men as he rode on, an arrow suddenly whistled by him from a thicket on the hill-side above the road. The party immediately halted, and shot altogether, towards the spot whence the shaft issued; and it so occurred, that one of their arrows killed the person who had interrupted them, and he happened to be the very murderer who had eluded their vigilance in Chirkeland. "Soe God revenged that wicked murder," says the historian, "by the death of every one of the three brethren." But this did not end the quarrel,-it merely aggravated it; for a short time after this adventure, Jevan ab Robert had occasion to attend the assizes at Caernarvon, with the greater part of his retainers; leaving only in the house his wife and her domestics, with some desperate red-hands, who had sought his protection," as the manner then was;"—and whom he probably found no unwelcome addition to his band. His old enemy, Howel ab Rice, resolved to hazard the apprehension of these criminals, and "bring them to Caernarvon to be hanged,—for there was none of them but was outlawed for murther;"—in return for the vengeance inflicted upon the three murderers by Jevan. For this purpose, he summoned his trustiest friends to his aid, and procured the assistance of a celebrated freebooter of the times, named David ab Jenkin, who was also a kinsman of Howel. These worthy confederates succeeded in reaching their enemy's house without being discovered, and immediately commenced the assault; but they were vigorously resisted by the inmates, who, on this occasion, as on many others, "bestirred themselves handsomely." It happened, moreover, that Jevan's wife-the same lady, be it remembered, who threw the handstay of the bridge at her brother's head-stood at the fire-side, "lookeing on her mayde boyling of worte to make metheglyn;" and, unlike the timid and tender ladies of these degenerate days, she bestowed the seething liquor so liberally among the assailants, that they were forced back, and ultimately compelled to raise the siege. David ab Jenkin, the freebooter, strenuously advised his kinsman ab Rice to take Jevan ab Robert for his brother-in-law, neighbour, and friend; "For," said he, “I will not be one with you to assault his house when he is at home, ́seeing I find such hot resistance in his absence." This advice, however, was not followed, and "dayly bickerings, too long to be written, passed betweene soe neare and hatefull neighbours. In the end, the plague, which commonly it from Traethbach, or the lesser tract, which is the road from Penmorfa in Caernarvonshire to Harlech in Merionethshire. These sands are not commonly passable till the tide has ebbed nearly three hours. followeth warre and desolation, after the Earle of Pembroke's expedition, tooke away Jevan ab Robert, at his house of Keselgyfarch, in the flower of his age, being thirty-one yeares of age, -whose death ended the strife of these houses." In this licentious and unworthy manner did the days of the Welshmen of yore glide on; and dark and dreary, indeed, must have been that period, when crimes of the deepest die were thus perpetrated in open and daring defiance of all laws human and divine. The union of Wales with England, however, was the first step towards the abolition of these gloomy and disgraceful practices; and the hitherto unruly mountaineers soon began to experience those benefits, which the judicious and salutary measures consequent on this union were so well calculated to confer. C It was by the wise and efficient policy of uniting Wales to England, and by admitting the Welsh, at the same time, to a full participation in the laws and privileges of the English, that the English monarch effected the subversion of the turbulent contumacy of the natives of Cambria; and it was by the same policy that the Welsh secured to themselves that tranquility which they now so pre-eminently enjoy. And, in contrasting their present manners with those of their ungovernable forefathers, during the tempestuous times which we have noticed, may they not justly say with Robert Vaughan, the venerable antiquary of Hengwrt?" We must confess that we have reason to bless God for his mercy to us, in our happy establishment under one monarch; and we may well say, we were conquered to our gain, and undone to our advantage." ART. X.-Tamburlaine the Great, who from a Scythian Shep heard by his rare and wonderful conquestes became a most puissant and mightie Monarch: And for his tyrannie and terrour in Warre, was tearmed The Scourge of God. The first part of the two tragical discourses, as they were sundrie times most stately shewed upon stages in the Citie of London. By the right honorable the Lord Admirall his servantes. Now newly published. Lond. 1592. Black letter. The second part of the bloody conquests of mightie Tamburlaine, with his impassioned fury for the death of his lady and love, faire Zenocrate: his forme of exhortation and discipline to his three Sons, and the maner of his owne death. 1593. The Massacre at Paris, with the death of the Duke of Guise; as it was plaide by the right honorable the Lord high Admirall his servantes. Written by Christopher Marlow. Lond. [no date.] The troublesome raigne and lamentable death of Edward the second King of England, with the tragical fall of proud Mortimer, and also the life and death of Piers Gaveston, the greate Earle of Cornewall, and mighty favorite of King Edward the second; as it was publickly acted by the Right Honorable the Earle of Pembroke his servantes. Written by Chri. Marlow, Gent. Lond. 1598. The tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Written by Ch. Marlow. Lond. 1616. The famous tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta, as it was played before the King and Queene in his Majesty's theatre at White Hall, by her Majestie's servants at the Cock-pit. Written by Christopher Marlo. Lond. 1633. Lust's Dominion, or the Lascivious Queen. A Tragedie, Written by Christofer Marloe, Gent. London, 1657.. Although that "pure elemental wit, Christopher Marlowe," has recently become better known than the writers whom we have considered in our preceding numbers, it is necessary, in order to complete the