the amorous glance of an eye can settle an idle thought in the heart: no, no, it is children's game, a life for sempsters and scholars; the one, pricking in clouts, have nothing else to think on; the other, picking fancies out of books, have little else to marvel at. Go, Apelles, take with you your Campaspe; Alexander is cloyed with looking on that, which thou wonderest at.

Apelles. Thanks to your Majesty on bended knee; you have honoured Appelles.

paspe.

Campaspe. Thanks with bowed heart; you have blest Cam[Exeunt. Alexander. Page, go warn Clytus and Parmenio, and the other lords, to be in readiness; let the trumpet sound, strike up the drum, and I will presently into Persia. How now, Hephestion, is Alexander able to resist love as he list?

Hephestion. The conquering of Thebes was not so honourable as the subduing of these thoughts.

Alexander. It were a shame Alexander should desire to command the world, if he could not command himself. But come, let us go. And, good Hephestion, when all the world is won, and every country is thine and mine, either find me out another to subdue, or on my word, I will fall in love.”

Marlowe is a name that stands high, and almost first in this list of dramatic worthies. He was a little before Shakespear's time*, and has a marked character both from him and the rest. There is a lust of power in his writings, a hunger and thirst after unrighteousness, a glow of the imagination, unhallowed by any thing but its own energies. His thoughts burn within him

* He died about 1594.159.

like a furnace with bickering flames; or throwing out black smoke and mists, that hide the dawn of genius, or like a poisonous mineral, corrode the heart. His Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, though an imperfect and unequal performance, is his greatest work. Faustus himself is a rude sketch, but it is a gigantic one. This character may be considered as a personification of the pride of will and eagerness of curiosity, sublimed beyond the reach of fear and remorse. He is hurried away, and, as it were, devoured by a tormenting desire to enlarge his knowledge to the utmost bounds of nature and art, and to extend his power with his knowledge. He would realise all the fictions of a lawless imagination, would solve the most subtle speculations of abstract reason; and for this purpose, sets at defiance all mortal consequences, and leagues himself with demoniacal power, with "fate and metaphysical aid." The idea of witchcraft and necromancy, once the dread of the vulgar and the darling of the visionary recluse, seems to have had its origin in the restless tendency of the human mind, to conceive of and aspire to more than it can atchieve by natural means, and in the obscure apprehension that the gratification of this extravagant and unauthorised desire, can only be attained by the

sacrifice of all our ordinary hopes, and better prospects to the infernal agents that lend themselves to its accomplishment. Such is the founda

tion of the present story. Faustus, in his impatience to fulfil at once and for a moment, for a few short years, all the desires and conceptions of his soul, is willing to give in exchange his soul and body to the great enemy of mankind. Whatever he fancies, becomes by this means present to his sense: whatever he commands, is done. He calls back time past, and anticipates the future: the visions of antiquity pass before him, Babylon in all its glory, Paris and Enone: all the projects of philosophers, or creations of the poet pay tribute at his feet: all the delights of fortune, of ambition, of pleasure, and of learning are centered in his person; and from a short-lived dream of supreme felicity and drunken power, he sinks into an abyss of darkness and perdition. This is the alternative to which he submits; the bond which he signs with his blood As the outline of the character is grand and daring, the execution is abrupt and fearful. The thoughts are vast and irregular; and the style halts and staggers under them, "with uneasy steps;"-" such footing found the sole of unblest feet." There is a little fustian and incongruity of metaphor now and then, which is not very in

jurious to the subject. It is time to give a few passages in illustration of this account. He thus opens his mind at the beginning:

"How am I glutted with conceit of this?

Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please?
Resolve me of all ambiguities?

Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
I'll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,

And search all corners of the new-found world,
For pleasant fruits and princely delicates.
I'll have them read me strange philosophy,
And tell the secrets of all foreign kings:
I'll have them wall all Germany with brass,
And make swift Rhine circle fair Wittenberg;
I'll have them fill the public schools with skill,
Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad;
I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,
And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,
And reign sole king of all the provinces:
Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war
Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp bridge,
I'll make my servile spirits to invent.

Enter Valdes and Cornelius.

Come, German Valdes, and Cornelius,

And make me blest with your sage conference.

Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius,

Know that your words have won me at the last,
To practise magic and concealed arts.
Philosophy is odious and obscure ;
Both Law and Physic are for petty wits;
"Tis magic, magic, that hath ravish'd me.

Then, gentle friends, aid me in this attempt;
And I, that have with subtile syllogisms
Gravell❜d the pastors of the German church,
And made the flow'ring pride of Wittenberg
Swarm to my problems, as th' infernal spirits
On sweet Musæus when he came to hell;
Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,

Whose shadow made all Europe honour him.

Valdes. These books, thy wit, and our experience

Shall make all nations to canonize us.

As Indian Moors obey their Spanish lords,

So shall the Spirits of every element

Be always serviceable to us three.

Like lions shall they guard us when we please;
Like Almain Rutters with their horsemen's staves,
Or Lapland giants trotting by our sides:
Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids,
Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
Than have the white breasts of the Queen of Love.
From Venice they shall drag whole argosies,
And from America the golden fleece,

That yearly stuffs old Philip's treasury* ;
If learned Faustus will be resolute.

Faustus. As resolute am I in this

As thou to live, therefore object it not."

In his colloquy with the fallen angel, he shews the fixedness of his determination :

"What is great Mephostophilis so passionate
For being deprived of the joys of heaven?
Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude,
And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess.”

* An anachronism.