowe, whom he terms the best of poets, and to Edward Allen, who played Barabas the Jew, whom he calls the best of actors.

There are but a few grains of poetry sprinkled through it; no wit, no interest, nothing with which we can hold sympathy; nothing to please the imagination, or satisfy the judgment. It is the cater cousin of Tamburlaine, full of daggers, poisonings, and bloodshed. The prologue is spoken by Machiavel, and it seems to have been Marlowe's intention to represent a sound politician of his school, one who could commit the greatest number of atrocious crimes with a cunning dexterity, which should keep him on the windy side of the law for the longest space of time. Being a Jew, he must necessarily hate Christians; being an 'extortioner, he becomes the subject of extortion; and must therefore bend all his thoughts and actions to

revenge, not on the individuals who had aggrieved him, but on the whole species. After all, he is but a bungling Machiavel, who is guilty of the most undiscriminating manslaughters, and is, at last, caught in his own springe.

A Jew, and an idolatrous worshipper of Mammon, he sees a kingdom's treasure ravished from him with little more than a transient pang. His wealth, indeed, is boundless-he has a mine in his own house-a little El Dorado. He has no more regard for a Jew than a Christian-neither the affections of a father nor a man-he is a lump of hatred and malice—an impersonation of evil-a mere devil.

One or two of the passages shew the rich and overwrought enchasing of our author's hand, and sparkle like diamonds set in lead. Take the best, where he heaps treasure on treasure with most imaginative prodigality.

"Fie; what a trouble 'tis to count this trash!
Well fare the Arabians, who so richly pay
The things they traffic for with wedge of gold,
Whereof a man may easily in a day

Tell that which may maintain him all his life.
The needy groom, that never fingered groat,
Would make a miracle of thus much coin;
But he whose steel-barr'd coffers are cramm'd full,
And all his life-time hath been tired,
Wearing his fingers' ends with telling it,
Would in his age be loath to labour so,
And for a pound to sweat himself to death.
Give me the merchants of the Indian mines,
That trade in metal of the purest mould;
The wealthy Moor, that in the Eastern rocks
Without controul can pick his riches up,
And in his house heap pearl like pebble-stones;
Receive them free, and sell them by the weight,
Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts,
Jacinths, hard topas, grass-green emeralds,
Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds,
And seld seen costly stones of so great price,
As one of them, indifferently rated,
And of a carrect of this quantity,
May serve, in peril of calamity,

To ransom great kings from captivity.

This is the ware wherein consists my wealth;

And thus methinks should men of judgment frame
Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade,
And as their wealth increaseth, so inclose
Infinite riches in a little room."

The house of Barabas having been seized by the Governor of Malta, and converted into a monastery, he persuades his daughter, Abigail, to pretend conversion to Christianity, and become a nun, that he may obtain the possession of part of his treasure which is hid there. She does so, and agrees to meet him at night.

"Thus, like the sad presaging raven, that tolls
The sick man's passport in her hollow beak,
And in the shadow of the silent night
Doth shake contagion from her sable wings,
Vex'd and tormented runs poor Barabas,
With fatal curses, towards these Christians.
The uncertain pleasures of swift-footed time
Have ta'en their flight, and left me in despair,
And of my former riches rests no more
But bare remembrance, like a soldier's scar,
That has no further comfort for his maim.

*

Now I remember those old women's words,

Who, in my wealth, would tell me winter's tales,
And speak of spirits and ghosts that glide by night
About the place where treasure hath been hid;
And now methinks that I am one of those:
For whilst I live, here lives my soul's sole hope,
And when I die, here shall my spirit walk."

Although these plays of Marlowe are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, they slide glibly off the tongue-they fill the ear, if they do not satisfy the mind, and might therefore pass current with many an honest and well meaning man for excellent good tragedies. It answered the object of the author in raising the wonderment of the groundlings,

"Pleas'd with a rattle, tickl'd with a straw."

The mere naked reality, the consummation of an event, was what our early dramatic authors chiefly aimed to represent― they depended too much on this, and too little on the apprehension of evil, which, from its very vagueness and uncertainty, excites a thousand tremors which the plain fact destroys, and leaves nothing for us to regard but the bare and withered trunk of humanity, deprived of the pith and heart which supplied it with life and vigour. Hence we find the actual infliction of pain, the penalty of death, so frequently introduced as the only thing needful to produce a tragical effect. This is the