ferings and persecution by an arch-villain. To shew however, that the same strong-braced tone of passionate declamation is kept up, take the speech of Eleazar on refusing the proffered crown:

"What do none rise?

No, no, for kings indeed are Deities.

And who'd not (as the sun) in brightness shine?
To be the greatest is to be divine.

Who

among millions would not be the mightiest ?
To sit in godlike state; to have all eyes
Dazzled with admiration, and all tongues
Shouting loud prayers; to rob every heart
Of love; to have the strength of every arm;
A sovereign's name, why 'tis a sovereign charm.
This glory round about me hath thrown beams:
I have stood upon the top of Fortune's wheel,
And backward turn'd the iron screw of fate.
The destinies have spun a silken thread
About my life; yet thus I cast aside
The shape of majesty, and on my knee
To this Imperial state lowly resign
This usurpation; wiping off your fears
Which stuck so hard upon me."

This is enough to shew the unabated vigour of the author's style. This strain is certainly doing justice to the pride of ambition, and the imputed majesty of kings.

We have heard much of " Marlowe's mighty line," and this play furnishes frequent instances of it. There are a number of single lines that seem

struck out in the heat of a glowing fancy, and leave a track of golden fire behind them. The following are a few that might be given.

"I know he is not dead; I know proud death Durst not behold such sacred majesty."

"Hang both your greedy ears upon my lips,

"

Let them devour my speech, suck in my breath."

"From discontent grows treason,

And on the stalk of treason, death."

*

Tyrants swim safest in a crimson flood."

*

The two following lines

"Oh! I grow dull, and the cold hand of sleep Hath thrust his icy fingers in my breast"

are the same as those in King John—

"And none of you will bid the winter come To thrust his icy fingers in my maw."

And again the Moor's exclamation,

"Now by the proud complexion of my cheeks, Ta'en from the kisses of the amorous sun”

is the same as Cleopatra's―

"But I that am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black”— &c.

Eleazar's sarcasm,

"These dignities,

Like poison, make men swell; this rat's-bane honour,
Oh, 'tis so sweet! they'll lick it till they burst"-

shews the utmost virulence of smothered spleen; and his concluding strain of malignant exultation has been but tamely imitated by Young's Zanga.

"Now tragedy, thou minion of the night,

Rhamnusia's pewfellow*, to thee I'll sing,
Upon a harp made of dead Spanish bones,
The proudest instrument the world affords:
To thee that never blushest, though thy cheeks
Are full of blood, O Saint Revenge, to thee
I consecrate my murders, all my stabs," &c.

It may be worth while to observe, for the sake of the curious, that many of Marlowe's most sounding lines consist of monosyllables, or nearly so. The repetition of Eleazar's taunt to the Cardinal, retorting his own words upon him," Spaniard or Moor, the saucy slave shall die"-may perhaps have suggested Falconbridge's spirited reiteration of the phrase-" And hang a calve's skin on his recreant limbs."

I do not think THE RICH JEW OF MALTA SO characteristic a specimen of this writer's powers.

* This expression seems to be ridiculed by Falstaff.

It has not the same fierce glow of passion or expression. It is extreme in act, and outrageous in plot and catastrophe; but it has not the same vigorous filling up. The author seems to have relied on the horror inspired by the subject, and the national disgust excited against the principal character, to rouse the feelings of the audience: for the rest, it is a tissue of gratuitous, unprovoked, and incredible atrocities, which are committed, one upon the back of the other, by the parties concerned, without motive, passion, or object. There are, notwithstanding, some striking passages in it, as Barabbas's description of the bravo, Philia Borzo*; the relation of his own unaccountable villainies to Ithamore; his rejoicing over his recovered jewels " as the morning lark sings over her young;" and the backwardness he declares in himself to forgive the Christian in

"He sent a shaggy, tattered, staring slave,

That when he speaks, draws out his grisly beard,
And winds it twice or thrice about his ear;
Whose face has been a grind-stone for men's swords:
His hands are hack'd, some fingers cut quite off,
Who when he speaks, grunts like a hog, and looks
Like one that is employ'd in catzerie,

And cross-biting; such a rogue

As is the husband to a hundred whores;

And I by him must send three hundred crowns."

Act IV.

juries that are offered him*,
*. which may have
given the idea of one of Shylock's speeches,
where he ironically disclaims any enmity to the
merchants on the same account. It is perhaps
hardly fair to compare the Jew of Malta with the
Merchant of Venice; for it is evident, that Shake-
spear's genius shews to as much advantage in

*"In spite of these swine-eating Christians
(Unchosen nation, never circumcised;
Such poor villains as were ne'er thought upon,
Till Titus and Vespasian conquer'd us)

Am I become as wealthy as I was.

They hoped my daughter would have been a nun;
But she's at home, and I have bought a house
As great and fair as is the Governor's:
And there, in spite of Malta, will I dwell,
Having Ferneze's hand; whose heart I'll have,
Aye, and his son's too, or it shall go hard.

I am not of the tribe of Levi, I,
That can so soon forget an injury.

We Jews can fawn like spaniels when we please ;
And when we grin we bite; yet are our looks

As innocent and harmless as a lamb's.

I learn'd in Florence how to kiss my hand,
Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog,
And duck as low as any bare-foot Friar:
Hoping to see them starve upon a stall,
Or else be gather'd for in our synagogue,
That when the offering bason comes to me,
Even for charity I may spit into it."

7