of Marlowe's plays. It probably fuggefted to Shakespeare the allufion to Hero and Leander, in the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, under the player's blunder of Limander and Helen, where the interlude of Thisbe is prefented". It has many nervous and polished verses. His tragedies manifest traces of a just dramatic conception, but they abound with tedious and uninteresting scenes, or with such extravagancies as proceeded from a want of judgment, and those barbarous ideas of the times, over which it was the peculiar gift of Shakespeare's genius alone to triumph and to predominate. His TRAGEDY OF DIDO QUEEN OF CARTHAGE was completed and published by his friend Thomas Nafhe, in 1594'.

Although Jonfon mentions Marlowe's MIGHTY MUSE, yet the highest testimony Marlowe has received, is from his cotemporary Drayton; who from his own" feelings was well qualified to decide on the merits of a poet. It is in Drayton's Elegy, To my dearly loved friend Henry Reynolds of Poets and Poefie.

P A&t v. Sc. ult.

Nafhe in his Elegy prefixed to Marlowe's DIDO, mentions five of his plays. Mr. Malone is of opinion, from a fimilari. ty of style, that the Tragedy of LOCRINE, published in 1595, attributed to Shakefpeare, was written by Marlowe. SUPPL. SHAKESP. ii. 190. He conjectures also Marlowe to be the author of the old KING JOHN. Ibid. i. 163. And of TITUS ANDRONICUS, and of the lines fpoken by the players in the interlude in HAMLET. Ibid. i. 371.

In quarto. At London, by the widow Orwin, for Thomas Woodcocke. Played by the children of the chapel. It begins,

"Come gentle Ganimed!"

It has been frequently confounded with
John Rightwife's play on the fame fubject
performed at faint Paul's fchool before
Cardinal Wolfey, and afterwards before

queen Elifabeth at Cambridge, in 1564. I have before mentioned the Latin tragedy of Dido and Eneas, performed at Oxford, in 1583, before the prince Alafco. [See fupr. ii. 383.] See what Hamlet fays to the first Player on this favorite ftory. In 1564, was entered a "ballet of a lover blamynge "his fortune by Dido and Eneas for thayre "vntruthe." REGISTR. STATION. A fol. 116. a. In the TEMPEST, Gonzalo mentions the "widow Dido." Acr iii. Sc. i. On old ballads we read the Tune of queen Dido. Perhaps from fome ballad on the fubject, Shakespeare took his idea of Dido standing with a willow in her hand on the fea-fhore, and beckoning Eneas back to Carthage. MERCH. VEN. ACT. v. Sc. i. Shakespeare has alfo ftrangely falfified Dido's story, in the S. P. of K. HENRY THE SIXTH. ACT iii. Sc. ii. I have before mentioned the interlude of Dido and Eneas at Chester.

Next Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian fpringes,
Had in him thofe braue tranflunary' thinges,
That the first poets had his raptvres were
All air, and fire, which made his verfes clear:
For that fine madness ftill he did retaine

Which rightly should poffeffe a poet's braine'.

In the RETURN FROM PARNASSUS, a fort of critical play, acted at Cambridge in 1606, Marlowe's bufkined MUSE is celebrated ". His cotemporary Decker, Jonfon's antagonist, having allotted to Chaucer and graue Spenfer, the highest seat in the Elilian grove of Bayes, has thus arranged Marlowe. "In another "companie fat learned Atchlow and, (tho he had ben a player "molded out of their pennes, yet because he had been their "louer and register to the Muse) inimitable Bentley: these were "likewise carowfing out of the holy well, &c. Whilst Mar"lowe, Greene, and Peele, had gott under the shadow of a large

vyne, laughing to fee Nafhe, that was but newly come to "their colledge, ftill haunted with the fame fatyricall spirit that "followed him here vpon earth ".”

Marlowe's wit and fpriteliness of converfation had often the unhappy effect of tempting him to fport with facred subjects; more perhaps from the prepofterous ambition of courting the cafual applause of profligate and unprincipled companions, than

Langbaine, who cites thefe lines without feeming to know their author, by a pleafant mistake has printed this word fublunary. DRAM. POETS, p. 342.

Lond. edit. 1753. iv. p. 1256. That Marlowe was a favorite with Jonfon, appears from the Pre.ace to one Bolworth's poems; who fays, that Jonfon used to call the mighty lines of Marlowe's MusOEUS fitter for admiration than parallel. Thomas Heywood, who published Marlowe's JEW OF MALTA, in 1633, wrote the Prologue, fpoken at the Cockpit, in which Marlowe is highly commended both as a player and a poet. It was in this play that Allen, the

founder of Dulwich college, acted the JEW with fo much applaufe.