series of articles on the " Early English Drama," that we should devote a few pages to the consideration of his merits. He was born, as it is conjectured, about the year 1562, and came to a tragical and premature end before 1593. The manner of his death is differently related, and a degree of obscurity hangs over his life, as well as the termination of it. It has also been affirmed, that he was an atheist, and "not only in word blasphemed the Trinity, but also, as it was credibly reported, wrote divers discourses against it, affirming our Saviour to be a deceiver, and Moses to be a conjurer; the holy Bible to contain only idle stories, and all religion but a device of policy." Such is the nature of the accusation brought against Marlowe an accusation which, when considered, rests on a very slender foundation. It appears to have originated with Beard, who states it in his Theatre of God's Judgments, from which it was transcribed by Anthony Wood, and has now become an accredited verity. Nay, some have not only received this assertion without examination, but in their laudable zeal for religion have denounced the unfortunate poet in still stronger terms of reprobation. Bishop Tanner calls him 66 The atheista et blasphemus horrendus; and Hawkins, in a note to The Return from Parnassus, in which Marlowe's name occurs, says, that he was an excellent poet, but of abandoned morals, and of the most impious principles; a complete libertine, and an avowed atheist." These are hard words, and one should like to see some authority for them. Neither the originator nor the propagator of these asseverations, however, pretend, that they have seen even one of these several discourses. story rests entirely upon the authority of Beard, who goes no further than saying, that " it was credibly reported." If Marlowe had really written several discourses, it might reasonably be expected, that one of them would, by some chance or other, have been preserved, unless some puritanical croaker, like Beard, had adopted the same summary mode of extirpating his opinions, as Tamburlaine does with the Koran and other Mahometan books; or, at least that some extract from them would have survived. But we do not hear of a single individual who had readnot one who had ever seen them. So that the above quotation affords no proof whatever of Marlowe holding the opinions imputed to him. Nor can any such conclusion be drawn from what Robert Greene says in his address to Marlowe, in the passage quoted in a preceding number,-" Wonder not that Greene, who hath. Isaid with thee (like the fool) in his heart, there is no God, should now give glory unto his greatnesse ;"-all that can be collected from this passage is, that Marlowe, by a life of pleasure and indulgence, shewed, that his heart was not impressed with a proper sense of religion. Greene was his intimate friend, and must have known if he had promulged atheistical opinions, or written the discourses ascribed to him; and with such a knowledge it is not likely that he should have omitted to mention them, when he was sending his warning voice from a sick bed. But Greene says the same thing of himself as he does of Marlowe; and we are not aware that he was ever accused of being an atheist, although it has fallen to the lot of few to have such a rancorous enemy as he had—one who collected, with the most curious industry, every petty story that might blemish his character. Besides, he addresses Lodge and Peele in a not very dissimilar strain; and, indeed, he explains his meaning, when he conjures them all to "delight not as he had done in irreligious oaths, to despise drunkenness, flie lust, abhor those epicures, whose loose life hath made religion loathsome to your ears. It is true, Greene uses tolerably strong language, and it is said to have given offence to Marlowe. But that he was a free liver, given to the pleasurable enjoyments of life, perhaps in an inordinate degree, must be conceded; and that he came to an unhappy death cannot be denied. Both these facts appear from the old play of The Return from Parnassus; which contains a very free censure of the poets of that period, and which was published only a few years after Marlowe's death. A "Marlowe was happy in his buskin'd muse; Alas! unhappy in his life and end; Pity it is that wit so ill should dwell, Wit lent from heaven, but vices sent from hell," His vicious indulgencies are sufficiently denounced, without holding him up to " grinning infamy" for vices which it cannot be proved he ever possessed. But "The evil, which men do, lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones." After all, might not the discourses referred to, be Marlowe's plays, in which religion and its professors are occasionally treated with great freedom? as in the lines spoken by Machiavel, the prologue to The Rich Jew of Malta; in The Massacre of Paris; and Doctor Faustus. These would be quite enough, exclusive of the circumstance of their being found in profane plays, to excite the wrath of the Precisians, who seem to have been more especially offended with Marlowe. The following lines in Tamburlaine might perhaps be considered as denying the Trinity; although they, at the same time, assert the existence of a Deity, and therefore do away with the imputation of atheism. But religious bigots are not very nice casuists, and this would serve as well as another text to convict him of being an atheist. It is what Tamburlaine says to the conquered Mahometans. "Seek out another Godhead to adore; For he is God alone, and none but he." In all his dramas, however, Marlowe does ample poetical justice on his criminal characters. He exterminates them, one and all, before the scene closes and this one would think sufficient to appease the most outrageously virtuous. Indeed the moral tendency of his plays is always exemplary, and it would not be very consistent with the principles of justice to anathematise a man whose business it is to hold the mirror up to nature-for giving vice her own language, and painting her in all her naked deformity. But we must now proceed from the character of Marlowe to that of his works; and in commencing this review, we can |