"Hawkins's OLD PL. iii. p. 215. Lond. 1607. 4to. But it is entered in 1605, Oct. 16, to J. Wright, where it is faid to have been acted at faint John's. REGISTR. STATION. C. fol. 130. b. See other cotemporary teftimonies of this author, in OLD PLAYS. (in 12 Vol.) Lond. 1780. 12mo. Vol. ii. 308.

w A KNIGHT'S CONJURING, Signat. L. 1607. 4to. To this company Henry Chettle is admitted, [fee fupr. p. 291.] and is faluted in bumpers of Helicon on his arrival.

from

from any fyftematic disbelief of religion. His fcepticism, whatever it might be, was conftrued by the prejudiced and peevish puritans into abfolute atheism: and they took pains to represent the unfortunate catastrophe of his untimely death, as an immediate judgment from heaven upon his execrable impiety *. He was in love, and had for his rival, to use the fignificant words of Wood, "A bawdy fervingman, one rather fitter to be a pimp, "than an ingenious amoretto, as Marlowe conceived himself to "be." The confequence was, that an affray enfued; in which the antagonist having by fuperior agility gained an opportunity of ftrongly grasping Marlow's wrift, plunged his dagger with his own hand into his own bofom. Of this wound he died rather before the year 1593. One of Marlowe's tragedies is, The tragical history of the life and death of doctor John Fauftus". A proof of the credulous ignorance which still prevailed, and a fpecimen of the subjects which then were thought not improper for tragedy. A tale which at the close of the fixteenth century. had the poffeffion of the public theatres of our metropolis, now only frightens children at a puppet-show in a country-town. But that the learned John Fauft continued to maintain the character of a conjuror in the fixteenth century even by authority, appears from a "Ballad of the life and death of doctor Fauftus. "the great congerer," which in 1588 was licenced to be printed by the learned Aylmer bishop of London ..

46

66

As Marlowe, being now confidered as a translator, and otherwife being generally ranked only as a dramatic poet, will not occur again, I take this opportunity of remarking here, that the delicate fonnet called the PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO LOVE, falfely attributed to Shakespeare, and which occurs in the third act of THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, followed by the nymph's Reply, was written by Marlowe. Ifaac Walton in his COMPLEAT ANGLER, a book perhaps composed about the year 1640, although not published till 1653, has inserted this fonnet, with the reply, under the character of " that fmooth fong which was made by Kit Marlowe, now at least fifty years ago: and-an Answer to it which was made by fir "Walter Raleigh in his younger days: old fashioned poetry, "but choicely good." In ENGLAND'S HELICON, a miscellany of the year 1600, it is printed with Christopher Marlowe's name, and followed by the Reply, fubfcribed IGNOTO, Raleigh's conftant fignature. A page or two afterwards, it is imitated by Raleigh. That Marlowe was admirably qualified for what Mr. Mafon, with a happy and judicious propriety, calls PURE POETRY, will appear from the following paffage of his forgotten tragedy of EDWARD THE SECOND, Written in the year 1590, and firft printed in 1598. The highest entertainments, then in fashion, are contrived for the gratification of the infatuated Edward, by his profligate minion Piers Gaveston.

I must haue wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musicians, that with touching of a string
May drawe the plyant king which way I please.
Mufic and poetry are his delight;

Therefore I'll haue Italian masques by night,
Sweet fpeeches, comedies, and pleasing fhewes.
And in the day, when he fhall walke abroad,

• See Steevens's SHAKESP. vol. i. p. 297. edit. 1778. d Signat. P. 4. edit. 1614.

Like fylvan Nymphs my pages fhall be clad,
My men like Satyrs, grazing on the lawnes,
Shall with their goat-feet dance the antick hay.
Sometimes a Louely Boy, in Dian's fhape,
With haire that gildes the water as it glides,
Crownets of pearle about his naked armes,
And in his sportfull handes an oliue-tree,

groue,

Shall bathe him in a spring: and there hard by,
One, lyke Acteon, peeping through the
Shall by the angry goddess be transform'd.
Such thinges as these best please his maieftie.

It must be allowed that thefe lines are in Marlowe's best manner. His chief fault in description is an indulgence of the florid style, and an accumulation of conceits, yet resulting from a warm and brilliant fancy. As in the following defcription of a river.

I walkt along a ftreame, for pureneffe rare,
Brighter than funshine: for it did acquaint
The dulleft fight with all the glorious pray,
That in the pebble-paved chanell lay.

No molten chryftall, but a richer mine;
Euen natvre's rareft alchemie ran there,
Diamonds refolu'd, and fvbftance more diuine;
Through whose bright-gliding current might appeare
A thousand naked Nymphes, whose yuorie shine
Enameling the bankes, made them more deare
Than euer was that gloriovs pallace-gate,
Where the day-shining Sunne in trivmph sate3.

That is, acting the part of Diana.

f Pretious.

The description of the palace of the

fun was a favorite paffage in Golding's Ovid.